You have to resist a lot when you live in Italy. There is wine, delicious pasta’s, wood oven pizza and many, many pastry shops offering the most beautiful and delicious sweets. How can the Italians enjoy it all without growing obese?
For a north-European the streets in Mediterranean cities are
full of calorie-rich temptations. But are these really temptations? Can’t we
just enjoy it like the original inhabitants do? They start their breakfast with
a brioche or a croissant, flush it away with a small but strong coffee and then
head of for work. Easy as it is.
But for me it is strange. I learned that it is necessary to
have a decent breakfast. Dutch food-specialists tell you to have a good part of
the necessary daily fiber intake in the morning. This wakes-up the digestion
process for the rest of the day. And more over you need to be careful with the
calorie intake not spilling all you points within an hour after waking-up.
A couple of weeks ago I had to live on a single brioche from
early in the morning till 16h in the afternoon. In the period in between I made
a six hour walk in the hills only eating an apple. Not something I plan to do
more often, but I made it without any problems. So a brioche doesn’t seem to be
so bad for your body.
More surprising is to see that slim Mediterraneans do not only eat sweets at breakfast but also
later in the day. As a dessert after lunch or for a snack in the afternoon. Maybe
it is the ‘high cuisine’ snack that makes you enjoy it completely and pure.
Anyhow to me it seems a better treat than one of those commercial chocolate
bars.
Maybe this is the trick that does it. Allow yourself at
least once a day to eat something sweet of a good quality. Take your time and
do it somewhere far away from your desk. Your body will enjoy it and digests it
without punishing you with extra kilos. It’s worth trying?
