Embracing Midlife: Nourishing Your Body and Soul with Mediterranean Lifestyle Insights and Healthy Eating Tips

What if embracing midlife could unlock a treasure trove of joy, connection, and healthy eating? Join host Heather Carey in this inspiring episode of Real Food Stories as she dives deep into a heartwarming conversation with Anita and Dario, the dynamic duo behind the Mediterranean lifestyle movement, Live Your Life. They share their powerful insights on how midlife is not a time of decline but a unique opportunity for growth and transformation through intentional living and nourishing food.

Anita, a rich life strategist, reveals her personal food journey from the corporate world to guiding others towards balance and happiness through the Mediterranean diet. Dario, a celebrated chef, adds flavor to the discussion by illustrating how their relationship has blossomed around shared meals and culinary experiences. Together, they emphasize the importance of community, the joy of cooking, and the emotional connections that flourish around the dinner table, proving that healthy eating is about more than just nutrition; it’s about nurturing relationships and creating lasting memories.

Forget about strict diets and food fads! Their approach is all about cultivating a healthy lifestyle that prioritizes health, happiness, and connection. They encourage listeners to slow down, savor the simple pleasures of life, and embrace the Mediterranean way of living. Throughout the episode, they share valuable healthy eating tips and nutrition advice that can empower women navigating midlife changes, including menopause health and body positivity.

As Anita and Dario introduce their culinary retreats and cooking series, they invite you to integrate these principles into your everyday life, making the Mediterranean lifestyle accessible to everyone. Discover how to overcome food confusion and embrace the seven pillars of abundance that will nourish your body and soul. This episode is packed with practical cooking techniques, mindful eating practices, and personal food stories that will inspire you to make healthier lifestyle choices.

Whether you’re seeking weight loss stories or simply looking for empowering women’s health insights, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom. Tune in for an enriching conversation that celebrates food, culture, and the beauty of midlife. Let’s embark on this journey together and redefine what it means to nourish ourselves and each other through the art of cooking and the joy of real food!

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Real Food Stories podcast. All right, if you’ve ever felt successful on paper but disconnected in real life, today’s conversation is one you want to take a hard listen to. I want to introduce you to Anita and Dario, the co-founders of Live Your Life, the Mediterranean lifestyle movement. Anita is a rich life strategist, health advocate, international best-selling author, and longtime podcast host. Dario is an Italian-born, world-renowned multilingual chef with over 40 years of global culinary experience, including work with Massimo Battura’s Food for Soul. After finding each other later in life and realizing how easily busyness and disconnection creep back in, Anita and Dario made a pact to live and design life differently. Together, they built a movement rooted in the Mediterranean way of living. Not a diet, not a hustle, culture escape, but a lifestyle centered on health, happiness, connection, and joy. They help people, especially those in midlife, stop seeing this chapter as decline and start seeing it as a powerful design opportunity through food, daily rituals, shared meals, travel, and intentional living. Well, Anita and Dario, I’m so excited to… have this conversation with you because I think that when you’re in midlife, it’s sort of like this messy middle, right? Where we don’t have the responsibility of children anymore. We’re empty nesting. And I know there’s just a lot of questions of like, is this it? Like, what’s the rest of my life? Like, what are we doing? What’s my purpose? And we, and life is feeling a little short right now, right? We’re like on the, on the other side of things. So. I want to just jump in. I want to hear your story first, and then we’ll continue the conversation.

Speaker #1
Sounds great.

Speaker #0
Yeah, for myself, I was a longtime corporate exec,

Speaker #1
and 21 years ago, I realized that it was not for me and that I wanted to look for something different. Busy days, then it was the BlackBerry, pinning people, messaging people 24-7 because I had a global role, So I was always on. taking care of things and, you know, having the kids and being there for them, that was really important. And you get so caught up in that culture, right? So 21 years ago, I stepped away from that and started my business. And then Dario and I, who we’ve known each other for 26 years there?

Speaker #2
There’ll be more than that. 26 years ago.

Speaker #1
We didn’t realize, we were friends, and we didn’t realize that we were more than friends until probably, I guess, 11, 12 years ago now. And finding each other was super special. We wish we had met each other sooner. We look through it, through life with different eyes now, I find. And seeing it the Mediterranean way has just brought so much joy to our life and to who we are. Being with somebody that understands me, that, you know, we enjoy and take every moment as special and not for granted and pulling together what we have with our brand, with the Mediterranean lifestyle. Dario is a chef and me as a rich life strategist and how the next stage of our life changes.

Speaker #0
Can you explain what rich life strategist is? I’m sorry, Dario. I know I’ll get to you. I’m going to get to you. No,

Speaker #1
that’s a good one actually. I’m glad you asked. when I started my business, I was looking for people that were in the corporate world that wanted more a richer life out of what they were doing, more work-life balance. So hence why I came up with Rich Life Biz. So it was having a rich life, sorry, living a rich life and having a rich business. So I worked on strategies that you could scale, but still own your soul. So it was for heart-centered, ambitious women. that wanted to create more but not have it take over their life. So in working with our brand with… I’d sort of taken a little bit more of the business approach out of it and the strategy and working more to a rich life strategist coming with the Mediterranean lifestyle and looking at it from a different perspective. So that’s how the rich life biz has turned into a rich life strategist.

