‘There's nothing sad about not dating’: Sunrise contributor Sarah Di Lorenzo addresses dating speculation

Sarah Di Lorenzo on the rumours about her love life that had her linked to a Sunrise co-star and the personal history that informs her latest book.

She’s an entrepreneur, TV star, best-selling author and single mother to three daughters. And yet the one question constantly asked of Sarah Di Lorenzo is why she isn’t dating.

“People feel sorry for me. They’re like, ‘Sarah, why aren’t you with someone?’” Di Lorenzo tells Stellar. “But there’s nothing sad about not dating.”

A health expert with more than 20 years in the business, the 51-year-old shook up the wellness scene with her popular eating program The 10:10 Plan, first published in 2022 as The 10:10 Diet; ever since, her profile has only grown.

She is the resident nutritionist on Sunrise and has published a string of bestsellers offering weight-loss tips and meal plans. Yet she still finds her name popping up on lists of “eligible singles”, even though she says re-partnering is hardly a priority.

“I love being a single mum and I’m very happy to spend the rest of my life alone,” she reveals. “I want to empower women to realise you don’t need a partner to validate your life and find happiness.”

Picture: Simon Upton for Stellar

Which is not to say she wouldn’t be open to love in the future. It’s just that right now, she is staying focused on her career. Along with preparing for the release of her sixth book, My Mediterranean Life, Di Lorenzo is kept busy by her daughters, Charlotte, 21, Coco, 19, and Chloe, 15.

She has had periods of dating since her marriage ended a decade ago, but for now she’s fulfilled by parenting and kicking some exciting midlife goals.

“Don’t get me wrong, when the time is right I’d love to re-partner,” she says. “But I want to give my girls everything I can until I’m ready to move into that chapter. I feel sad women have to be defined by relationships; I’m so much more than that.

“I’m at a stage in my life where I just get so much joy out of presenting health information on so many different platforms.”

Zoë Foster Blake is the latest guest on the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About. Listen to the full episode below:

Regularly rising at 4am to get in a run before lugging three to four shopping bags of food into the Sunrise studios to showcase recipes and share nutrition tips, Di Lorenzo is not only the poster girl for midlife good health, but also hard-won self-confidence.

As she points out, “I always say to my daughters: find your own happiness first, and then you will attract the right partner. Because if you’re unhappy, you’ll attract people to fill voids in your life that, as you evolve, won’t be there.”

Despite her dynamic can-do attitude and energetic commitment to promoting healthy living, Di Lorenzo is dismayed that the impatience to see her paired off led to erroneous reports suggesting that she was seeing recently divorced fellow Sunrise personality Mark Beretta.

Initially, she laughed it off.

“Mark and I are colleagues and friends and he’s such a great guy – but I couldn’t believe it. It was ridiculous given that we’ve never even been for a coffee. I was shocked and completely disturbed that someone went out of their way to make something up.”

Picture: Simon Upton for Stellar

She says it was uncomfortable having to explain to her family and patients that the rumours were inaccurate, but glad when it blew over, not least because writing books, maintaining a media profile and running her brand of protein bars takes up enough headspace on any given day.

Next month, she’ll add to her workload when she begins hosting a podcast, 10:10 Be Well, with her Sunrise colleague Sally Bowrey.

Di Lorenzo’s books may have proven so popular because, like many of her readers, she’s attempting to maintain a balanced lifestyle – and doing the juggle herself. She has raised her daughters full-time since her marriage breakdown, but regards it as a privilege rather than a challenge.

“We’ve had our moments,” she admits. “But I’ve got an incredible bond with them and I feel this huge responsibility to give them everything I can, and help them grow to be incredibly strong, grounded, self-sufficient girls.”

Vital to Di Lorenzo is sincerity of purpose – it’s what gets her out of bed so early each day, and what drives her to keep building new audiences.

See the full shoot with Sarah Di Lorenzo in the latest issue of Stellar.

Unlike her previous books, My Mediterranean Life shares personal stories of growing up with Greek heritage, and her relationship with her grandfather, who lived with her family on Sydney’s North Shore.

She remembers her “papou” teaching her to savour a baked artichoke, dipping each leaf in olive oil until she reached the heart, and her book includes a recipe for his treasured rice pudding – even if she now makes a more nutritious version with brown rice, maple syrup and almond milk.

While she’s known for her self-discipline – her followers on Instagram will have seen her running at dawn every morning even while on holiday in Europe where, she confirms with a laugh, she didn’t succumb to the temptation of gelato – Di Lorenzo also regards food as a pleasure.

It’s why alcohol isn’t banned from her plans and why she encourages her girls to follow her 80/20 principle of eating healthy food 80 per cent of the time.

Other than soft drinks, she has no taboo items, although she likes her daughters to eat protein and vegetables before tucking into a potato bake or risotto.

“I’m all about embracing it. The last thing I want is to have eating disordered children. I don’t want them to be skinny. I want my girls to have healthy bodies, which they do.”

What raises her ire, however, is the growing use of drugs such as Ozempic by anyone other than those with diabetes.

“Those medications have a place for people who need them but it’s not a long-term solution to weight loss for people who want to lose 10kg,” she says. “It’s deceitful. You’re not losing fat, you’re losing muscle – and when you stop and put the weight back on, which everyone does unless you’re doing some serious weights at the gym, you’re putting fat back on. You’re in a worse position than when you started.”

Zoë Foster Blake is the latest guest on the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About. Listen to the full episode below:

She worries that young women, in particular, see these drugs as a quick fix, despite the fact they can inhibit absorption of the contraceptive pill and lead to long-term health issues. “It’s distressing,” she says.

“The only solution is to go to the core of the problem and learn how to eat properly.”

Di Lorenzo has a wealth of knowledge at her fingertips, and she can’t seem to help but share it. When it’s noted that she has a lot of plates in the air, she jumps in to point out our plate size has grown from 22cm to 28cm in the past few decades, a contributing reason for our obesity crisis.

And having sold more than 170,000 books, she has the benefit of a wide range of feedback from readers who have applied that knowledge – with all manner of results.

In the end it’s reinforced what she’s been insisting on all along: good nutrition and a positive attitude are the bedrock of healthy living – and, for many, a lifelong goal worth trying to achieve. As she says: “When all cylinders are running well with true health and wellness, you can do anything.”

My Mediterranean Life by Sarah Di Lorenzo (Simon & Schuster Australia, $49.99) is out October 30.

See the full shoot and interview in the latest issue of Stellar. For more from Stellar, click here.

Originally published as ‘There's nothing sad about not dating’: Sunrise contributor Sarah Di Lorenzo addresses dating speculation