For many people, traveling disrupts their routines and it becomes difficult to keep food and exercise in balance. For me, the somewhat rigidly scheduled days of teaching or attending workshops or conferences away from home require me to find a specific and doable time to put the workouts and food preparation and stick with it. I work out first thing in the morning while away. It’s not my favorite time to exercise, though for many years I’ve done a morning movement practice that is more of a tuning in to my body and following what feels right in the moment, rather than the more vigorous and intense workouts I’ve been doing these days. A high level of intensity at 7am does not come naturally to me, but it’s the one time of the day that I can be sure that the workout will happen. After that, it’s not so easy to find time between workshop sessions, tasks to be done, and just getting a break between things.
Right now, as I assist Stephen Gilligan with his annual Trance Camp, I have access to a kitchen, which gives me control of what I eat – not always the case when I’m away. At night, I prepare my food for the next day, packing it up in containers, ready to bring with me in cooler bags to eat during breaks and lunch. VERY different from my usual practice of just making sure I have plenty of healthy food around and choosing what to eat when it’s time to eat. I base my choices on what my body seems to want at that moment, with a larger perspective of what I’ve had so far that day and how each meal fits into the whole picture of the day’s eating. For Thursday, since I was teaching the evening session, I planned out four meals to bring. I had breakfast in two parts – bread with sunflower seed butter when I first woke up, then a smoothie after my interval training. Added a snack when I got back to the house at night, and then packed up for Friday!
Assisting a group of folks in transformative work with each other, teaching, eating, moving and dancing – life is good!
