the european diet

Ever wonder how the French women do it? The always are poised and chic in black, tight dresses and oversized suglasses. Yet they can down a plate of carbs & french bread like none other. It got me thinking, how mixed up the all the signals are. We are told so much information...not to eat this because it spikes blood sugar, coffees bad-it causes cancer, don't eat past 7:30 you'll gain fat...it gets to the point where I don't even know what to believe. So I decided to get down to the basics again..the rise of obesity has only happened over that past decade. That must mean humans were doing something right back in the good ol' ages.

This summer I got to go on a class trip to Europe. We spent a few days in Italy, France & England. It was magical and the perfect insight to the world outside of my comfort zone. In this exotic land of cobblestoned alleys and foreign foods, I had my share of carbs, gelato and fresh bread. I indulged most days with freshly made pizza, warmed pasta, flan..oh the carbs! As I was eating all of this so called "bad" food and not working out I kept thinking "I'm going to need a goooood workout when I get back home!" But when I got home, I hadnt gained one ounce. I actually even lost some weight.
Then it hit me, we've got it all wrong. All the processed cuisine we Americans call comfort food is clogging up our arteries. But labeling foods such as carbs and fats as "bad" only makes us feel worse about ourselves. Our body needs nutrition, and food is just our energy. Why make it such an emotional process? And the added chemicals, do we really need it? In Europe, the pizza was made fresh with real tomatos, fresh veggies and you know how we got around for transport? We actually walked! Can you believe it? On average days of touring musuems we would get about 13 miles of walking in. That's a whole lot of walking, and believe me some days I woke up sore from just being on my feet all day. On top of it, the portion sizes were so much smaller. I don't need much to fill me up so it was good to be in a place where I wasn't paying extra for all the food I wasn't going to eat.
Anyway, I miss my European vacation. The exotic world and buzzing metropolitans and crowded streets, I long to go back. But for now, I'll have to live through pictures and pretend to be European...

Today I started off with the regular breakfast of english muffin & yogurt, ate a turkey sandwich and got a 3.5 mile run in with a few minutes of abs. Tonight is the varsity basketball game and I'm filming it, so I'll report back on the final score, go comets!