Nina Manolson

I am. I’m delighted to be here with you Kamala. It’s always a pleasure.

Nina Manolson

It is. That’s exactly what happens.

When people who are entrepreneurs like us who are passionate about something, we decide “Okay, great! Let’s start a business about it.” So then you’ve got a little bit of a parallel between you, Luis and Kamala which is you’ve got romantic this thing going on and you’ve got the business thing.

Nina Manolson

When we’re an entrepreneur, we have our passion and we’ve turned it into a business. So a lot of our energy is going out. It’s going into creating. It’s going into making something happen. So it’s a lot of expenditure of energies.

If you could imagine the posture of someone reaching out all the time, it gets a little tiring. Physically, it’s exhausting to be constantly reaching your arms out, creating something, and giving something.

So one of the things that’s so important as entrepreneurs to think about is how do we start receiving? How do we start bringing energy back in? How do we make sure that we are taking in, what we are eating, that all of it is feeding us energy? How do we know that what we are doing isn’t just exhausting us but that we are also taking in an all day energy diet?

Nina Manolson

Absolutely! Before we get right into the nitty gritty of it, there’s just a frame that I like to think about nourishment and having an all day energy diet with what I use in my work with clients. It’s completely translatable to how do you care for yourself in business. I call it the nourishment dynamic.

My belief is we often are trying to create nourishment and feed ourselves well but just on a superficial level and on the food level. It’s not that food isn’t important, of course it’s important.

It’s little like if you’re on your business, you say “You know what? I just want to make more money. So I’m just going to focus on the money,” which is absolutely important but we all know it takes more than that.

It takes, how are we going to reach those people? How do we market them? What is our belief and mindset around how we deliver what it is? Whether it’s a product or a service, there’s all that deeper mindset issue around business.

Nina Manolson

This is the model I use for my coaching on wellness work is first we have in this nourishment dynamic level of food. What are going to be an all day energy diet? What’s the practical thing that you’re eating?

The next level is lifestyle. How is that all day energy diet going to get to you? How do you make it happen? Who’s doing the cooking? Who’s doing the shopping? How’ does that show up in your life?

And then the deeper mindset. How do you feel about your food? How do you feel about your body? What’s your relationship with your food and body? So the way that that shifts into play in a business life is we have to think about “How am I going to nourish myself on a very fundamental level of food?”

Nina Manolson

Because many of us, especially since our business world is now connected to computers, many of us just sit down at the computer with something next to us. Like, “Oh! I’ll just keep fueling myself as I go through my day.” And that doesn’t actually serve us. Sure it will keep you going.

I know a lot of people who are going for the coffee and the sugary things just to keep their energy going. Unlike an all day energy diet, it doesn’t give you that long-lasting energy boost that you need.

Like you were asking about Kamala, how do we keep our passion going? How do we make it sustainable? How do we stay positive and energized and wanting to deliver our message or a product in a sustainable way? How are making sure that we’re eating an all day energy diet so we’re fueled enough to give, to create, and to be productive in a fully holistic way?

Nina Manolson

For that to happen, we have to have this food and nourishment on a very deep and real level like an all day energy diet. And one easy way, I want you to think about it. Because everybody is in a different place and what their food choices are is what I call the Quality Continuum.

This is a term I coined and what it means is that every food falls on a continuum, on a quality continuum.

Perfect example of this is if what’s next to you is let’s say, Cheez-its. Like that’s how you’re sustaining yourself through the day. “Okay, I got a bag of cheez-its and I’m going to keep nibbling them.” So that’s I’d say pretty low on the quality continuum of food.

But let’s now let’s go cheese and crackers mode. If we move up a little bit, we get some plain cheese and crackers. So now instead of having processed food that comes in a box, we’ve got something that’s an actual food, a cheese and a cracker.

Then let’s move that up a little and what if we went for high quality cheese? Something that’s pasture raised and pasture fed. And whole milk, not a skim milk in that cheese.

And then, what if we move those crackers up the quality continuum? Instead of going for Ritz crackers or going from whole grain crackers or a gluten free cracker like a Mary’s Gone crackers. So then what’s sitting next to you, right?

You’ve moved yourself up the quality continuum and eating an all day energy diet… we’ve moved to something that could actually sustain your energy and your focus. That’s on the basic food level.

Nina Manolson

But if we take it down one notch into the lifestyle world, maybe instead of eating by your computer, you could do something that would support your whole body which is get up, walk around a little bit, step into a kitchen or a cafe or somewhere else where all you were doing was actually stopping and feeding yourself.

There is study upon study that talks about the value of what I call Eating When You’re Eating. You’re not working and eating. You’re not driving and eating. You’re not walking and eating. You’re just actually nourishing yourself.

That break away we’ll help us really connect in when we connect back to our work. We’re energized. We’re focused. We’ve not only ate, but we were actually eating an all day energy diet and now we’re nourished. We can really give it our all. Have you ever had that experience? Like step away.

