Food, Weight and Italy vs U.S.

Diet: It can be an ugly four-letter word but everybody’s on one.

Yes, everybody who eats is on a diet. One problem for those who are trying to eat healthy and get trim is that there is so much information and misinformation at hand. People end up trying many different things that don’t work over the long haul, resulting in their weight yo-yo-ing with each stop and start. 

I say it’s really quite simple: You need to change the way you think about eating.

In 2008 I was 60 pounds heavier than I am now and I don’t follow anybody’s specific diet. I had what you might call several little epiphanies, resulting in a major lifestyle change that is now pretty much second nature to me. 

In the spring of that year, I spent two weeks in northern Italy, staying with my longtime friend from childhood while she and her husband were forced to live there at company expense for almost a year due to his job.

The trip changed my life. The eye-openers for me were some very obvious differences between me and the Italians, not counting the one where I am 5’12 and found I couldn’t buy shoes or clothes in any store there. Their tall people are about 5’9 and a man or woman’s size extra large might fit a 10-year-old American boy.  

What I learned there, though, concerning the link between diet and lifestyle were these three things:

Eat real, fresh food;  eat only what you love; and go outside every chance you get. 

We lived an apartment in downtown Torino and what fun that was, and so interesting. First thing I noticed was the temperature was in the low 70s but the people were dressed for winter snows:  jackets, scarves, gloves, hats and boots. Took me almost the whole trip to figure out why. More about that later.

I also almost immediately recognized that I stood out like a sore thumb for reasons other than my height. So did most every other American and British tourist: Many of us were fat, and we all wore sneakers. Northern Italians are not fat and the only adults there who wear sneakers are athletes … and us American and British tourists. 

When I suggest that you eat only real, fresh food, it will also change the way you shop.  

Pick up only the food you are going to eat in the next day or two at the most. If your bread doesn’t go stale or begin to get moldy in a couple of days or so, you likely shouldn’t be eating it in the first place; it’s not real food and it’s not real fresh. Buy fresh bread in the bakery section. Ask for a half loaf, if you wish, if there isn’t one readily available. 

When I suggest that you eat only foods that you love, I don’t expect it to happen overnight or happen every time you eat.

But if you take a bite of something and really ask yourself, “Do I love this,” and do it at every meal, it will begin to change the way you think about food, which will gradually change the way you eat. You’ll begin to want only real, fresh food.  

You don’t have to find a bunch of new, complicated recipes. Simple is best. You need not always cook either. While in Torino, we would pick up fresh bread, cheese, salami and olives—maybe some tomatoes, sometimes asparagus from a farm stand when we were out driving. Real, fresh food is so flavorful that you savor it, and end up eating a lot less because you are satisfied much more easily. You may feel you are paying a high price for a small wedge of, say, applewood smoked cheddar at HEB, but it’s so delicious that a slice or two is seriously satisfying. In the long run, it’s less expensive to buy better food.  

As a bonus, if you prepare simple fresh meals at home, you will spend less time at restaurants and pick up less convenience food, thereby saving time and money. You also won’t be ingesting unnecessary calories while consuming the large portions served here in the U.S.  And you’ll know exactly what you are eating.   

Walking home from work, Italians pick up fresh bread, vegetables and whatever else they are fixing for dinner later. This was all they could comfortably carry and likely, in many cases, happened after stopping for a snack at one of their wonderful combination bar and coffee shops. They would have a cocktail or an espresso and either a small freshly-made sandwich or pastry to hold them over until dinnertime, which began between 9 and 10 p.m. Having a cocktail or coffee helps you unwind and prepares you for a relaxing evening.  

One way to spend that evening, whether you are eating dinner early or late, is outside, walking or meeting up with your loved ones or friends in whatever season it may be. While outside, you are replenishing your body and soul with fresh air and good conversation or comfortable silence with your partner and maybe your pooch.  

If you were inside, you might find yourself instead rummaging through the fridge or pantry for something to munch, when in reality you aren’t really hungry, just bored.  

Italians spend all the time they can outdoors, filling the streets and their myriad parks. It’s a much more relaxed way to live. There is a lot of visible romance in the streets and parks as well, from couples of any age. Public displays of affection abound between lovers and friends.

One lovely place we would stop at on our walks was a local gelato shop: Italian ices and ice cream. I would order the flavor I wanted and the server, with a puzzled look, would ask, “Is that all?” I couldn’t figure it out, so eventually asked why they looked at me that way. They explained that it is normal in Italy when ordering two scoops of gelato to ask for two different flavors. I could have seen that for myself had I only been looking, but northern Italians don’t like strangers trying to catch their eye and I had quickly gotten into the habit of averting my eyes when in close proximity.

You don’t need to read every new diet book that comes out, or try every miraculous, natural supplement or cure-all that your favorite aunt swears works for her, or that you see on TV or online.   

It’s simple and inexpensive to eat healthily, lose unwanted pounds and maintain a good weight by eating real, fresh food, by eating only food that you love and by deliberately getting outside every chance you get.   

It didn’t take a lot of adjusting for me to eat like an Italian here in the U.S., but it was a process. Once I learned to think about food differently, it was remarkably smooth. I try to remember to always ask myself while shopping and eating, “Do I love this?”  

That brings me back to why Italians dress so warmly in their winter woolies when it’s 73 degrees: I think of it as their national excuse. I picture them saying, “Sono così molto, molto caldo; andiamo prende un gelato,” which means, loosely translated (I checked on freetranslation.com, not being bilingual): “I am sooooo hot; let’s go get a gelato.”