What Lianna Sugarman, founder of Lulitonix, does everyday

 I’m going to start hump day with an apology. Yesterday our newsletter featured the daily rituals of top fitness and food experts. Sounds good, right? I think it was except somehow my friend Lianna Sugarman became Leanna Silverman. Even pre-caffeinated Foodtrainers know better than that. Lianna is the founder and  CBO “Chief Blending Officer” at Lulitonix and is always experimenting with cutting edge ingredients and flavors. We asked her a few questions:

What is your #1 daily ritual?

While there are a million rituals for life that I really love, and that I mean to implement every day [At Foodtrainers, we call these “wish-uals”] truly the only one I do EVERY day, and the only non-negotiable, is to make and drink a big, huge, green blend with avocado.

How does this affect the rest of your day?

Whatever else I do, eat, drink, or think, whether I sleep or not, am happy or sad, whether I oil pull, spin, meditate (ha!) or just sit on my butt working in front of my computer, the daily custom blend, the perfect mix of greens, avocado, and lemon and water, creates that incredibly necessary sense of grounding, energy, harmony, clarity and balance.

OK, I definitely want all that you describe (harmony please!), any tips for blending at home?

For me, nutrition is about more than staying physically healthy or fit. What I take in impacts my mind and my emotions; I feel like I get to play at being a wizard every day. I’m very interested in both Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese medicine and often use aspects of those constructs to make myself the perfect blend of the day. I base this on what is going on with my emotional landscape.

Anger and stress- these are stored in the liver. If that’s what you feel add a handful of dandelion leaves and some turmeric, liver boosts.

Sadness or grief – are stored in the lungs and the large intestine, so if that’s on the emotional horizon, opt for foods that nourish those organs, spicy blends with avocado, daikon radish or garlic.

What do you suggest for “blending” when you travel?

Even when I travel, I bring green powder, some adaptogens and a nutribullet. You can generally find avocados most places that I go (ahem, Mexico!), and I blend myself a little substitute blend. I walk around with my mason jar on the beach like a crazy person. People probably laugh, but we've all been laughed at for worse, right?"

Um totally but I now know why we are friends, by the way I’d steal your mason jar versus laugh but you know that. Maybe we’ll organize a healthy retreat if you’ll forgive us for botching your name. Thank you LIANNA

Do you have any questions about blending we can ask Lianna? Have you tried Lulitonix? What’s the craziest gadget or food you’ve traveled with? 

So I started meditating…sort of

Our newsletter today focuses on healthy rituals. We culled top food and fitness experts for their daily rituals and the answers were inspiring (and funny).  Some responses were too in depth for our monthly newsletter and so we’ll feature them here this week. In the meantime, the newsletter also mentioned those rituals you wish you did which we call “wishuals”.

Meditation has been a wishual for me for some time. I think it’s been a New Year’s resolution.  I’ve polled my Facebook friends to find out their favorite meditation teachers,  I even went to an intro session on transcendental meditation (the twice a day requirement and weird cult-like infomercial ruined it for me).  This past summer, I registered for a meditation retreat at The Garrison Institute retreat taught by Jack Kornfield (who I had heard about as I own one of his books). But I didn’t go; I didn’t read the book or attend classes either.  And if New Year’s resolutions were superstitions, I’d be screwed. And maybe I am screwed because meditation changes everyone’s life and here I am unchanged.

So, earlier this month I signed up for a Deepak Chopra/ Oprah (their names sound so great together) 21-day online meditation course. The registration took two minutes and I was technically good to go. I sat down at my computer and clicked through to Day 1. Oprah does a little intro and then Deepak takes over. After a couple of minutes of talking, you’re encouraged to close your eyes and focus on your breath. This is much harder than it sounds. I, after all, am the person who had trouble with the savasana at the end of yoga class. You know, the corpse pose? You lie down and after a couple of minutes of silence you are supposed to be restored. Who can't be a corpse for two minutes? This is probably the most important part of the class and yet I regularly ran out to check Instagram (or email if that sounds more legit). You see where this is going.

Back to day one, I breathed in and out and in and out. When I was about to hyperventilate, I decided to repeat the mantra, as we were instructed, but realized I forgot it. I then opened my eyes to check how much time was left. I had been meditating for three minutes, so sad. By the time Deepak said, “you can now open your eyes” my eyes were long opened.  While I felt a little lame, I also felt somewhat proud that I had tried. I told myself I’d keep my eyes closed the next day. However, the next day I had early clients and my plan to meditate later in the day didn’t pan out.

So today marks 1 week since I started. I’ve “meditated” four times. I could say meditation is not for me but despite being sort of pathetic at it- I enjoy it.  And probably the people who check email during meditation are the ones that need it most. I really hope this wishual becomes a ritual. Namaste.

Do you meditate? Was it difficult when you first started? Or, is meditation a wishual for you? Any other wishuals?