Speaker #0
Got it. Okay. And Dario, I’m sorry, I interrupted you before. No,

Speaker #2
you didn’t because that was very good. Thanks for having us, first of all. Thank you. Well, you know, Anita really put it pretty eloquently. When you live this life, you almost live a life through your kids. You know, we always say, how many times do you hear that? We live our life through our kids. We have four kids, and now from 30, and the youngest down to now 26. But we live a life through their sports, through their activity, through their homework. And then, of course, we always focus into our business, you know. I’ve been a chef. You travel around the world. You do events, restaurants, and people. And you almost lose a piece of yourself until it comes to the full stop. And I don’t want to use a full stop in a sense of that’s it. Kids start going to university. People start having girlfriends. In our case, they’re getting married. And all of a sudden, you realize, okay, so what is next? What? The next is the next beautiful part of your life. And that’s what we rediscover through all of your life, living the Mediterranean lifestyle. What does it mean? Well, both myself and Anita, like Anita was saying, we rediscover our self later in life. But with each other view, we understand better. You know, I was born and raised in Italy. And, you know, when you live in the same place, you don’t really realize what is around you. and I see things differently through Anita’s eyes and allows me to actually almost rejuvenate. And, you know, we call it a message in a bottle. So we are lucky and fortunate to be given that opportunity to have a second chance in life, which everybody deserves. Life doesn’t stop. Lives continue. And it gives you an opportunity to have even better things, to rediscover greatest things. And we live probably our best life now than we ever had. Not that we haven’t had a good life before, but now we live a better life. Our kids actually are seeing it. And that’s the funniest thing because you really realize when their kids coming home during events, they’re excited to see us living, to do things for ourselves. So our message right now is to share with other people that there is so many things you can actually do, more than you ever expected. All your dreams actually are… coming true. If you want to, there is no barriers. There is opportunity.

Speaker #0
Okay. Well, that sounds like a, that sounds very appealing, right? And, and, you know, to live, to, to imagine that you can live your, just your best life. But I want to just go back. How did you, I’m just curious, how did you two meet? So this is, you know, because this is, and you don’t have to get into like all the fine details, but I think this is an important part of your story because. in midlife and, you know, around our age, you know, divorce rates are really high. I think people kind of have that shift, right? All of a sudden kids are not in the house and you realize maybe you’ve been living for your kids. And then all of a sudden it’s you and your spouse or, and you’re like, I don’t know if I want to be with this person. And I just see, maybe I’m just seeing my own personal like surroundings, but that. people are shifting in their relationships. So I’m just curious, how did you two find each other? You said you were friends first and was it in Italy?

Speaker #1
Yeah, no, a lot of people ask us that. Where our brand came out was from Italy. But it’s interesting you asked that because our whole brand, our whole story is around connection. Everything we talk about is connection. When we say cook and eat together, it’s all around bringing that connection back again. And I think as Well, I’ll tell you how we first met and then I’ll continue on with what the connection brings to that. But so our boys were best friends. And the first time I saw Dario and he saw me was at kindergarten. So the kids were four years old. And I remember being very sad because I, you know, I was I was working in corporate, but I’d taken a short time off with the kids. And I enjoyed that time, you know, because once they grow older, you don’t have that time with it anymore. It goes so quickly, as you know. And so I remember looking over and seeing this good looking man across the way. But I mean, I had my younger daughter that was running around like crazy. She was only two and I was trying to. And Dario says he looked exactly the same as had seen me.

Speaker #2
I actually remembered the way she was dressed. And sorry to interrupt, but to me, the impact was, you know, and I was super sad because being a busy chef in a restaurant business, you know, I wanted to take that time because I am extremely close to my kids. And to me, the first day of school, I would book it off because that to me was important. And I remember seeing this beautiful lady almost sad and stressed. Because she had this two years old little girl running around. And you could feel that a part of her heart was gone because her boy was getting into junior kindergarten. And it was so genuine and beautiful to see it. And I remember exactly what she was wearing.

Speaker #1
So we remember exactly what that moment was. But our kids became best friends. So we always, and we were married, right? So… We went to, our exes weren’t really involved as much. So we went to all the games together that they did, all the birthday parties. So we got to know each other, but never once did we actually think or talk about each other. We would talk about our kids. We wouldn’t really understand that we had so much in common. So 20 years went by and we never even related. I ended up, unfortunately, going through a divorce. I think you had met some of the people that I was seeing. It was, you know, we’d gone through that whole transition. And then Dario ended up going through a divorce and he just happened to reach out. It was still friendly. There was never any kind of thing.

Speaker #2
Merry Christmas.

Speaker #1
Merry Christmas. And next thing I know, we were messaging each other and we were going back and forth and go, oh, we have so much in common. I can’t believe this. And then it blossomed to what it is. Now, as we get older and to our second stage, we end up carrying… so much weight from our past.

Speaker #0
That’s right.

Speaker #1
We carry so much heaviness and walls and barriers that we build up. So I remember that we were starting to go into the next stage of our relationship. Oh my gosh, how do we tell the children? What do we do? And we went back to what we had missed from our previous relationship to be able to do it right this time. You know, make sure that you We didn’t take each other for granted, that we made that effort to always be there for each other. And we didn’t allow those barriers to get in the way. Both of us are so easily being able to be on our own. Like I was on my own for many years. Dario has been on his own. And we have a certain comfort level to that and being like that. So we had to allow some of those layers of the onion, I can say. to sort of release and to trust each other implicitly first before we could go to the next level. And so there is a little bit of a transition to that to, you know, we gain wisdom, but we also carry a lot of baggage with us too. And we have to learn to be able to shed some of that to really allow ourselves to go to the next level and to connect. And that’s why a lot of the what the brand sort of came about. I’m just going to say one more thing. Even though we, you know, you always fall back into the old ways. So as we became a couple, told the kids, which is another story.

Speaker #0
Were they happy?

Speaker #1
Yes, they were actually.

Speaker #2
There is a story on that.

