My Italian girlfriends don't understand me. One of them even said, 'Haven't you finished with that swimming thing yet?' And another, 'But why do you have to go skiing every weekend?'
It's genuine incomprehension. In Italy - so different from Australia where ladies in their eighties still play competition tennis in pleated skirts - exercise is like a dirty word. Why get wet in a pool, mess your hair, swim endless laps (oh but swimming is so boring), without even working on your tan? What's it all for? I've even had a Nazi pool attendent - at the dizzy height of summer, three bodies stroking down the pool, the rest roasting on loungers - say, 'But your lunch ticket finishes in a hour!' Meaning, Don't think you can hang around tanning for free!
(To which I reply, 'I've come here to swim, mate. I'd rather die than sunbake.' Astonished look. The real meaty stuff of culture clash.)
So sport. Whaat? Sometimes my girlfriends have been known to paddle at the pool. Or on our Corsica trip, they cool off after the sunbathing. It doesn't seem a natural thing. Few can hold a tennis racket, or throw a ball hard, netball-style. Many used to ski in childhood but don't anymore because, you know, it's so expensive, so far and.. you know, far. Some hike in the summertime, but it's a punctuation mark, an adventure. I remember the best holidays of my younger years of parenthood were the Dolomite hiking trips - kids in backpacks and scarves on burnt necks, Austrian food in the evenings and the kids getting a projectile vomit bug, one by one, with Mum here being the shifting target.
I'm talking about regular exercise, the type where your heart beat gallops and your sweat brinks and your lungs turn inside out. I love it. I'm no prize-winning athlete, nor ever have been. But it's there, this marvellous animal fix, almost as greasy and delightful as sex. Here are this non-Italian woman's tips for a muscly winter season:
1. Never entertain the idea of practising sport with your sixteen-year-old daughter. It is certain to make you feel unfit, inelegant, improper and INVISIBLE. Don't think you will ever exist next to her flowing golden hair and fresh curves. You won't even be lucky enough to be labelled a MILF, because they don't know what MILFs are in Italy.
2. If you seriously start exercising, empty out your cupboards and fridge. No more processed foods. Buy stuff that you actually have to cook. Lean steak, cabbage for salads and a good chopping board. A friend of a friend once asked me how I keep slim and I replied, I swim a hundred laps and eat cabbage salad every night. MEL I WAS ONLY JOKING
3. Eat protein after running/swimming/rowing/skiing. Eat carbs two hours before. Drink water, not coffee. I know, it hurts.
4. If you swim, give in to ugliness. I mean, embrace your lumps and gorilla legs, wear that nuns' costume with pride. What I love about turning up at the pool is being a mess - turn up in your worstest clothes and shock them mothers with their terracotta foundation and blonde highlights. Delight in your smeared mascara afterwards and stride out with a beanie over your wet hair (cardinal sin).
5. Don't greet fellow joggers. Unless they are over eighty. They will follow you, ask your Facebook details, crop up every time you round a corner at the supermarket, the vet's, the bank. Be aloof. Wear ear muffs. Speak a foreign language (Albanian? Finnish? not English, which many people are convinced they are able to speak, unless of course you need a new batch of English students.)
6. If you are fortunate enough to ski - meaning there is snow rather than grass on the slopes as the snowline rises, and rises - enjoy the oxygen high, there is nothing like it after the grimy cityscapes below. If you are a beginner, get lessons, ski teachers have great thighs. If you are an expert, get more lessons, ski instructors have even better thighs.
7. Just in case you think I am not being serious try this: exercise when you feel worst. When you feel a sore throat coming on, or flu, or a headache, or a bad evil mood. The seratonin fix is better than a glass of wine or an offloading conversation. You will crash head-on into your immune system's whininess, sleep it off, and probably drive away osteoporosis to boot.
8. If you HATE exercise just concentrate on how good you will feel afterwards. DO NOT reward yourself with chocolate - it's a brief sugar high and your body is crying out for wads of spinach, your favourite meat or meat substitute. Ever cooked a fantastic quiche with spinach and feta cheese?
9. If you hear a distant thumping as I did the other day - relax. It's not a daytime disco some idiot has set up along the bike track. It's your blood - your wiring - thudding through you. Hit it, sister! We Are Family!
10. If you ever end up with biceps like Madonna forget exercise and go back to sex! You've made your point. Don't get stringy.
* * * *
PS Anyone who takes sporting advice from me - Italian or otherwise - you are crazy. MEL I AM SO SORRY. YOU CAN STOP NOW. PLEASE STOP
PPS Grazie mille to friends and fellow bloggers who left a comment on my page on expatsblog.com. I think we should go out for a virtual mulled wine together in some lodge above the snow line...
Let's see, 'if you swim give into the ugliness,' I do this one already. Don't greet fellow joggers under eighty. I could do this one. And cooking a fantastic quiche with spinach and feta cheese sounds wonderful, especially the eating part. Ok. Call me crazy Catherine, but I like your advice. In fact, I loved the post. I'm getting ready to be on a stage with my seventeen year old son so I've been forced into the old running shoes lately. Seems that public humiliation is another great inspiration for exercise. tee hee.
ReplyDeleteLeslie (aka Gwen Moss)
Oh I love it! I'm HUGE on public humiliation. I think it is a reaction to being so spiky and self-conscious as a kid. All those eisteddfods where I forgot my Bach (do post about your stage experience btw). Probably that's why I love hitting the pool in my awful trackies, and drive my kid to the bus stop in my barely disguised pjs. Very glad you loved the post. On stage with your son? You're killing me!
