Buongiorno!
Julie and I were in Italy over the last two
weeks.
What an amazing place that was to visit.
Truly jaw-dropping each time we turned a corner or visited a new section of Rome & The Amalfi Coast.
From the architecture of the buildings, to the design of the street layouts that we still
use today, I was in amazement the entire time we were there and I cannot wait to go back.
From a health and fitness perspective...I did notice a few things that I think everyone can learn from.
The most obvious one...walking. Italians walk EVERYWHERE. Literally everywhere. And Julie and I did the same. We stayed right in the center of Rome so everything was "around us". My goal was to average over 15K steps per day...pshhh...that was easy!
Italians move more than us simply because their lives require them to get from point A to point B. We didn't take one taxi or Uber ride in Rome because its so easy just to walk everywhere! Unlike here in the States, many of us need (or use) cars to get around.
Italians simply just move more throughout the day than most of us do - movement is one of the keys to longterm success with this health and fitness stuff!
The food...yeah, yeah you all want to say "Oh Nick, the
ingredients just make people skinnier there and fatter here". Sure, you're kinda correct. But let's explore that idea. Walking around anywhere in Italy, I noticed a "lack of crappy food availability". Now I for sure saw things we eat here in the states like doritos, cookies, candy, soda, energy drinks, grab and go crappy food, etc.
But where I didn't see this stuff was in EVERY STORE. Or at EVERY check out counter. Or literally EVERY WHERE. See, here in the United States, you can go into your local pharmacy and come out with your medications, a mountain dew, a pack of twinkies, a protein bar, some batteries and maybe a mother's day card for Mom.
When you go into a farmacia in Italy, you find medications, first aid supplies and ya...you guessed it...no cards to bring to Mom. No cookies. No hair gel. No pirates booty popcorn. The pharmacy is just a pharmacy. There's no temptation at the
counter to grab a candy bar or something with a ton of calories that you'll mindlessly just eat in the car because you're bored.
And that goes for almost all of the stores we went in. Clothing stores just had clothes, Hardware
stores just had things you need to build stuff and even the tourist stores with all the little trinkets, clothes and gifts you'd bring back for people just had those items in there and no crappy snacks waiting for you and staring at you at the checkout counters like we have here.
There is crappy food everywhere, every country has it. But I think here in the states, it's just more readily available to us. It's easy to grab something like that when you are in CVS. It's thrown in our face during every TV ad, sporting events, around every corner, posted on the glass of every business with a store front - trust me I see it too.
But that's where it comes down to the decisions you need to make for yourself. Sure, Italians can be lazy like us and go for ease of convenience. But they don't a lot of the times. They still cook a lot of their own food. They still go to their local farm or local grocery store to get the local ingredients that were
grow a few miles away. They keep things simple over there and use recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation.
Hey I'm guilty of it too. I should be going to our local farmers markets more. I should be going
to get what's currently in season for vegetables around here. I should be trying to purchase meat from a local farm rather than doing a subscription like butcher box.
We all have better choices we can make..with anything in
life. I just noticed that Italians choose to be a little healthier. They chose to walk more rather than drive (but I mean they kinda have too if you've ever driven in Rome....yikes 😅!) They choose to grow tomatoes, basil, herbs and fresh vegetables in their own gardens. Or go to the farmer up the road who their family has know for many generations.
The choices we make go a long way. It's not that the ingredients are any better over there than they are here. Sure basil, tomatoes and vegetables are going to grow and taste different...but a vegetable from a local farm is a vegetable from a local farm. Here in the states, a lot of us don't do that or don't have the ability to do
that.
Choose foods that come from outside. Cook and try to make most of your own meals. Keep the ingredient list relativity short - the fewer the ingredients, the better that food probably is for you.
Buona Domenica!