Speaker #1
I’m sure. They were super surprised. They were super surprised. I don’t think they saw it coming at all. I don’t think we saw it coming at all. That was what was so crazy. So we ended up becoming a couple. Daria was hired as a guest chef in a castle. because I’d work online for so long, I ended up joining him. And we ended up seeing this article that came out that said that 63% of people spend more on medicine than they do on food. And 85%, this is in 2018, and 85% spend less and less time every year. That’s what they were saying. And we’re like, wow. And we were finding that we were, you always have to go back to that source again. And the source to us was that connection. letting down the onion layers, the barriers that we had. And we had to reconnect again and say, you know what, we are going to go step it up a notch. We are going to start a business together so we can spend more time together. We’re going to pull in as the chef and the rich life strategist. How do we create this? How do we do it? We have so many, so much wisdom over the years. We’ve been through it. So it’s not like, you know, we’ve read a book and we’ve decided this is what we’re going to do. We’ve actually experienced it in our bones, right? So how do we create this and how do we move this forward? So the base around this connection and how we ended up connecting at one point, how we connected to make sure this business happened and how we’re sharing, as Dario says, this message in a bottle to other people through food and travel.

Speaker #2
And I think the biggest thing. of all is, you know, and you have said one thing that is very important for many, many, many people out there, the barrier. You think you’re always set on your way and you think there is nothing else will change. It’s very easy to see the glass half empty. Guilty of pleasure. I mean, listen, we all, we all are human. I mean, we are built of skin and bones and feelings and and all those things. But you come to a point in your life that you really need to realize what is really important to me. How much do I really want to give to myself? And that was a pivotal moment in our relationship, I think, that we really understood the importance of how much we care for each other. how much we needed to allow ourselves to say, hey, listen, those walls are unnecessary. We need to be vulnerable. Sorry, you need to be uncomfortable to be comfortable. And that was, to me personally, was probably the best moment because…

Speaker #1
I remember sitting on the couch in that moment when we had this discussion and how we were going to give this 110%. That’s right. And how much we’re gaining from doing that, right? to be connected. And so many people have built these walls.

Speaker #2
And you also need to understand, you know, by doing that, you’re really becoming vulnerable, but you become very alive. You know, you really realize it takes some time, but you really become how alive you will become. And it sounds very much of a cliche. I mean, myself in a restaurant, hotel, hospitality business is always fast-paced, always go, You never have time to really stop and think. And it’s funny because I often say, I discover my second chance in life. I’m actually better than I’ve ever been. I feel more clear than I’ve ever been. Thanks to Anita and thanks to myself to really rediscover where I am. So sometimes the best way is to… Let yourself go for a bit. Allow yourself to breathe in that fresh air that is out there. And because life is beautiful. Life really is beautiful. Forget about the confusion. There is always noise out there. There is always going to be noise. There is always going to be things that you might think they’re going to be greener. But the most important thing is keep your grass green at home. Okay. Making sure that that is the priority.

Speaker #0
You’ve said a lot of very profound things. I mean, I think just listening to both of you, that the second chance, you know, and you had like a second opportunity to like redo something, a marriage or relationship. And you’re coming at it now with a lot more maturity and wisdom. And Anita, like you said, like peeling the layers of the onion and learning and making a commitment to not make. than maybe the other mistakes you made. I mean, I think when we get married, most of us, we’re pretty young, right? Like we’re, yeah, I was in my 20s too. And it was, am I a different person now than, of course, absolutely. And so you just learn and you have the wisdom. And I think it sounds like you’re open to a lot of now possibilities for your future that you don’t want to take for granted, right?

Speaker #1
I find. With Dario, you know, there’s always that compromise you got to do. And, you know, I had this major eye surgery that happened. And I was out for a month with my head down. And Dario was so wonderful in taking care of me. And the most biggest compromise I’ve had to take is not being as independent as I was before. Because if you think about the love languages, Dario’s love language is to do and to take care of. And how great is that? So I’ve had to allow that to sort of go away a little bit and not have to have that feeling of control and that I take care of everything and I do all that to allow his love language to speak. And look at the joy that I have from that. Where many times, and I’ve got to admit, I was like that too. I was so proud of being able to do all this myself and be able to have the business and have the kids and take care of the house. I mean… At one point, I actually even put in my toilets on my own. And I was like so proud to say that I did that, right? And it’s crazy when you think about it. Because here to just allow that to go and allow him to do what his love language is, how much joy and how much my second part of my life has been so much greater than feeling that I have to have that control and to do that, right?

Speaker #0
Yeah. Well, women, I think as a rule, wear busyness as a badge of honor, right? We, you know, the busier we are and we can, all the juggling we’re doing and we can have a career and raise our kids and, and change the toilets and, you know, and, and do it right, live independently if we wanted to. And yeah, it takes a lot of vulnerability to have someone else take care of you. And that’s, it sounds like maybe that wouldn’t have happened in the first part of your life, your marriages. And that it’s something you learned to accept. The second part.

Speaker #2
And it’s very important because, you know, we talk a lot of language. Anita is very much the same. She’s, you know, taking care of things. And compromising. That is funny because the biggest thing in a relationship and whatever you do is about who’s doing what. We do whatever. There is not a chore that each one has. We are each other’s best friend. She’s my best friend. We travel for years up on end together.

Speaker #1
Two years straight.

Speaker #2
We are in each other’s back pocket all the time. Now, there’s always little arguments, but it’s never a fight. There is no need to add that. And I mean, I think you need to be mature enough. And that’s what I said. The second part of life is really realize, live your life. How do you want to live your life? What choice are you going to make? And the way we frame… this Mediterranean lifestyle or living the Mediterranean lifestyle. It’s very much of that, you know. Allow yourself to be a little bit more adventurous. You know, when we get on a middle age, we become a little stubborn sometimes. And then we realize then, you know, once we try something, ooh, that wasn’t so bad. So why go through all that blockage at the beginning? Allow it. Allow it. What is the worst thing that’s going to happen? And the greatest thing about building this brand was, like Anita was saying, is building a nichette of strength. I mean, there are things that Anita has that I don’t have. And I don’t even interfere.

