Hello fruity-Yogi friends!
I am currently in San Marcos la Laguna, Guatemala and am about to start a one month intensive Yoga course. I need your advice in constructing a daily menu for myself that will work for me, while I live here for the next month or two. It seems like cooked carb proteins with a medium amount of carbs are much easier to get ahold of than are plentiful carbs. I'm in need of coming up with a menu as close to 80-10-10 as possible that will work for me. I would love to get any kind of input for what might work even if it has to be higher protein, but preferably not higher fat. It's important that I figure this out as I have been losing sleep some nights, waking up hungry. :( . I've been having anxiety-related sleep issues for 6 weeks now (finally getting better), unrelated to occasional undereating.
San Marcos la Laguna is a very small town with only a handful of fruit vendors. The raw fruits I have been able to find reliably are as follows: Papayas, pineapples, tiny watermelons, cantalope and honeydew melons (although not always fully ripe, so a risky buy), and raisins (expensive). Street vendors sell small quantites of fresh orange juice, so I might be able to pay more and get one liter from time to time. Unreliably, I can find ripe bananas. Sometimes the vendors will have 10-20 ripe bananas I can buy, and other days they will only have green, yellow, or not a single one to buy. Here's the cooked carbs I can reliably find: rice, big white potatoes, small sweet potatoes, oats, homemade whole wheat bread (made without butter and seems to have low salt), salt-free homemade corn tortillas, and sometimes popcorn. I have also found ground flaxseed for more omega 3s to offset the influx of omega 6s from the grains. I can supplement with iceberg and green leaf lettuce here and there. The cooked juices in the store are pretty terrible as well, so most likely won't be an option.
I am moving into the Yoga hostel today, where there will be a kitchen to use with a stove and refrigerator, but no microwave for easy reheating. The schedule for the Yoga course will be 10am-11:30 asana practice, 3:30pm-5pm asana practice, and 5pm-6:30 lecture, 5 days per week. On some days I will start at 9am to be a part of the silent meditation before the asana practice. I need help figuring out a menu and schedule for eating raw and cooking carbs. Sufficient protein seems to be the easy thing to get, but carbs seem more difficult. I'm beginning to see why Harley and Freelee supplement with refined sugar sometimes.
Given the course schedule I will have to eat my dinner after 6:30, but will be able to nibble on raisins or bananas during the lecture portion.
I know this is not an ideal situation, but I want to be able to experience this Yoga course and continue traveling while not being stressed out about how I am going to eat. As I've been coming off of weeks of chronic anxiety and sleeplessness, I really need any help or advice from anyone out there! (I wish I could also post this in the main discussion section to get more views and responses)
What and how would you eat if you were in my situation? Has anyone else out there been in a similar situation while traveling? If so, what changes to the diet worked for you, what didn't?
I'm sure there are things that I have forgot to mention and will check the thread when I can to add more input and answer questions. Please, give constructive answers. I really need help!
Thanks for reading everyone. :)
Replies
Ryan, I have done yoga intensives before and there is a lot going on at a physical and psychological level. When I did mine, I wasn't raw though there was one practitioner there who was. She had been doing it for a long time already and the intensive took place in Italy where the fruit was much better quality. I've been to Guatemala and I don't envy your predicament. My advice would be this. You're only going to be doing this for like 6 weeks right? I would go with rice for dinner and maybe even oatmeal for breakfast and then as much fruit in day as possible. You'll have tons of time to get 100% raw if that is your goal after the intensive. Another possibility is to simply not worry about less sleep. You could do the all raw fruit path and just relax into whatever happens whether it be less sleep or whatever. Good luck and enjoy the experience.
Thank you very much for your reply, Paul. 100% raw definitely does not look like an option in my current situation, and that is OK. At least there are magnificent papayas to be had in between the cooked meals. I mainly want to be able to experience this yoga intensive, which will be for the next 4 weeks.
Sleep seems to be my biggest issue on this trip as I am a very Tamasic sleeper and have averaged only about 4 hours per night for the last 6 weeks for various reasons. I had my first night last night in the yoga hostel and hopefully I'll be able to switch rooms or find accommodation elsewhere. I have a downstairs room and there are noisy wooden floorboards between the upstairs and downstairs. This wouldn't be so bad, but a couple upstairs was practicing Tantra techniques in the late night and early morning hours making the floorboards creak very loudly. This is wonderful and I am very happy for them, but my sleep issues persist.
I am trying my best to view all of this difficulty as neither good nor bad. Perhaps as lessons to grow, but it is very difficult to maintain this thinking with such a tired body/mind. I'm very conditioned to viewing sleep issues as a red flag to be corrected as soon as possible as I've been labeled a manic/depressive in the past. These days though, I'm just tired without racing thoughts.
I thank you again for taking the time to write me. I really appreciate it.