Fast Food for Foodies

Yesterday after lunch, my mom and I went to the Vera Bradley store to use our birthday coupons (we're both June bugs!). I ended up getting the Get Carried Away tote in Java Blue to use for our trip to Nice, Paris, and London at the end of this month.

Once we got back home, I studied for the RD exam and ate this snack:

Super Fruits Oikos with blueberries

We continued our girl's day into the night. I suggested we go see Water for Elephants, because I just finished reading the book. We wanted to grab a quick dinner before the movie, so naturally we went to Whole Foods. I wasn't really in the mood for a salad and nothing on the hot bar caught my eye. But then I walked by the pizza station and lo and behold-they were pulling a spinach and mushroom pizza out of the brick oven!

Meant to be.

While we were eating last night, I realized that one of the reasons I like Whole Foods so much is because it's like a fast food restaurant for foodies. Even I can admit, it can be really hard to cook every night with a busy schedule and sometimes you just want to pick up something quick and convenient. But Whole Foods takes a different approach to "fast food"-they have so many different options (salad bar, hot bar, sushi, pizza-how can you ever decide?) and you never have to worry about eating fake food with weird ingredients. Making sure you get enough fruits, veggies, whole grains, and healthy fats in your meal is never an issue. They also have free wi-fi, so you can get work done or study and it's totally normal to eat there by yourself. And if you ever need a little pick me up, coffee, cookies, and gelato are at your disposal. It's not always super cheap (although, pizza is only $3.99 a slice-not bad), but I for one am willing to fork over a little extra cash for good health-I'll be saving myself money in health care costs later in life.

I really liked Water for Elephants! As always, the movie was slightly different than the book, but I still really enjoyed it. I also liked watching Robert Pattinson play a role other than Edward in the Twilight Saga-he was great in this movie! And way more adorable without all the creepy eye makeup.

I sneaked in a Vitamin Water Zero and Chocolove bar into the movie. No big deal. Btw, this is the BEST dark chocolate!

Even though it's like 104º outside, I made banana pumpkin oat bran with chia seeds for breakfast this morning. It was topped with TJ's Sunflower Seed Butter and 1/2 sliced banana. The picture didn't turn out very pretty, but it was a very satisfying and delicious breakfast.

I went to late church with the fam this morning and afterwards, we ate lunch at P.F. Chang's. I ate breakfast at 8 this morning, and we didn't sit down for lunch until about 1:30. I normally do not like to wait that long between meals, so my stomach was definitely growling and ready for lunch! I ordered the lunch special of Buddha's Feast, which is baked tofu and mixed vegetables served over brown rice. It also came with a cup of egg drop soup. They were both delicious, so I guess it was well worth the wait!

This afternoon consisted of a sweat sesh at the gym, lots of studying, and watermelon.

Dinner was a sandwich on two slices of Rudi's 14 grain (it's really good-kinda reminds me of Great Harvest bread!) with Sunflower Seed Butter and Crofter's Raspberry Spread, carrots from the Farmer's Market, and apple slices.

Current Music Obsession: Mumford & Sons. I've had the Sigh No More album on repeat for about a week now. This kind of works out, because I'm going to their concert in Atlanta on June 12 with Mary Alice!!! She's been doing some serious work in the kitchen this summer, so go check out her recipe page for new ideas!

Now for a little Next Food Network Star + dark chocolate...