Speaker #1
I still can’t cut an onion very well. I see our cooking show and I’m like, oh, Dario, can you please do this for me?

Speaker #0
It takes a lot of practice. I know that.

Speaker #2
But at the end of the day, how powerful is that? When you really have a partner, then you can trust limitless. Then you know, then she’s there for you and you’re there for her. And now you can build this journey moving forward and do the things that you want to do. The most important being healthy, being… with each other, stay active, discover things. So mean being adventurous, you know, and to us, the most important thing is cook together to stay together. And that is the biggest part because, you know, we talk about food and what it is. Unfortunately, in North America, many people, what they do, they eat standing up. It’s a motion, it’s a gesture because you have to do it. Now. It’s a little bit more relatable.

Speaker #0
I’ve been married almost 30 years, but I feel like we’re going through like as an empty nester, like just the second part of our life. We’re going through like almost the same like peeling of the onion that you two are. We’re trying to figure out like this new normal together. And so far it’s working. But I agree that, you know, how do we prioritize our health? you know, our activity, our adventure, our food and all of it. So it’s, it takes a lot of introspection, I think. But, you know, so let’s, let’s back up for a second. I want to hear about this. You’ve mentioned like the Mediterranean lifestyle a couple of times. So in my world as a nutritionist, Mediterranean, when I think of that, I think of like the Mediterranean diet. You know that like, right, we’re eating in a certain way, but I know that it’s not like, right, you’re calling it a lifestyle. So what does it really mean? Can you just define that for our listeners? You know, like, what does it mean in everyday life? Besides, I know you mentioned health and activity and everything, but let’s get into the nitty gritty of it.

Speaker #1
Well, we’ve narrowed it down to eight principles and balanced eating is one of them. So it’s not a diet. We actually were on a project with the European Union for olive oil. We were down in Italy in this olive grove and the gentleman that owns the olive grove So we were down there for this project and he was talking about the Mediterranean diet. And we said, no, it’s there’s and he goes. And so he told us a story about how it actually happened. It was the Second World War and there was a boat that came over from America and they were on the boat and they weren’t very healthy in what they’re eating. And they came over to Italy and they saw all these healthy Italians. They were eating from the land. They were eating just simply what was naturally there for them. Nothing that was over-processed. It was all natural food. And they ate when they were hungry. They ate these certain things. And so they dubbed it the Mediterranean diet. And they went back to America and they ended up calling it the Mediterranean diet and put their own spin on things. But really it’s based on the Mediterranean way of living, right? Then we’ve got all the other principles that go into it. So when you eat, it’s balanced eating. It’s eating from the ground. It’s not eating too much. It’s not being stressed out that you have to eat this and you can’t have that because a lot of stress with that is also something that isn’t good. And then there’s the other seven principles. So it has balanced eating. It has adding more adventure to your life. It has finding your purpose. You know, you think of people in the Mediterranean, they found their purpose. Relaxing more. You know, in Italy and in the Mediterranean, they take those moments to just relax. They have their happy hour. They have that time and that connection with people. They cook in the kitchen more. So Dario ran the Italian program at the culinary school here. So chefs to get their master’s in Italian cuisine, he led the program. And I would go in and join because I could work online and he would have chefs from all over the world joining with the college and his program. So going over there, we’ve met a lot of his friends and we’ve been there. And so they would give us a call on a Tuesday night. And they say, do you want to come over for dinner? We say, sure. What do you feel like? Fish. Okay, sounds good. We’d get there on a Tuesday night and there would be 30 people at the table. Some people would bring food. Everyone would be cooking, doing different things. And nobody was looking at their watch to say, you know, it’s 9 o’clock. We’ve got to be in bed. We’ve got to work tomorrow. Everyone is having fun, connecting, enjoying, and cooking together and eating together. And I remember looking at Dara and going, oh my gosh, this is so crazy. It’s so different than it is in North America. People spend that time to connect more. They’re more open. They just talk about general things. It’s not so, oh, what do you do? You know, who are you? It’s who you are as your essence. It’s not necessarily the title that you have. And so it goes into what’s your passion? What is that rich? life? What is that rich thing that means something to your heart? I call it your root success, actually. And it’s what’s true to you, what’s so important. And so I go to Dario, look how different it is. And then Dario has his perspective in his 20s when he came over to Canada. And how is that different? How is it that that’s created? And you can tell your side of the story and how you ended up seeing him. I mean.

Speaker #2
And again, we go back to the simple thing, taking things for Brent. Born and raised in Italy. the Colosseum, the Duomo di Milano, Piazza del Campo in Siena, another bucket of rocks. I mean, yeah, I mean, I grew up there. I see them all the time. It’s okay. But you never realize the importance of this little thing. Going to the market, those flavors, those simple things, then you can smell them. You know, when we go back home, that’s the first thing, then I just go back and crave it. Then I took it for granted. And I’ll give you a silly story. One of our good friends has a big farm in Emilia-Romagna region, where Parmigiano-Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma comes from. And one day in the afternoon, it was in the summer afternoon, we are sitting there and he says, what should we do tonight? Let’s get a couple of people and get over. A couple of people is always between 20 and 30. And we go around this field and there is this stinging nettles, okay? And I said, you know what? You got a lot of these stinging nettles here. He said, oh, what do you want to do with that? He said, why don’t we make a pasta with stinging nettle? So from that afternoon, having a coffee, we put gloves on it. We took stinging nettles from the ground. We cooked them, okay? And we made this delicious pasta for 20 people. But it was spontaneous. It was not a thought. It was not like, it was just.