DeleteWell - I will definitely be seeking ski lessons this Austrian winter :) - the rest we'll see :P xo
ReplyDeleteSkiing lessons can be treacherous - in more ways than one!! Beware Ingrid ! xxcat
DeleteVery nice post. I like sport (doing it, not watching others do it).
DeleteOne small issue: I do greet other (Italian) joggers and they never greet ME back. Guess I really look very ugly with a red sweaty head, or could it be my smell?
It sounds as though you have perfected the art of being a real jogger - sweaty and powerful - instead of a sports clothing show horse. Wonderful! They probably don't greet you because they are terrified - because you are so authentic!
DeleteThanks for commenting. I like your blog and Umbria is so beautiful. The floods!! Terrible!
Cat - a lot of things can be treacherous - just have to live life and take a chance I guess ;) xo
DeleteWay to go! I have a feeling you are going to have a great winter xxxcat
DeleteHi Cat,
Deletethanks for your kind words ... I tried to leave a reply simply by adding my name, but that did not work.
(Actually I wrote the comment in total 3 times before I actually remembered to copy it before trying to post it again so I could paste it a 4th or 5th time... obviously that time it did work, with a link to my blog. I have a far more active blog in Dutch, but will not bother you with that one!!! )
OK back to the point ...
Will start imagining that probably the joggers are terrified. I do like that idea. It would explain (in my favour) a lot.
Will continue exploring your blog, love your style!
Thanks for persevering Willemijn, I know Blogger can be dodgy sometimes. And good on you for managing two blogs - my other one is for my short story collection and it is lagging! (Wish I could read Dutch by the way.) Keep on terrifying those other joggers! I think it's time for me to invest in some earmuffs up here..
DeleteI'll be following you too!
Yeah, I should take ski lessons. I don't care that I already know how to ski, it's all about the thighs.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of an exerciser and I'd rather poke a stick in my eye than attend a pilates class, but damn do I love to walk. I can walk for hours at a pretty good clip, and definitely there's a high that goes along with it. The only thing bumming me out was the sweaty mess I become afterward, until I read the magic words: "give in to ugliness." Right ON, sister, I needed that.
Where's my beanie?
I also truly love real hiking, mountain-style. It must be so beautiful where you are. Oh gosh I SPECIALISE in beanies. Does that require a post? Xcat
DeleteHahahahaha. I am almost converted... almost...
ReplyDeleteNever read a better or more impassioned defence of exercise. Yeah - you DO feel better after a little of the hard sweaty sex-alternative stuff. I just wish the laptop wasn't so enticing; or the sofa so comfortable; or that third wine such a temptation... or exercise so thoroughly bound up in memories of school gym halls and stinking communal changing rooms and Attila the Hun style PE Teachers and feeling so tall and ungainly and inelegant and like a failure...
But I'm getting off the sofa now Cat. Honest... Yx
Ahh but Yvonne I am certain you are a beautiful success!
DeleteI think there must be an algorithm to figure out when your will kicks in and you rise from the couch in a cold trance.
In the meantime I look forward to the day we can knock back that third glass of wine xxx cat
And so do I Cat! Yxx
DeleteHai ragione! It is so true about the Italian attitude to sports. I must say I fit into this category and have a lazy attitude to them. I find that in the UK it seems OK walking 10-15 minutes to take your child to school but it is almost unheard in Italy! I really don't know why we are like that though!
ReplyDeleteSo true - I used to have a boyfriend who drove five minutes to work and I could never believe it! I think it's all about 'bella figura' - having everyone around you think that you are one step ahead of (perhaps) where you really are. Having everything seem perfect. It drives me nuts. That's why I love being messy when I feel like it. I remember when my daughter looked me up and down and said You're not going to the market dressed like THAT (summer shorts and tshirt). Now she's grown out of it thankfully!
DeleteI love your tips for the pool. If we have to go and dress down to a swimsuit in public, might as well work it.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to exercise in private. Yoga at home, or solitary walks/jogs through the park are my favorite. I will go to a gym but will go to extreme lengths to avoid eye contact and conversation with everyone and anyone.
I also can't talk to a soul at the pool. Once at the thermal pools a guy with a neck choker started swimming too close (I have a thing against blokes with chokers and goatees) and I had to stroke away fast. Yikes!
DeleteI always tell myself I should do yoga in order to be more calm and focused. But I'd truly rather do piano practice. In a way you have to make yourself very calm and focused, so that's my yoga-with-Scarlatti I guess.
Ways to stay sane? Breathe hard. (see, there's only one) I wish that were an exaggeration, but not so for me. To feel like a calm and normal human, I need the physical work. When I don't get it, I'm not myself. Right now I'm on a schedule that seems to work without seeming like too much or too little: 3 days I jog a few miles, 3 days I do Pilates, 1 day of tennis. That's a damned good week.
ReplyDeleteCheers to you, Cat. I hope you have a great holiday season.
What an impressive schedule. I'm off tennis because it jars my wrists - that sounds so lame. And I think it's officially time for those earmuffs. Inside though, I'm a water babe. I really need to swim and twist like a fish.
ReplyDeleteWork well on your break and take care!
I laughed when I read about the attitude there towards exercising - I found the same thing when I lived in Poland. Jogging outside was greeted with incomprehension and raised eyebrows!
ReplyDelete