Day Camp, Week One: A Survival Guide

How to survive working as a dance specialist at a day camp, maintain a healthy lifestyle and also have some fun…

The Food:
Over the past 3 summers of working at day camp one of the biggest challenges for me has been what to eat. My own dietary restrictions consist of no red meat, fish or pork and as of recently minimal dairy. The camp I work at is peanut and nut free– a horrifying concept for the almost vegetarian and peanut butter addict. So what’s a picky eater to do without a good ole peanut butter sandwich?

Lunch Option #1 of the week: the double salad
+ a baby spinach + strawberry salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Also delicious with peaches. I will be adding quinoa into the salad next week for some protein punch

+ chicken salad consisting of grilled chicken, grapes and a bit of mayo with a few crackers

Lunch options #2 of the week: wrap & hummus combo

+whole wheat wrap with fresh pesto (it is in fact the besto), grilled chicken and fake dairy-free cheeze

+ hummus with pretzels and carrots for dipping

Lunch #1 and #2 both make for a delicious and filling meal in the middle of the day– absolutely necessary for me when I’m sweating and dancing all day long. I also love that there is minimal prep to be done in the morning. Besides the pesto wrap everything can be pre made and waiting in the fridge.

The Fitness

while a lot of my job is essentially being a zumba instructor all day long in the summer heat, I still wanted to workout this summer and train for the 5k I’m running in August.

This week I did a test run of going to 6:45AM bootcamp 3 days a week and running 1 morning before camp. I found that working out before camp made me more awake and alert in the morning than in previous summers. It was nice to have already accomplished something before I arrived at camp instead of literally rolling out of bed and going to work.

My fitness mantra for the summer is schedule ahead of time, but be flexible. I know what I want to do but I also need to listen to my body since my job is physically demanding. After being out late Wednesday night for a concert (more on that later) I knew that waking up early Thursday was a bad idea– I needed the extra hour of sleep. As the summer goes on, and my body gets a bit more beat up I know it will be incredibly important to listen to how I feel and not push my body.

week 3 of 5k training and going strong!

Motivation this week was provided by the ska inspired workout mix

I cannot think of a song more motivating than LA X to do my final 3 minute run to.

which brings me to:

The Fun

On Wednesday night I went to go see Big D and the Kids Table, Goldfinger and Reel Big Fish in concert.

amazing. While I may be a musical theater loving geek, I adore ska music. Actually, until I was 20 I didn’t listen to much besides musicals but after seeing american idiot I got into green day which eventually got me into ska (not a totally logical path). The summer I was 20 I felt like an “angsty teen” listening to ska and punk music for the first time. Yes, I was a 20 year old angsty teen…. I’ll likely attend more concerts in the future with different genres of songs like jazz, blues, rock, and Songs about slavery, injustice, and happiness.