Speaker #1
It wasn’t written in their calendar.

Speaker #2
It was living. When I came to North America, my first impact was my first day I’ll never forget.

Speaker #0
I’m getting down from the building where I was staying with a friend of mine, and I see people running. And I say to him, oh my God, what’s going on? Why are people running all the time? And he said, well, they got to go to work. They said, oh, and they’re running? Is anybody stopped for, oh, no, no, no, no, there is this coffee place, you grab this mug? Kind of like this. I used to call it bathtub and go. And that is not what we are used to, which is okay. I mean, every culture is different. You respect it, you adjust it. But what I found myself is eventually I would start losing my habits that I had in Italy and was falling into those things myself. So I need to readjust, think of what I really want because Let’s be honest. When you rush, when you eat poorly, when you don’t take care of yourself, when you do not connect, we use the word conviviality. It’s extremely important. Staying connected, have a convivial system is oxygen. I’m going to keep it as simple as that.

Speaker #1
And that’s why we call it a movement because we’re connecting people. We’ve brought people in this community. And we talk about the Mediterranean lifestyle that you can live from anywhere. So where you’re living, where we’re living, it’s creating that community. It’s being able to do that for me, buying from the land where you’re living. So you don’t have to be in the Mediterranean. Even though we do retreat to the Mediterranean to teach you that essence, you can do it from anywhere you live.

Speaker #2
All right. So let me ask you something, okay, because I’m just going to play devil’s advocate. I know you mentioned these two dinner parties, which sound dreamy, you know, and beautiful. And, oh, we just, you know, let’s have a dinner party and three people show up and you’re. picking stinging nettles out of the ground and creating things all together. Everyone’s cooking together. And the first thing I was thinking when you were saying that, which sounds amazing and how I would like to live, is that where’s my calendar? Who’s coming? What am I cooking? The pressure on me to make the meal. 50 different, you know, things were going through my head that like it’s dinner parties feel stressful because then I have to, you know, make sure everyone’s happy. happy and that community spirit is nothing I ever feel in a dinner party. And I know how to cook. I’m, you know, I have a cooking background too. And I always feel a little stressed out. So when you say that, you know, you can take, and, and, and those two examples were in Italy, right? So when you can take this Mediterranean lifestyle anywhere and Dara, you said… Once you moved to Canada, you started just naturally infiltrating into like the Canadian busyness, right? And that like wearing that busyness as a badge of honor or moving, running, you know, like that’s, you know, like looked at as a good thing. Yeah. So how do you how do you really live the Mediterranean lifestyle? I’m from Fairfield County in the United States and next to maybe Los Angeles. We are in the seeing and be seen community. How do you do that?

Speaker #1
And it’s interesting because we started something called the International Dinner Club. And it stems back onto what I used to do with my friends years and years ago. And we would pick a day. It’s sort of like the next level, right? You’d pick a day and everyone would bring something. And so it’s sort of like the next level to how you can create something like that. But you’ve got to, again, shed those layers. I find, I don’t know how many people I’ve heard this from, when you’re in your 20s and you have your home and everything is kind of relaxed, you’re a little bit more relaxed. As you get older, you’re expected that you’re supposed to have the fancy kitchen. You’re supposed to have all the things like everyone else is. And you’ve got to allow to let that shed. Like these places that we went to in Italy, there’s nothing fancy. We have friends that have joined the International Dinner Club and have created their dinner parties. And… They just, they will. They’ll call up their friends and do it. So we know people in North America that have done this and they just have to allow to relax, allow other people to create something to bring. And that’s what the International Dinner Club is about. You know, you’ll do the appetizer, you’ll do the dessert. So it’s not all this heaviness on you. And we created it around different themes from different countries. And we had music playlists. We had tips on the country, you know, to kind of make it fun, to bring up conversation. And, you know, it’s a great sort of stepping stone into what the Mediterranean lifestyle is like and how you can create it at home on your own. We are a calendar culture. We are. I got to admit. But how many times have you, I don’t know if this has happened for you, but it’s happened for us and people that we know. You go for a walk in the streets and you end up bumping into whoever. Hey, what are you guys doing tonight? Let’s do something. Right? It’s taking that little step and not being so fearful that it has to be perfect. Right? It’s Doing the version of what that would be for North America, which is kind of like the International Dinner Club parties, or they call them the progressive party where you go from one family to the next. We’ve become so siloed in our homes, and we have to get past that. You know, for us, one of the things is being active naturally. That’s one of the principles that’s in the Mediterranean lifestyle. And we’ve got an e-book that has all the different ones that goes over it. But we’ve done this in Costa Rica where we didn’t rent a car. Actually, we’ve done this in many places where we didn’t rent a car purposely because we were forcing ourselves to get on the public transportation, to go meet the people, talk to people, ask those questions. How do you get on that bus? And next thing you have a conversation with somebody to not be so siloed again and go from A to B. We were in Costa Rica and people thought we were nuts. We didn’t rent a car. And we’d be going down these dirt roads because we wanted to go to the pesqueria, the fishery. And Daria always had his orange hat on and then see us coming. You know, I’m like most blondes, but Daria, he’s this tall guy with his orange hat on. They’d see us everywhere. And then next thing you know, we’re doing a cooking event there using the local food. And because we met so many people, losing the local food for Italian cuisine. And we created this event. And next thing you know, it was sold out within half an hour. You know, it’s just getting out of those ways of thinking, you know, having an intentional life. and going into a different type of routine than what you’re used to. And it’s kind of, you know, and in life, we end up having to hit those barriers where we get sick or, you know, a divorce or something that happens. Don’t allow that to happen. You know, look at you. You’ve been married for 30 years, and you’re realizing that you guys have to redefine what success is for you and how you’re going to do that and how you’re going to create that. Now the kids are older, right? And that’s what you do with empty nesters. How are you going to create that and change things up? For us, it’s doing more things together. You know, it’s a crazy thing. Dario still writes me when he goes to work, when he’s working at the culinary school. He’ll still write me little notes in Italian, and I put them on the coffee machine. I have books and books of these sticky notes. I’ve kept them, right? I don’t know what I’m going to do with them one day because I want to learn Italian. So he puts them in there, and sometimes I’m trying to read it. And a lot of the times they’re little love notes and stuff. And he’ll still make that intentional thing for me that he’s thought about me in the morning. because he leaves it really early, I’ll get up and I’ll see that. And it’s just those little things, right? And it’s changing and making your life more intentional. Did I answer it? Yeah.

