French Women Don’t Get Fat and other Aging Blunders

I'm not too fond of New Year's Resolutions. I'm a no-nonsense girl - if it doesn't happen in normal life, then why should it with celebratory occasions? So, when it comes to trying new things or recalibrating behavior, I just do it one day when I decide to.

So, as winter was approaching a month or so ago, I faced the dreaded challenge: how will I engage in healthy, active behavior this winter? This is always a challenge for me because I hate to exercise for the sake of exercising, and I like eating just for the sake of eating, especially during the dark hours of winter. But I am a recovered anorexic and bulimic, so eating, staying fit, and weight gain is not something I take lightly. There always has to be a game plan.

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Last spring I came across a book titled *French Women Don't Get Fat *by Mireille Guiliano. Though I am not French, I am half Italian, so I figured if it works for French women, maybe it would work for Italian-American women. While I only skimmed the book, I remembered Guiliano advocated that French women do not diet like American women, they simply eat healthy and stay active. I remember she said she walks a lot of stairs. So, in convenient laziness, my winter workout plan on the back-forty includes climbing stairs.

Not a stair-master, step or elliptical, but *real stairs.* Each evening, I put on my Ipod, some old sweatpants, and start walking from the second story to the basement. I'm beginning to like it. I tidy up in places I don't usually get to and I actually see my teenagers a little more.

I chalk it up to creative aging. Ten years ago I began running, and while I still do it occasionally, I'm too pooped to pound the pavement like I used to. I wonder at the change in aging from the 30's to the 40's. In my thirties, I visited the tanning bed. Just recently, I purchased tinted moisturizer, firming eye cream, and age spot remover. My mother recently informed me that eye lids droop when I realized my eye liner ended up on my eyelids making me look like Tammy Faye Bakker by 5:00. I don't have to worry about dieting too much because I'm too concerned with......well, let's just say I eat salad for fiber, not the calorie count.

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My daughter thinks I'm loosing it. If she only knew. I used to tell her it's painful to be beautiful. Now it's just time-consuming to simply look your age. I sleep more and drop things a lot more. What's up with that? The last time I did that I was pregnant. Yikes! That's a scary thought.

I was in Italy a few years ago. Italian women aren't fat either. I bet it's all that Mediterranean cooking. Shoot. That's one more time consuming thing I need to figure out how to do in farm country where store shelves are plentiful with grain fed beef and Amish noodles. Trips to *Walmart *to be healthy. Now that's an oxymoron.

Tonight, I am sitting here empathizing with our diaper dog.....our family pet who is in heat, thus wearing a diaper apparatus for the week. Her awkwardness-disgusting factor is fairly high. So is mine on certain days. Reminiscent of some junior high years if I remember right.

I'm going to write a new book - Italian Women in Rural America Age Gracefully. At least that's my goal. I don't know if I'll succeed or not, but it's worth a try.

Grace trumps beauty at this stage. I'm too pooped to endure pain.

I'd love for you to visit my friend's new blog about aging, life, and womanhood - Approaching the Vintage Years...her creativity and honesty about aging is right up my alley. Good stuff [approachingthevintageyears.blogspot.com](http://approachingthevintageyears.blogspot.com/)

So as a graceful Italian woman, I'll say, Ciao!.....before I hit the late night snacks......