JJ Virgin spent time in Spain and noticed why locals stay fit: they skip sugary coffee drinks and between-meal snacks, eat carbs early in the day, take two-hour meals, and walk before and after eating. He lost two pounds while eating well and drinking wine.
Hey, JJ Virgin here. I just recently went to Spain, and one of the things that really struck me was that people were in pretty good shape. And I was like, all right, let's unpack this and figure out why. So here's the things that I came up with. Number 1, except for the Americans, I did not see people walking around eating or drinking those big coffee drinks that are a calorie and sugar bomb. So that's the first thing, is they actually ate their meals and they didn't snack. The second thing is they eat their carbs at breakfast, at lunch, but they don't eat carbs at dinner except for vegetables. Next thing, they take their time with meals. We're talking 2 hours. So they eat slow. Now here's the downside to that. Lunch generally was like 3 o'clock, dinner 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock. I couldn't believe it. Thankfully we went for a long walk afterwards. And that's another thing, most of the time you had to walk to the meal and then walk out after the meal as well. In fact, I saw everybody walking— people who were in their 70s, 80s, 90s, people with canes, walking. So there's some easy takeaways. Maybe not the late night eating, but everything else, because boy, I'll tell you, I came out of that and I was like, how did I just have the most amazing meals and wine and drop 2 pounds? Spain for the win.