Speaker #0
But I want to bring it back to you.

Speaker #1
Oh, I’m bringing it back to you?

Speaker #0
I want to bring it back to you to the thought that you said, time, calendar, busy life, right? And stress. You said, oh, my God, now I’ve got to organize this dinner party. It’s going to be stressful. Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. So I’m going to tell you one thing. There is a saying in Italy that we say, I’m going to tell you in Italian, then I’m going to translate it for you. A di table non si invecchia. A di table no one gets old. People don’t care how good the meal is going to be, how great of a chef you’re going to be. The intention is coming together and do something. It could be a spaghetti aglio e olio or tomato sauce. It could be a roast. It could be anything. That is the symbol of connecting. There is always time. We spend time for things that are not important. And we realize when? When the kids are gone. When now you’re by yourself at home, you have all this time. Why don’t you want to start things like that? There is always like-minded people out there. They are willing. People don’t care if your house has got the best china or the perfect couch. That’s not the people you want to be around. People want to be around because of you. You know, I’ll tell you, the first year I was in Canada, I never forget. And, you know, it brought me to the member of the calendar. This guy comes to me and said, oh, do you have a calendar? Yeah, I have a calendar. I said, well… pencil down, April 27, we said, stop right there. I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow, but I purposely put that down. If you come to my house, if my car is there, knock the door. We might have a coffee. We might have some sweets. We might going to make a plate of pasta. We might going to make a salad. Who cares? At the end of the day, the gesture is the convivial gesture. The convivial just being together. And, you know, you’re building that. I don’t want to use the word medicine, but you’re building the act of really forget about it. Forget about that. It’s been proven that staying connected around the table or around people, then they are just free to just be there. It’s not a big deal. But it’s making that act. And I know that everybody is going to look at me right now and say, oh, it’s easy, but my kids got to go to school. I got to get to work. I got a meeting. You got all those things every single day. You’re going to have those things, but what is your priority?

Speaker #2
Right. I mean, I also think my husband and I, for example, he said to me, he says this to me often, like, life is short. Like, let’s do it now, right? So all of a sudden, it almost, and I can see this in a lot of my friends who are around the same age, that they are almost getting busier because life is short, right? And so I think, Dario, what you’re saying is slow it. down, right? Like just slow it down, just have a meal at someone’s house. And I agree with you 100%. I think just being with people, being with your friends and just, and no one’s judging about the food and everything. But I do feel like there is this, and again, this is probably a North American thing, you know, like we’re just getting like, life is short. We got to do, you know, before we get too old to do it, to do anything. What do you think about that? You know, slowing down actually makes you more productive, but in a different kind of productive way.

Speaker #1
I think that you, you go back to inner self to know what you’re wanting and we have to learn how to slow down a little bit. I think there’s the comparison that’s in there. And so many people are comparing ourselves to everyone, especially since social media. Half of that stuff isn’t even true. you know, post something that is something that’s interesting that’s happened. You know, oh, I haven’t had a chance to travel there or I haven’t had a chance. I never had this. You know, my kids weren’t like that. You know, there’s always that comparison stuff that ends up happening. But I call this thing, you got to slow down to speed up. I think it’s, and I’ve been doing meditations. When I started my business 21 years ago, I started doing meditations online. I did all these tapings and everything. And so… I think it’s so important that we need to slow down. I think we need to still have that and connect more. We’re getting too fast paced. And as North Americans, and I’m sure there’s other countries as well too, but I see it so much here that people aren’t allowing themselves to do that and they just need to take that step back and say, no, we’re not going to have those hundred things in one day. We’re going to make sure that we’ve accomplished this one thing. And it just keeps on getting faster and faster. Now with AI. Oh, my gosh.

Speaker #2
Oh, well, yeah. I mean, it’s instant. It’s just a different…

Speaker #1
Answers are instant. It’s better for our health to go back. It’s better for our connections. There’s so much more to coming back to being slow and being present and intentional on how you want to live your next life and building that rhythm again. I mean, in Italy, they take time in the afternoons for the reposo and then they call it siesta in Spain, right? They take that time when… When I went there first, I was like in Italy, what do you mean? I was trying to find directions. I couldn’t find anyone on the street to find directions somewhere. I went to Italy with my daughter and I was like, I have no idea where is everybody? It doesn’t make sense. But it’s finding that happy medium, you know, and saying to yourself, no, there’s nothing wrong with resting in the afternoon. I still will. When I can, I will meditate in the afternoon. I find that my brain starts to get all frazzled, I need to have that time to sort of relax and I’ll meditate and I’ll do that. People think it’s bad. They’ve got this hustle culture that you feel that you need to, oh my gosh, you can’t go for it. You can’t rest yourself. There’s something wrong with you if you do that. To slow down and spend time with friends like you did something simply, oh no, it had to be some fancy event that you went to or it had to be some fancy travel place you went to. You know, it’s getting back to those core things that really feed your soul.

