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Evaporating pantry

I'm halfway into week four of rehearsals for a local bellydance and bollywood dance company, and along with the change in my schedule to accommodate the busy schedules of 6-8 people three times a week, I've also noticed something else.

The food in the pantry and fridge is evaporating. 

It started after the first three-hour Sunday rehearsal, involving one hour of bellydance, one hour of dance conditioning using ballet, yoga, and dance conditioning stretches, and one hour of bollywood. For those of you who can't imagine what this is like on the body, remove any thoughts from your mind of the typical restaurant dancer, and replace it with some young, trim bodies darting with grace and strength across the floor, using precision and technique to get them from one spot to the next. It leaves even the most experienced dancer in our group breathless, after we drill choreography for more than 5 minutes. Bollywood is bellydance fused with hip hop (in terms of its isolated and sharp movements) and Indian Kathak dance. Not only does the dance tell a story with the hand movements, it tells the story FRENETICALLY. If you just breathe for a moment, you've missed a line. 

During that first rehearsal, all the ladies, one by one, kept running to our bags looking for snacks. I felt like a little animal. "Wait a minute, I never eat during dance practices." Uh, that's because my practices never ran this hard or this long. That animal-like food foraging behavior is being triggered by a reduction in glycogen stores, and my usual breakfasts consisting of a small piece of fruit, toast with butter, an egg, and a cup of decaf tea wasn't cutting it anymore. I was burning off that "snack" in 40-50 minutes, leaving me weak in the knees. Before one practice, I ate a banana and nearly fainted. Why? Because bananas are a high glycemic index food, and for the average hypoglycemic person like myself, I tend to shoot up blood-sugar wise fast, and then drop like a bowling bowl falling out of a window. 

To prepare for the dance practices occurring nearly everyday, I searched for articles on the subject of nutrition for dancers, and found  great one by SHAPE magazine, primarily focused on food as fuel versus food to reduce your weight, and including some vegetarian options for those who don't want to eat eggs, bacon, or sausage for breakfast (how about a  tofu scramble?). After loading the pantry with whole grain pasta and bread, and stocking the fridge with vegetables and my meat substitutes, I thought I was ready for the next set of rehearsals.

Though it seems intuitive, I wasn't prepared for how quickly the food seemed to evaporate from the pantry and fridge. Our house felt like we had two growing teenagers in it. Instead, there is a woman who dances more than 12 hours a week, and a man training for a marathon (and possibly a triathalon) who are fueling up in ways we didn't imagine three years ago. Our food bills have increased. We go through a carton of eggs and milk at an alarming rate. Friends brought cases of beer over for a garden party last weekend, and it's still sitting in the fridge untouched, because beer isn't on our food training list (OK, my man had four beers on Saturday, but if you read the article in Outside Magazine about a man's 12 week training course for a triathalon, you realize that everyone needs one break in their training to psychologically prevent burnout and discouragement -- my man's is beer, and I think mine is going to be escaping for Persian food with a new gal pal). 

Because we often buy food everyday, our lifestyle hasn't changed. It's just that we're having to buy so much more food, and bit by bit, I'm watching my dancer's body take a slightly different shape: stronger, leaner, more energy. It takes more time to prepare and eat food, but I also can see almost immediate benefit for having done so. 

For a fun article on teenagers and food, see http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/2004469721_hungryteens10.html