The Joyful Mediterranean Lifestyle: How to Celebrate on a Diet was a challenging title to come up with for this blog. How do you encompass all that is good about the Mediterranean Diet in one quick snappy headline? If you adopt the Mediterranean Diet, it is important to understand it is more than changing what you consume. It truly is a lifestyle change. Last week, my Sweetheart and I shared our Joyful Mediterranean Lifestyle with 40 of our friends. Opening up our home, we celebrated being on a diet.
Traveling in Italy, it is evident mealtime is an event. Nothing is in a hurry in the Mediterranean. Preparing fresh food is as important as eating. Communal eating is the norm. Families and friends gather together to enjoy meals. Not just Sunday dinner, but daily meals. Even coffee is not a grab and go. Getting a coffee is an excuse to stop in the piazza, sitting in the sun and chatting with a passerby. It is never running through a drive-thru, talking on the cell while working. In Italy, lunch is not in a moving car mindlessly consuming three times the calories your body needs from the local drive through.
Finding the Secret to Celebrate on a Diet
When my Sweetheart and I adopted the Joyful Mediterranean Lifestyle, we learned how to celebrate on a diet. Mark HATES when I call it a diet. He calls it the Mediterranean life. It is true, it is not really a diet. We agree to eat fresh food that is good for us and delicious. We take more time to shop for food, to prepare it, and to gather to enjoy. I read somewhere when you adopt the Mediterranean Diet you are not only changing what is on your plate, but you are also changing who is at the table. Whether it is with each other, our closests friends and family, or a dinner for 40 people, we take the time to enjoy what we eat.
The Joyful Mediterranean Lifestyle
Reading my blog, I am sure you have come across the Tenuto Torciano Winery. It is a Tuscan winery, in San Gimignano that boasts delicious wines, oils, and balsamic. Even more importantly, it embodies the Mediterranean lifestyle. Family-owned, the vineyard has been in the same family for 300 years. If you ever get the opportunity to travel to Italy, stop by. Enjoy a delicious meal paired with excellent wine. If you cannot go, in the winter months they will bring the experience to you. My Sweetheart and I had Lillo as our wine guide. Lillo is a winemaker, vintner, and nephew of the great Pierluigi Torciano Giachi. Pierluigi is the owner of Torciano. Lillo is who we first met at Torciano where he guided us through a two-hour lunch of tasting, sipping, learning and conversations.
Mealtime is an Event
A neighbor came into my home right before the event last week. She looked around at the carefully laid table and said, “You will never be able to come to my house for dinner.” We laughed. Of course, my weekly dinner table does not look like it did for our party. Even on weeknights, I like to set the table, coodinating the settings, pulling in flowers or greenery and arranging the food nicely on the plate. Taking the time to set the table; however simply, is part of the Joyful Mediterranean Lifestyle. In Italy, especially in the coastal south or the Tuscan countryside, eating is visually pleasing. No matter how simple or rustic, the food came out beautifully and the table picturesque.
For an event, planning the table, creating the menu, preparing the food is as much fun as the party itself. I take pleasure in knowing my guests will be able to sit and talk and not think about their daily pressures. The food is an expession of care. Food can bring enjoyment AND nourishment to the body. For me this is the epitome of what it means to celebrate on a diet.
Each day is precious and cherishing our health and happiness should be done simultaneously. My Sweetheart and I are creating our own Joyful Mediterranean Lifestyle right here in the Treasure Coast of Florida. The Mediterranean Diet is a wonderful way of eating and living.