Speaker #2
I think it’s that like slowing down and really figuring out what matters to us. Right.

Speaker #1
Yeah.

Speaker #2
I wanted to just also now jump back into the cooking and the eating being good for health and happiness and relationships. I mean, I think I also think this is incredibly important, even though I’m saying like I plan a dinner party and it stresses me out. But I mean, I aspire. to that. And I think that food is very emotional in it can be in good and bad ways. Right. But here I think we think of food as being we do it for like negative reasons, you know, like we’re emotional eaters. And but I also think of food as being emotional in a good way. Right. Bringing people together, helping us relax or cooking. If you’re not feeling while cooking a warm pot of soup or… What do you think about that, that just, you know, food? We didn’t really talk about specific foods, right, in this conversation, but I know that, you know, Mediterranean foods include a lot of olive oil and fresh produce. And what do you think about just food being emotional in good ways?

Speaker #0
And it’s great that you say that because food is simplicity. Food is memory. But we, many times, overthink it. You got to think about this, and I’m going to make you think about this. People think more about what type of fuel to put into their car than the fuel they put into their body. Think about that. Just number one. Our fuel, it’s extremely important. Eat well, eat at the table, understand the purity and the simplicity, those memories, those things that you remember when you were a young child. Sitting at the table. Because at the table you talk about things that are very, very important. You know, the Mediterranean is you live from the land, you live from the season. And you say, well, if I live, like for example, ourself in Canada, well, there is no crops in the wintertime. What am I going to do? But there is always things out there that you can just build. You know, there could be some beautiful hearty soup, some root vegetable. It’s how you do it. End of part 2. Problem is this, and I’ll tell you as a chef, because one thing I rediscovered, being a chef for over 40 years, for many years, I cooked for my ego. You run I.N. restaurants, I.N. hotel, so you always want to cook. Now you cook for your purpose. You cook for your heart. And the most important thing about food, food is balance. Food is about health. Food is about freshness. Food is not about complicating things. And it’s encouraging also people to do it more. And how you do so? By simplifying the recipe.

Speaker #1
But it’s not so complicated. People think it’s so complicated. That’s why everyone’s running to Uber Eats. They’re doing these other things as opposed to organizing themselves in the kitchen. And not thinking of it as a chore. People think of it as a chore now. Oh, you know, I don’t want to cook. You think of it as an enjoying way of spending time together. And that’s what it needs to be. It’s simple ingredients. It’s like we just did this soup series and it still blows me away how Dario can put these flavors together that is just mind blowing and it’s still so healthy.

Speaker #0
And it’s full of ingredients.

Speaker #1
And it’s making extra so that for those days that you’re busy, you don’t pick up the phone and call wasting money on stuff that. It’s got too much sodium in it. It’s got unhealthy things. I mean, we can go on and on. I mean, your listeners, they follow you, so they know all this. But stop thinking of it as a chore. You know, there’s so many little mindset shifts that you can do to be more intentional, to build on that rhythm, to cook together, to make it simple, to just get back to the basics. It really adds so much more to your life.

Speaker #2
Well, I know a lot of my clients, you know, they spent years cooking for other people, their kids, right? And their spouses. And so when they don’t have kids in the house and everything, they say, you know what? I’m done with cooking. I don’t want to cook anymore because I’ve had it. And I always think to myself, this is where it becomes really important, right? Now you have to double down because our health, right? I mean, we’re middle-aged and We have to really focus on our health. And once you know the basics… skills of cooking, right? And it doesn’t have to be complicated. But for me, you know, I just find cooking to be meditative. And, you know, it relaxes me. But I think if you don’t know how to cook, you don’t know some like basic skills, it can be stressful. I know that just with my husband, you know, I was my, almost my entire marriage, I was the cook because I knew how to cook. And he knows basics, but it just, I’m like, just get out of the kitchen and let me just do it. And but now that it’s just the two of us in our house, like we’re definitely spending a lot more time together cooking together. And it’s been really nice. Because, you know, I have to maybe let go of a little of the judgment, you know, and just let him learn. But it’s just nice to cook together. It really is definitely a really special time. And it’s sort of becoming a ritual for us.

Speaker #1
You talk together. You enjoy that time together. So many people, they come home and they write away on their phones. They’re expecting everything to be right there on the table. I call it the Fred Flintstone, you know, you’re kind of like, well, my, is it ready? You know, you want to, it could go both ways, but it’s so important.

Speaker #0
I find, and you know, you just said something that is so, I found that I become a better cook now. So we cook every night, every night. And, you know, I became a better cook because Anita has a great palate. And there are things sometimes that she’s incorporating into our thought process for a meal that I maybe never thought. And I’ll give you an example. You know, we wanted to have something. We wanted to have something fairly healthy. It was a night, and I had a container of mung beans, great nutrients. And I had a whole bunch of ingredients there that I wanted to use. And we made this mung bean risotto. We didn’t use any rice. The mung beans were… The protein and the starch were. And it was the most delicious thing. And we were there in the kitchen.

Speaker #1
It was so good.

Speaker #0
I know.

Speaker #1
It’s not the traditional risotto that you think of, but being an Italian chef, he incorporated so much around that that it was unbelievable. But it was just like you weren’t afraid to make a mistake. I mean, and even if you did taste it and you’re like, oh, this is not the best. That’s okay. Right. Next time you’ll do something. It-

Speaker #0
And I think that’s the biggest thing, you know, the blockage. And, you know, when we done the food series last week, it was about, you know, three simple soups. You know, there was a traditional minestrone, a bean soup, and I’m making a real bone marrow stock. And everybody’s like, oh, my God, this is, it is super simple. When you look at the steps and when you just do it together in trial and error. how many mistakes we make in life, but how important to making sure that you really test those mistakes, taking care of your own body. That, to me, is fundamental. Go and have a conversation. And we’re talking about conviviality. Become convivial with your butcher, with your fishmonger, with your farmer, with all those people around you because you breathe. building that community, and that community gives you the perfect fuel to put into your tank. How beautiful is that?