Nina Manolson

Absolutely and I still do that. An app that I use is called “Insight Timer.” It just has this lovely gong. I set it up for two minutes. I meditate before I eat. I do it with my kids at dinnertime. It is very powerful and it does do just that.

Meditation moves our body from a state of sympathetic nervous system activation. That’s the fight or flight. That’s the “Oh my gosh. The tiger is coming after me,” “The deadline is after me,” “I want to meet my quota for this month,” “I have to make 10 phone calls today,” “I got to get my social media done.”

Nina Manolson

Whatever that stress is, that puts us into that sympathetic nervous activation and the tricky thing about the sympathetic nervous system is it actually reduces our metabolism. That means less calorie burning. It also reduces our body’s ability to assimilate all the nutrition that is in our food.

What we want to do is shift our body to the para-sympathetic nervous system activation. That’s our rest and digest mode or some people called that the “tend and befriend” mode which I love that. And why we want to be over there is because that’s where the all day energy diet will be digested in the most optimized way. Our body can actually digest and assimilate our foods.

This is what really powerful for people who run businesses, when we move into that parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest, we are telling our body, “You know what, it’s okay. We’re not panicked.” This is the most optimized state to be in so we can have an all day energy diet.

So when you’re panicked or there’s stress, there’s something that happens in your brain which is “Oh my gosh, I have to focus very intently and I have to hurry because my life may be in danger.”

Nina Manolson

There’s this feeling of “I don’t have a lot of time,” and when we are in that state, our body doesn’t have an all day energy diet and our mind is thinking “I don’t have a lot of time.” From this space it’s very hard to be creative.

But, when we move over to that parasympathetic nervous system activation, to hand and befriend, rest and digest, suddenly, it’s creative again. We’re suddenly able to problem-solving in our business. We’re able to process.

So if we were working on a food level, “Oh, I’m keeping my blood sugar stable because I’ve got a healthy, high quality snack.” Working a lifestyle level, “Okay, I’m taking two minutes to breathe and relax before I eat.” We’re opening ourselves up to be more creative and more productive.

It happens like when people say, “I got all my ideas in the shower.” That’s what’s happening. Suddenly it’s like, “Oh, I’m relaxed.” We shift from a sympathetic, that stress mode “Oh my gosh, I got so much to do” to “Oh, warm water on me. I can relax. I’m in parasympathetic and then my mind can start to be creative and I can be my most productive in my business.”

Nina Manolson

I call that “runway fork”. It’s like there’s always a plane on the runway, ready to take off. It’s like I’m eating a bite and your next fork is like, “Okay, next plane, ready to go.” If you can look at it and go, “You know what, it’s okay. The food is there on my plate. It will be there in a second too,” like I can put my fork down for a moment.

It is very, very powerful to get out of that runway fork mentality. Slowing down like this will greatly improve your ability to eat an all day energy diet, to be energized more fully by the food you eat.

Nina Manolson

There’s five specific diets. I’m not diet person. I’m not into restriction or any of that but I always want to encourage people to pick up one of these five diets that I do believe in. Each of these ‘diets’ helps and will improve how you’re eating an all day energy diet.

The first one is the sit down diet. Just sit down no matter what you’re eating or how much you’re eating.

The second diet is the media free diet. This is one of the hardest ones for entrepreneurs and business people to do. No TV, no computer, no phone, no books, nothing. Just you and your food becomes important, otherwise while we consume media and eat we’re not fully able to be eating an all day energy diet.

When the media is going, we’re responding and being in relationship to an external stimulus. So the media free diet brings you into relationship with yourself and with your food. It’s a self attunement diet.

One more thing is you’ll notice the taste of your food a lot more when you follow the media free diet.

Nina Manolson

Then there’s the breathing diet. This is another really super fast way to bring consciousness or relaxation or higher metabolism, better calorie burning to your meal and that is breathing.

Breathing improve how you’re eating your all day energy diet. A fast metabolism is when our body burns calories quickly. So a calorie is a measure of heat released when something is burned. Just like a fire, when it has more oxygen, it burns more efficiently.

So if you want to maximize metabolism, breathing fully, slowly, deeply, that’s your ally. Because if you breathe in more oxygen, you burn more fully, more efficiently. So breathing before you eat and breathing in between bites. That’s the third diet that I believe in.

The fourth diet is the prayer diet. This is another way we can improve how we’re eating an all day energy iet. This is like saying some kind of prayer of gratitude. Almost every spiritual or religious tradition has some kind of specific prayer for before eating because it does just this; it moves us into more mindfulness, more awareness of what we’re eating, and then it also moves us into the para-sympathetic nervous system activation. That’s the prayer diet.

And the last one, I know Kamala, you’re going to love this one. It’s called the pleasure bite diet.

Nina Manolson

So this one is one more way we can improve how we’re eating an all day energy diet. The pleasure diet is when the first bite of any meal is like the most totally sensual pleasure bite, like orgasm in a bite.

