What I learned while eating pasta and drinking red wine

The food in Italy was amazing and as I mentioned in my last post, I did not see any obese Italian people (a few slightly overweight elderly people but that was it when it came to weight problems). For lunch and dinner, the Italians eat three to four course meals. Antipasto which often consisted of bruschetta or caprese. (And I must digress since I thought I came from the tomato capitol (Sacramento) of the world. The tomatoes in Italy are still yummy. Here we've moved from the yummy ones available in the summer to the less flavorful.) Then came a pasta course complete with sauce (sometimes cream sauces). Then a small piece of beef or chicken and often potatoes. And don't forget the gelato ... there's no scrimping on dessert. And red wine was served at both lunch and dinner.

How do Italians eat like this and maintain their weight? I suspect they move more as part of their everyday life (walking and biking), but I've been thinking that it might have more to do with the lack of processed foods in their diet. All the food we ate was "real." Sometimes it was high-calorie, but it wasn't processed. For example, the only salad dressings used are olive oil and vinegar. Butter and cream are definitely part of their diet. Those potatoes that were often part of the secondi piatti (second course) were often fried.

As the saying goes, "when in Rome do as the Romans do." I ate the same food as the Italians. But even I couldn't keep up with their quantity and so my friend and I often shared the antipasto and then would stop at that and the primi piatti (first course). Complete with the wine, of course. And, instead of the usual vacation weight gain, I came home down a couple of pounds. And my clothes are looser (I was able to wear a skirt that wouldn't go around me before I left). I'm also wondering if the more natural, albeit higher calorie, diet helped with my water retention.

The pictures below are from Rome (inside the Vatican Museum; St. Peter's; and the Colisseum). All awesome sights to see in person.