Optimum Energy – Sophie Uliano
SUMMARY
On this episode, Sophie Uliano, an internationally renowned green-living expert and author of the New York Times best-seller, Gorgeously Green, talks about ways we can have sustained energy and a clear mind.
Having sustained energy allows us to live the life that we want.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Our body seeks homeostasis, and when we are out of balance, we’re going to hit a roadblock.There’s no one size fits all program for diet and exercise because everyone’s physiology is different.
The specific steps to having more energy are different for each person.
Extreme diets and exercises are not sustainable.
We have to adapt as we shift and as our bodies change.
Meditation gives us energy.
Meditation helps you find the magic place deep within yourself.
Multi-tasking and being busy makes you burned out and discombobulated no matter what you’re eating or how you’re exercising.
To have more sustainable energy:
- Find any meditation that works for you and just do it.
- Choose your morning beverage carefully.
- Get moving.
Our thoughts and serenity have been hijacked by our phones and social media.
Social media can take over your existence.
Turn off your phones and computers, and just look at the people you love.
TRANSCRIPTION: OPTIMUM ENERGY – SOPHIE ULIANO
Kamala Chambers
On this episode, we’re going to be talking about having optimum energy, more vitality and vibrancy, and how to have a clear mind.
Today, we are here with internationally renowned green living expert Sophie Uliano. She is a New York Times best-selling author of the book Gorgeously Green. She’s got a lot of other books, and she’s just an all-around amazing human being, a certified nutritionist, and yoga teacher.
We’re so excited to have her on the show.
Luis Congdon
All right, Thriving Launchers, today, it’s all about being healthy, having optimum energy, and having the dream life that you want because you have the optimum energy you want to go out and get that life, have that life, be in that life, and actively engaged.
Without further ado, I’d like to invite Sophie on The Thriving Launch.
Sophie, are you ready to launch?
Sophie Uliano
I am ready to launch.
Luis Congdon
You’re well-known for writing this fantastic book, Gorgeously Green. I love what you preach about being healthy but not being like this crazy zealot over the top, and I’ve been there. I’ve done raw food diets. I did it for three months. I’ve done the veganism, the vegetarianism, the heavy lifting with weights, and the marathons. I’ve done all that stuff.
In reality, I’ve never kept any of that stuff because I always go back to state of equilibrium, and what’s doable on a day to day basis in a way that allows me to be with everyone in the world.
I’m curious from you. What’s been on your mind lately in regards to that concept?
I know health changes for all of us, and we have different insights in health and having that optimum energy that’s so important.
Sophie Uliano
You’re just speaking my language here because I feel so strongly. I think what’s on my mind right now being in this space that you are both in is there are extremes. We just see it more and more.
Extreme Diets and Activities Don’t Guarantee Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
I think because of social media, the extremes started to trend whether it’s the high-intensity crazy boot camps or the Ketogenic diets or the raw food. Whatever way the pendulum is swinging, it gets a lot of attention because it’s a headline, and often is a quick fit.
Whether you go on a raw diet or whether you go on Ketogenic diet or whether you go on some crazy exercise thing, you are going to see and feel results pretty quickly apparently because you’re doing something extreme to your body.
But what I passionately believe in is that:
- It’s not sustainable.
Like what you very rightly said. It takes you out of the normal world but it’s just physically, mentally, spiritually is not sustainable over generous amount of time.
- There’s always a price to pay.
There’s always a price to pay, and I don’t care what anybody says about that.
Seek Balance To Have Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
That’s what I’m passionate about right now.
Luis Congdon
Hearing you talk, I feel like you and Kamala met up before this interview.
The other day, I was telling Kamala, I said, “Hey, I want to get on this Keto diet again. It would be good. I want my abs to show.” I came home with this cold pressed green drink, and Kamala goes, “Cold press is not that perfect for you Luis. It’s not going to be that great. The Keto thing, I don’t know about that. Why do you have to be extreme?”
I just feel like both of you somehow were chatting before this interview. I don’t know how you two did it.
Sophie Uliano
We’re ganging up on you.
Kamala Chambers
The thing is that we both have studied nutrition in depth and we know what creates optimum energy, sustainability, and balance.
I’d love to hear from you a little bit more about how we can have more sustainable optimum energy when we wake up in the morning with that optimum energy.
There’s No One Size Fits All To Attaining Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
The first thing is I don’t think there’s a one size fits all. That’s another thing I’m pretty passionate about because I had different interactions with all kinds of clients, readers, and followers, and what not. Over the years, I get to understand that I would never recommend the same protocol for a 65-year-old woman with arthritis who can barely move as I would to a 25-year-old girl who’s training for a triathlon.
There’s a basic set of principles I tend to try and live by myself so to call least then no matter what, which has to do with meditation and rest, and what not. But, that’s the first thing I would want to say. Unfortunately, I wished there was a one size fits all but I don’t think there is.
Everyone’s Level Of Optimum Energy Is Different
Sophie Uliano
Everyone’s physiology is different. Everybody comes with a very different set of physical issues and circumstances. I also understand this from having taught yoga for close to 20 years.