Imagine like wine tasting or chocolate tasting, that’s like, “Oh my gosh. This is the most incredible. Let me experience this deeply in every cell of my being.” The flavors, the textures getting so caught up in the pleasure of that first bite.

I would of course love to say the pleasure diet in general have that be every single bite but honestly if you can just focus on that one first bite being that way, it will keep doing that at every meal, it will slowly infiltrate into the rest of the bites during the rest of the meal.

Nina Manolson

Yeah. Absolutely. And the reality is everybody will resonate. Everybody will choose. It doesn’t matter which one. They’re all good. All of them help your ability to start eating the all day energy diet more powerfully.

Nina Manolson

There’s no right way to start and they’re all like little bits and strands of pearls. You pick up one and the others will follow suit. You will have that whole experience of slowing down when you have the pleasure bite or you’ll have that experience of breathing a little more once you do your prayer diet. They weave together but it’s very helpful for us.

This is one thing I’m focusing on and that’s one thing I want to say. It’s so tempting when we’re building a business to go, “Okay. I got to do this and I got to do that and I got to do this and I got to do that.”

One of the things that I’ve learned a lot in all the work that I’ve done to grow my business is “Okay. I definitely want to do a zillion things at once but let me focus on one thing at a time and get it done”, “Get my website done. Good. That’s great. Now, I’m going to move into social media world,” “Okay, great. That’s good.”

It’s not that they don’t weave together but my attention and focus on one thing helps me make that really come to flourish in it. And you can do the same thing with the diet that you’re going to choose, you want to choose one that helps your brain focus on what’s the priority right now.

Nina Manolson

Yes. I agree. When I’m writing, I can do that. I just get into like, “Okay, I’m just going to write,” so the spinning my wheels and I’m like “Oh, I need to stand up, move around and come back” and then “Oh, I’ve got it again.” Then I could refocus.

Nina Manolson

And I work with entrepreneurs and people who are in business. When they take that 10-minute break, they often say “And then I go to the kitchen for a snack.”

Nina Manolson

One of the things that I want to leave you with is, when you get for those 10-minutes is, think other things that could nourish you, think of things that could be an all day energy diet. I would say even more than think of other things that can nourish you is actually write a list down.

I lived for about 5 years in an intentional community, yoga and Health center. When I first moved there, it was huge dorm of women and there was this wonderful woman next to me and she had this list of things like go for a walk, call a friend, writing my journal. A list of things that were nourishing which I didn’t know what it was right away.

Nina Manolson

I asked that woman “What is that list?” She said, “Those are the things that are nourishing to me. Those are ways that I can take care of myself.” And I said, “Why do you have a list?” They kind of seem self-evident to me. And she said “Well, because when I most need them, I can’t remember what they are and so the most nourishing thing to me seems like going to get a cookie.” She needed a visual reminder.

It’s something I always encourage people to do. Create a visual list. What are the things that nourish you besides what’s in your pantry? And maybe you know what? What’s really going to nourish me is to just put on a song and boogie down for a couple of minutes. What’s going to nourish me is doing some yoga stretches. What’s going to nourish me is to call a dear friend.

Look for the things that are nourishing on a deeper level so that food isn’t your only go to in terms of “Oh. Okay, I got a minute. I got to get away from my computer. Let me just eat something.”

Nina Manolson

Before we get into what’s the upgrade of a junk food, one of the things that I would say is the easiest thing for people who are by a computer a lot of the day is to make a big smoothie in the beginning of the day so there’s always something that’s going to sustain you.

You can be drinking a smoothie when you’re hungry. There’s always something when you walk into the kitchen, “Oh! I can pour myself a little more smoothie.” That’s there and it’s homemade.

There are 2 types of smoothies you can play with.

One is fruit smoothie with lots of superfoods in there with hemp seeds or chia seeds or almonds. Some kind of protein-based, something that nourishes you. That’s a great afternoon lift at that kind of slumpy time of the day.

The one that I’m a huge fan of and it may sound a little later for some but it’s getting much more main stream which is my green smoothies. If you can make a green smoothie first thing in the morning and have it there for you, your energy will skyrocket. And if you’re looking and Kamala, I hope it’s okay. I can offer everybody a resource of word to get really great recipes.

Nina Manolson

If you go to ninamanolson.com/deluxegreensmoothiestarterkit, you’ll find an incredible ebook there with beautiful pictures of green smoothies, easy instructions, lots of recipes.

I would say, a great start is to go green smoothie or super food smoothie if you’re just starting in the smoothie world. If you really cannot pull something together in a blender and it has to be out of a package, I would say “Honestly make yourself some sort of okay but get yourself some oat and make yourself a big pot of oatmeal.”

Make it once in a week so that it’s there. You don’t have to remake it. You make it one time and then “Great! I got a little bowl for a breakfast” or “I got a little bowl for a snack.” It’s something that’s there. I would do the same with quinoa, big pot of quinoa in the beginning of the week.

Make whatever you make. Make it once so that you can eat it many times.

Nina Manolson

Thank you.