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The Daily Dish The Real Housewives of New Jersey

Kathy Wakile Reveals How "Italians Can Eat Carbs" and Get Away With It

The RHONJ alum has the secret recipe for guilt-free pasta and pizza. 

By Jenny Berg

Kathy Wakile is on an idyllic vacation in Cinque Terre, Italy, where the staircases are steep — and so are the carb counts in most of the local delicacies. But that's OK. Because, as The Real Housewives of New Jersey alum revealed, the secret ingredient for staying fit on a carb-filled diet is steps. Lots and lots of steps! 

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On September 13, the consummate pizza lover took to Instagram stories to share her tip. Showing a photo of the steep and winding staircases that appear all over the Italian region, she quipped in a caption: "This is why Italians can eat carbs." And in the next photo she shared, Kathy showed her fitness tracker: she'd taken more than 21,000 steps that day! "I rest my case," she concluded. 

Photos: Kathy Wakile/ Instagram

Steps certainly help counterbalance all those carbs — but of course, so does moderation. Famously fit chef (and proud Italian!) Giada De Laurentiis has also addressed staying slim while eating pasta, which is a topic she gets asked about a lot.

Appearing on TODAY.com's Cold Cuts With Al Roker, the pasta maestro recently said: "My entire life, first thing out of people's mouth is, 'How do you stay like that and eat all that pasta?' I'm like, I don't eat all the pasta! I eat a couple bites of pasta, I don't eat all of it. I eat a little bit of chocolate, I eat a little bit of things. I don't eat an entire platter full of anything." 

She also weighed in (so to speak) on the Italian sensibility versus the American one when it comes to portion sizes. "I think that in Europe, we know how to eat a little bit of everything," she told Al. "In America, the portions are ginormous. So no one has learned to eat small amounts of food. We've grown up with giant meatballs. Everything is all-you-can-eat and super-size. That's all we know."

So, more stairs, less super-sized meals, and then we can reach for the linguine? Sounds like a fair deal — and thanks to Giada and Kathy, now we know it's the Italian way.

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