Teaching yoga is a good analogy for this whole concept about nutrition. Particularly with the hot yoga and this whole trend, recently, you see so many injuries and people doing what they probably shouldn’t be doing with their body. Again, it’s just like you can’t put a whole bunch of people into a hot yoga class. Some of whom have sciatica or a different kind of spinal kyphotic spines or whatever it might be that everyone’s different.
As a yoga teacher, I take people very much individually and give them different things that they should do, and often, for most people get into dial way back.
That hasn’t answered your question. I guess what I’m trying to say is all of that comes under the umbrella off that there isn’t a one size fits all.
Sophie Uliano
However, I can tell you some very broad strokes of what I do in my day and my life.
Kamala Chambers
Yeah. These are important points, and I’m glad you brought that up because it’s so easy to try to find that magic pill that’s going to work for everyone and that’s not the case.
Everybody needs to find what is working for them as an individual, and also, to take into account that because something works for a month for you, it doesn’t mean it’s going to work for the next month. We have to adapt as we shift and as our bodies change.
I’d love to hear some of those super power tips you have for us that could probably work for most people in general to have optimum energy and sustainability.
Sophie Uliano
Sure.
Meditation Allows You To Reach Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
I firmly believe one of the most important tips is to find some meditation practice. A lot of people think it’s going to take that edge off or make them a little bit zen and calm in a world where we all want to be on sort of high adrenaline all the time.
I’m very much a Type A personality. If I didn’t know better, I would be that girl who would be fuelling myself with bulletproof coffee and charging during the day, but I am not. I give that disclaimer because some people when they hear meditation, they’re like “Ugh, gosh. She’s going to tell us to meditate. It’s so difficult and awful, and I don’t want to be zen anywhere. I’ve got too much to do.”
But for me, meditation gives me optimum energy.
Sophie Uliano
When I meditate, it’s the difference for me between going into a day where I’m spinning my wheels, being busy, multi-tasking.
Spinning my wheels and juggling saps my energy and I end up at the end of the day tired, burned out, and discombobulated no matter what I am eating or how I am exercising.
Meditation As Priority To Have Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
So that’s why for me, it carries the number one top priority. In the morning, before I do anything else, I find some way of meditating.
When I say meditation, a lot of people may say, “What kind of meditation do you do?” What I would say to everybody is it doesn’t matter. Find the one that works for you. It could be mindfulness. You could get a mindfulness meditation app. There are many different meditations but what I would say to people is just find one now.
There are so many great apps now that you can just stick it on right away, and five minutes, one and done. That’s what you can do if that’s all the time you have to do. A five or ten-minute meditation, do it.
Then after that, I reorient. I oriented myself for the day. Then I get out my notebook, and then I start writing down with a very clear head now. I can start writing down my to-do list, my priorities, my inspirations, my ideas. I’m just a lot clearer now, and I do that while I have a lovely large cup of tea.
So for number one tip to have optimum energy is any meditation but just do it.
Morning Beverage Helps In Attaining Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
The second tip to having optimum energy is to think carefully about what your morning beverage is.
I know most people drink coffee and I don’t drink coffee anymore because even with all the bulletproof and the non-acid or the low acid coffees, it’s still too acidic for me. So I prefer to drink tea. I’m a huge tea drinker.
The reason why I love tea, particularly green tea, is that it gives me a sustained lift or optimum energy throughout the day. It does have that caffeine about half the amount of coffee. For me, it’s a very different experience. There’s no jitters, no fuelled adrenaline. It’s just a different experience. So I have my tea.
Doing Some Movement To Have Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
And then, the next tip that I have is that I, no matter what, do some movement. This is all before I get into my day in the morning. That movement doesn’t need to be a 90-minute or a 60-minute yoga class. It doesn’t have to be going to the gym. It can be ten-minute workout of getting my body moving and a challenge in my heart rate. It’s sort of challenging my body within ten minutes.
I’ll do a series of stretches to get my heart rate up. I’ll do maybe eight minutes of kettlebell swings. I’ll do ten minutes on my rebounder. It’s just taking all the physical boxes, so I have nothing else during the day.
I raised my heart rate up. I’ve done my basic flexibility and breathing stretches, my six yoga stretches easy, and then with my kettlebell, I’ve also hit the strength with doing these squats and what not.
Luis Congdon
I’m getting tired just hearing this. I’m just kidding. I’m totally teasing you.
Sophie Uliano
Let me tell you though that whole routine of the meditation, the tea and notebook, and the little workout is no more than 30 minutes.
Kamala Chambers
That’s great.
One thing I love about what you’re saying is you start with the meditation which is a calming and decluttering of the mind.
Overwhelm As A Hindrance To Having Optimum Energy
Kamala Chambers
I want to share this with you guys because it’s a pretty amazing study that we’ve done. All of our clients that we do market research for, we put out these surveys across every industry like health, people struggling with relationship issues, people struggling with their business. Every time we get those survey results back in every single field, the number one thing people are struggling with is overwhelm.
