How I Lost 60 Pounds Without Even Trying: Part 4

6. I naturally experienced portion control. The smallness of portions in Europe is adorable to Americans, even though the packaged volume of food is actually similar to how things were sized in the US thirty years ago.

Why are portions so much smaller? Why so few pieces in a package? Well, merchandising is scaled to the size of local homes and cupboards. Europeans simply are not conditioned to having huge amounts of things to store in their typically quite small kitchens. Because they interact with the city every day, they can pick up whatever they need daily, and don't have to hoard it. Sure, folks keep extra drinks in their cellars. But in general, everything from bread to yogurts is sized for an average household of 2 or so. (This is an eco-problem by creating excess packaging, but that's another story.)

Let's say I bought packs of four puddings at the store for an after dinner dessert. There are only four in a pack. Each petite portion contains about seven or eight bites of high-quality pudding.

You eat the pudding, and it is gone. It is strangely satisfying to eat a small amount of something and experience it going from being there to being gone. It's over, and if you really enjoy every bite, you experience satisfaction.

There are limits to what people both need and want, and in this case European manufacturers decide what the limits are. Often, they get it just right: one doesn't need or want any more than what comes in each container. I ended up eating much less than I had in America, and generally enjoying it more. There was an end to it, and the end was in sight.

I never had to literally stretch myself to accommodate super-sized portions. I never had to "just get to the end of it." Consumption is not as strenuous in Europe.

How I Lost 60 Pounds Without even Trying - Fridays part 3

5. I walked around constantly. Of course, civic life in Europe is scaled to the human rather than the car, so everything you need for everyday life is within walking distance. Every time I ever went anywhere, it was by my own leg power. Also, we lived three stories up in a building from 1900, so I also had a significant climb a couple times every day.

I walked my child to school, I walked back home. I walked up the block to the library, I walked into the market square to buy something at Woolworth's, I walked back home. I walked into town to the ATM, I walked over to the coffee shop, I walked to get my groceries, and walked back home, and carried my groceries up the three flights of stairs. I walked out to my car, drove to the train station, parked, walked in, up and down stairs to the correct platform, off the train and walked through town. I walked to concerts and to the movies and back home again, even at night.

The more I walked, the more flexible and strong I became. It became so normal I wouldn't have dreamed of using the car to drive to the grocery store. Because I bought a little bit every day, I seldom needed to make a huge, multi-bag trip. Walking was just a part of life.

Tune in for more ways to learn how one loses 60 pounds without even trying, just by living the European lifestyle, next Friday...

How I Lost 60 Pounds Without even Trying - Fridays

3. I never ate a second helping.
At the first meal I ate with my in-laws after getting off the plane, I helped myself to another heaping portion. It tasted good and there was some left in the dish, so, why not? But there is something about having a very neat and self-righteous elderly father-in-law raise an eyebrow as you scoop into the vanilla pudding for a second time, that makes you never want to do it again. Ever. It was perhaps the first time that anyone so tidy and sure of himself ever reacted so naturally and critically to my overeating. As if there were limits and I should know what they were, and why didn't I? The meal was abundant, I had eaten plenty. There was dessert, and I had my share of that, too. My father-in-law wasn't interested in making sure I could exercise my unfettered liberty. His subtle judgment held a mirror up to my behavior, and I became aware of myself...overeating.

4. I ate out in restaurants a great deal less.
Restaurants in Europe can be expensive -- not necessarily the meals, but all the extras, like drinks. And, the service is structured so that you will be spending more than an hour for the experience. Either sitting there waiting to be brought the menu, waiting for your food which can take up to half an hour, actually eating it, or waiting for your server to come back and bring the bill...all told, it adds up to a long-term commitment of time and money. Again, it is undignified and weird there to rush through life's little pleasures. So, we went from eating out perhaps once or twice a week (either sit-down or fast food) in America to eating out once every four months and having take-away or fast food twice a month at the most.

Tune in for more ways to learn how one loses 60 pounds without even trying, just by living the European lifestyle, next friday...

How I Lost 60 pounds of fat Without even Trying

Several years ago I moved to Europe. After three babies, I weighed about 260 pounds, but felt I was only about 200. That is what my driver's license said: 200 pounds. I was in denial of the extra 60. I figured I could get rid of it before anyone really checked.

I was a mother staying at home for the children. I didn't have a job. I found myself sitting daily in our Jugendstil-era apartment, alone, deciding what to do with the rest of my life. I didn't speak the language. My husband found himself working a great deal more hours than he had done in America. Our grand European adventure wasn't necessarily grand or adventurous.

Yet over the course of about two years I lost 60 pounds. Without even trying to lose it. What happened was: I gradually acclimatized to the European lifestyle, and it simply took the pounds away. I did not intentionally eat less. I did not exercise on purpose. I did not exercise any willpower to change myself, believe me. I never weighed myself. I wouldn't have dreamed of counting calories.

So what did I do? Here is the list. Here are the first two parts of a ten part series. Yes! There are ten parts to it, to post every Wednesday. Read on...

1. I never ate between meals. In Europe, if you're eating something and not sitting down during a meal, people will look at you quizzically. Why are you eating? Are you sick, is something wrong? Do you have a medical condition? We only eat during mealtimes: what's so hard about that?

2. I never ate anywhere unless I was sitting in a chair at a table. I never ate in town, walking around (rarely: an ice cream cone), I never ate in my car, I never ate standing up. People watch other people much more closely in Europe. There are people sitting at outdoor cafes and walking past you almost all the time. If you are doing something unusual, folks will look at you and not even attempt to disguise their interest, curiosity or contempt. So it feels quite uncomfortable to be the only person in a 3 mile radius walking and eating a sandwich. It is undignified, it is sloppy: not even little children do it. The public approbation really does its work on the individual. It looks desperate and wrong to eat in public unless you are taking the time to enjoy a meal. That's just how it is.

Join me next Friday for more...