Speaker #1
It tastes so good, too. I got to admit, when you start cooking and experimenting, it tastes so much better than…

Speaker #2
Oh, it’s so much better. Yeah, I don’t even like to go out to restaurants anymore at all because no one’s making food any better than I am. Good. costs more and yeah, and then you lose the, just the sense of, of that community that you’re looking for. I could talk to you too all day about food and the lifestyle and everything. And I just, both of you are just inspiring me and I hope you’re going to inspire, you know, my listeners because I just love how you’ve adopted, really, really adopted the lifestyle and then turned it into something that you want to share with others. So tell me,

Speaker #1
how do you share this with others? What do you do? It sounds like you travel a lot. So do you take trips with people? Yeah. So we have culinary retreats to give the experience. So online, we have a three-day reset, sort of a start. So if someone goes to our website online, they’ll see that. Every month we have a cooking series to get people to cook. So last month we did kind of romantic Valentines. This month is soup. Next month is sauces. Every month we have a different series that we do as far as cooking together. We have an e-book that goes through just the key principles. So it’s sort of like knowing what that is. So it goes from like knowing what the principles are to trying the three-day, to coming to Italy with us. We have a conference that we’re going to be doing next year. We’re unfortunately sold out for our retreats for this year. for April and September, but we’re going to be doing it again next year and opening that up to Italy. And it’s not just another travel retreat where we’re a bucket of rocks, right? We have so many testimonials where people are like, we actually got to live like an Italian. We’re expanding into Spain and Greece and France and Portugal. But you get that essence and everyone becomes like a community of fun people together. It’s not just another… I want to say it’s a bucket of rocks because that’s what a lot of tours are like. This is the experience. And you start to feel those principles and what it’s like, and then being able to bring that back home.

Speaker #0
And also the biggest thing is the people we take in our retreats. Like, we are very careful in a sense of we don’t want to take 30, 40, 50, 60 people. There’s 20 people maximum that come to our retreats, and they really feel it. We take them to spots sometimes that they have never seen. And the most empowering thing, like Anita was saying, they feel like they are Italian for that week, those 10 days. To a point that some of our clients, as soon as the retreat ends, they want to buckle ready for the next one. So it’s like, okay.

Speaker #1
That’s why they fill up so quick.

Speaker #0
So, and the transfer at home, we have actually a couple that really. basically revamped their life by living the Mediterranean lifestyle at home. They are cooking. He’s a neurologist and she’s a very successful photographer. Talk about two people with a very busy life. And I’m telling you, every time we see them, it’s like going to a restaurant.

Speaker #1
Because they become friends. A lot of these people have become friends too, right?

Speaker #0
So it’s great.

Speaker #1
But I love how they’ve… brought that to the next level. So it’s sort of this circle of people changing the rhythm of their life. So they’re the kind of people that they’ve taken it on to the next level where they’ll call somebody and say, come on, we’re going to be making this steak. Come on over and join us, you know? And it’s getting out of that mindset of the comparison, the feeling that you have to have everything perfect, especially for you and Dario. I mean, you know, I’m a home cook, but you guys have taken it to the next level where… You’re feeling that, oh, I’ve got to make sure that I create it a certain way. You know, people don’t care. It’s about being together. That’s the most important thing.

Speaker #2
Well, it sounds like, you know, I’ve certainly been away on retreats and vacations and things where, you know, you absorb a lot and you loved it and you feel like you’ve gotten a lot out of it. And then, you know, you come home and sort of it all just trickles away. Yeah, just gone after a little while. But it sounds like you’re… retreats and getaways are really impactful for people. And, you know, and they really carry it with them back home. Because I think that’s the goal of yours, right, is to live this Mediterranean lifestyle anywhere, not just on vacation in Italy, right, even in your own small town.

Speaker #1
So for those that feel like they’re slipping, there is the option to be able to

Speaker #2
speak with us and have that time to sort of build into that transition while you know this thought came up or this happened no no let that layer go and just open yourself up to a slower way of living yeah because we have a lot to contend to when we get out of vacation mode and we get back to our busy lives so that’s great that you would then have an added layer of some coaching and just gentle reminders well dario and anita this has been a fantastic talk. I’m so inspired. I really am. And it’s nice speaking with the two of you and knowing you’re living this lifestyle. How do people get in touch with you to book a trip, even though it sounds like your trips are booked for this year,

Speaker #1
but maybe…

Speaker #2
Well,

Speaker #1
we’re opening up April 2027. And then we’re, of course, we’re going to have more of that build up from them. They do go fast. So the best way is to email us at info at oliveyourlife.org. Go to the website, oliveyourlife.org. And a lot of the stuff is being loaded, but ends up selling before we can. So the best way is always to send us an email and then we can get the details to everyone because they sell out. Like we put it up and by the time you put it up, a lot of it’s already sold out because people that are email list or that know us or word of mouth already do it.

Speaker #2
OK, well, I will add those links in the show notes, of course. And so people can get in touch with you that way, too. And thank you so much. This has been a treat.

Speaker #1
I really thank you so much for having us.

Speaker #2
Yeah, I appreciate your pleasure and talking about your personal stories and everything. I think it’s important to share stories. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker #1
Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker #0
Thank you.

Speaker #2
Thank you.

Speaker #1
And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five star review.

Speaker #2
It is so helpful for me to get the word out. on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.