Sandwiches from the Central Market in Florence
I just returned home from a week long trip to Florence and Rome.
Everywhere you go, there are restaurants, and they pretty much all serve the same thing… pasta, pizza and beef.
Among these restaurants are gelatiria… ice cream shops.
With every dinner, you get plenty of bread, and you have to eat it, because it is so damn good.
I ate pizza at least four times, and usually had some bread with that pizza. I ate pasta for several meals and of course had more bread with that.
Yes, I’d indulge in a salad with a couple of these meals, in an effort to keep things moving in the digestive tract!
And then of course, I also ate gelato. Think of gelato as a creamier, richer ice cream.
Admittedly, I also indulged in my favorite beverage with almost every meal… good ole fashioned Coca Cola.
Hey, I never claimed to be a strict diet fiend. Like most people, I have my weaknesses, and Coke (the soda variety) is one of them.
It’s all about moderation to me.
So, given that this week long diet was quite out of the ordinary for me, as I prefer to eat much more protein and far fewer carbs, it’s clear I was consuming more than my usual amount of calories.
Yet, I somehow managed to LOSE weight during this vacation.
How? My wife and I walked EVERYWHERE.
Florence is an extremely walkable city, so there was no need to take a cab, bus or tram anywhere.
Rome is a much larger city geographically, but we still walked.
On our first night in Rome, we stayed about 1.6 miles east of the Colosseum, but we walked. Not only did we walk to and from the Colosseum, but also to the top of Palantine Hill, and around the grounds up there.
We then switched hotels to be closer to Trevi Fountain and The Vatican. Our new hotel was across from The Pantheon in a much better neighborhood.
So, after we switched hotels in the afternoon after walking to the Colosseum, we added at least another mile walking around the new neighborhood.
The next day, we walked to The Vatican Museum and back, totaling at least 3.5 miles. Then walked around our neighborhood near Trevi Fountain some more.
All told, we probably averaged about 18,000 steps per day, which equates to at least five miles per day I think.
We left for Italy on January 23rd, and my morning weight was 193.3. Today, on Groundhog Day, my morning weight was 191.8.
So what is the moral to this story?
Movement is critical to weight loss and weight maintenance, and it doesn’t have to be an insane spin workout, a five mile run, P90X or some other routine.
Simple walking will do the trick, but you’ll have to do a lot if you are going to eat like a glutton!
If you are going to eat more reasonably, a nice two mile walk everyday will go a long way toward helping you lose weight, or maintain your existing weight.
It’s the easiest form of exercise you can do, yet has so many benefits.
Now, get walking!