So if people are feeling overwhelmed in every single area of their life, the most important thing we do is to take those moments to find the quiet within so we can get a baseline for our day and our life, so it’s not just all of this chaos going on. I appreciate what you shared there.
Technology And Social Media Prevents Us From Reaching Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
We’ve almost had our thoughts, our serenity, and our inner world hijacked from us now. It’s been taken away because of our phones and social media although obviously, it’s extremely convenient and it’s just facts of life that we’ll live with forever now.
What I teach people of because it’s what I’ve thought myself is that I have to take control of that. I have to empower myself. I have to parent myself now. Otherwise, with the computer, social media, and the internet, it’s like a runaway train. It can take over my existence.
Parent Yourself To Attain Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
I’ve become good at disciplining myself in a very loving way, which is you don’t even look at that phone. It doesn’t switch on until the necessary things are taken care of in the morning.
As much like I would say to my daughter, “You don’t do this. You don’t go and do the fun stuff or leave for the day until the bed is made, the room is tidied, and you’ve taken your vitamins.”
For myself, I parent myself but in a very loving and smart way. That’s how I have to parent myself now, and that’s what I teach clients to do because we’re getting lost otherwise.
As you said, everyone, same as me, before I take people on retreat, we want to understand what they’re struggling with. It’s the same deal. It’s like overwhelmed, tired, and burned out. That’s what we hear.
Luis Congdon
I like what you’re saying, and a lot of our guests that have come on the show, even Dave Asprey, the Bulletproof Coffee guy, he talked about the importance of taking control of your life and letting overwhelmed or the constant input. It’s interesting to me that you’re saying that.
Right now, I’m going through this phase where I’m experimenting with cold showers first thing in the morning, and then going to the gym, which I’m enjoying. It’s a beautiful feeling.
On the way back home before this interview, I was driving, and I was noticing how much more peaceful I feel in my body. This a big kudos to Kamala because she’s the one who’s encouraged us to start spending more time out in the woods, more time in her cabin in San Juan here in this little island Friday Harbor. She’s encouraged me to get out there and spend less time in the city.
Having A Clear Head Helps In Achieving Optimum Energy
Luis Congdon
We’re on the island. I’m driving home from the gym, and I just started to notice how much more clear my head feels, how much more I can feel the aliveness in my body, and a thought came to me. This is because I don’t have as much stimulation always being pushed into my mind.
From there, I noticed that I’m also less drawn to buy up everything that I see or consume my mind with things that I should buy or clothing or different things that I should have so other people look at me as being better. Or I somehow feel I’m a better person or I’m doing better in life.
I just noticed that I felt this sense of base-level of calmness and serenity. That’s wonderful to hear you talk about that. It’s a message a lot of us aren’t getting, and it’s very hard for us to get when we live in the city, and all sorts of apps are always pinging us, and our phone is constantly with us.
Before we wrap up here Sophie, I want to say to you I love the energy, the enthusiasm, and the vitality. To me, just listening to you talk has energized me and made me more enthusiastic about the day.
As we wrap up, I’m curious. Are there any last words you’d like to leave with the Thriving Launch community about having optimum energy?
Sophie Uliano
Yes, there is.
Turn Off Your Phone To Have Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
Turn it off. Turn whatever is on/off switch, and phone, and computer, and whatever, and just look at the people you love as you beautifully just said. When I do that, I can truly be with my daughter whose 15 years old, and my husband.
It’s sad that we even have to do that consciously, but it’s the source. That is the source of our life.
Having Optimum Energy By Tapping Into Intuition
Sophie Uliano
I just encourage everybody to have an original thought.
When I switched everything off, and I can have, “Oh, what an amazing thing an original thought,” Whatever you want to call it, original thought, wisdom, intuition. That is what I, from myself, need to tap back into.
Having A Smoothie Helps You Reach Optimum Energy
Sophie Uliano
The very final last little tip I want to give you is something a lot less esoteric and a lot more practical. This is one little tip everybody can do every single day no matter what which is the health boost and the energy boost is just make a smoothie.
Everybody can do that. It takes 3 minutes of your time. You can customize it to your health issues. If you need more ground flax because you need more omegas or put in some Brazil nuts because you have high cholesterol, you can add them to your smoothie. Whatever it is you want to add, just make your smoothie.
A smoothie is much better than juice. With a juice, you’re missing America’s most forgotten nutrient which is fiber. Have your smoothie. Have a lap fiber in it, and that will just check off so many boxes regarding health, optimum energy, digestion, and all the other good stuff.
Kamala Chambers
I love it, Sophie. You just saved us so much money because Luis was about to go on this $11/day cold pressed juice blend when we can just make a smoothie with the super foods we have like I recommended.
It’s been great. We’ve been here with Sophie talking about having optimum energy in our bodies, and clearing out the overwhelm.
I just encourage you all to go out and take at least one of these nuggets of gold that Sophie has given us today about having optimum energy and apply it to your life.
Thank you so much and keep thriving everyone.
