Superfood Lunch and Summer Reading List

Today was my weekly Whole Foods day! (Is it sad that I get so excited about Whole Foods?)

Sorry for the crappy phone picture quality; my camera was in someone else’s possession up until about 20 minutes before I ate dinner. The loot included:

• Muenster cheese
• Bob’s Red Mill Apple Blueberry Granola
• packets of Justin’s Maple Almond Butter
• Peanut Butter Cookie flavored Larabar
• macadamia nuts
• fuji apples
• pears
• Fage 2% greek yogurt (I’ve been wanting to try 2% for forever!)
• soap made out of goat milk

I needed the soap, because as of today, I’m officially out of body wash. It smelled really, really good (it’s almond-flavored!) so here’s to hoping that it works well!

I spent a TON of time in Whole Foods, so I ended up eating lunch there.

So much green! Salmon avocado Pacific Rolls and a kale salad with corn, Parmesan cheese, beets, and zucchini, topped with an avocado vinaigrette. The avocado vinaigrette reminded me of something you’d put on top of a Southwestern salad–nice and zingy. (Apparently, zingy is a word. I’m not complaining.) It added a nice little kick to the salad! Health and Elle magazines accompanied my lunch.

I had some papaya for dessert. This was only the second time I’ve had papaya in my lifetime. I loved how they used limes as a natural preservative! This was definitely a superfood lunch–kale, beets, salmon, avocado, and papaya? Go me!

I spent the afternoon diddling around trying to find the motivation to study. Instead, I created a post with fun stuff, watched the Voice, did laundry, and read a little more about puppy obedience training.

Dinner was grilled zucchini, broccoli, tofu, and watermelon. I only ate about 3/4 of all of this total. I was still craving some carb action after dinner, so I ended up munching on the granola I got today and two slices of bread.

I spread some of my favorite garlicy buttery dip (yes, that’s a technical term! 😛 ) on the bread. I got the bread before I broke into the granola, and while I was gettin the bread I also wanted something sweet. My mind wanted ice cream, but my body did not. I’ve now realized my dependence on ice cream is much more emotional than it is physical, so I opted for the brownie instead. Turns out, the natural sweetness of the granola was more than enough to satisfy my sweet tooth, and I only took one bite of the brownie. The granola is really good–it’s not super sweet like other kinds of granola (which is a plus in my book), and it’s very light and crunchy.

Since I took yesterday to focus on a book I had just finished, I want to take today to focus on the books I want to finish. My summer reading list includes:

• Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss (I started this, but haven’t gotten very far)
• Kill As Few Patients As Possible: And Fifty-Six Other Essays on How to Be the World’s Best Doctor by Oscar London (I ordered and received this book about a month ago, but haven’t broken into it yet)
• Divergent by Veronica Roth (I loved the Hunger Games, and this one came highly recommended to those who love dystopian novels)
• Gang Leader for a Day: A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh (I got about halfway through this and then school took priority)
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindess by Michelle Alexander
• Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average by Joseph T. Hallinan

Will I be able to get through 6 books in 3.5 months with a puppy on the loose and the MCAT to study for? Doubtful, but we’ll see. 🙂

Enjoy your Friday night!

Question of the evening: What books are on your summer reading list?

No Calorie Counting: Day 1 + Shopping!

Hey guys! So I realize I didn’t post this afternoon, mainly because (1) I was out and about and (2) I’m still trying to find the times of day when posting is most convenient for me. Hopefully I’ll have some semblance of a schedule down soon, but until then, thanks for hanging in there!

Today, I tried listening to my body. This is what happened.

Lunch

I wasn’t feeling veggies for lunch. I wasn’t actually that hungry because of all of my free sampling, but I felt like I should eat something. The only thing I really wanted was bread and cheese. Insert grilled cheese sandwich.

Vegetarian chili then caught my eye, so I had a little bit of that, too.

Then I ate some goat cheese. Mainly because it was there and I like goat cheese.

And then I thought I’d try a Suja juice (which I got at Whole Foods this morning; more on that later). It was the Purify flavor, which consisted of carrot, apple, celery, cucumber, beet, and lemon. I figured I’d need some kind of veggies to make up for my lack of them at lunch.

I didn’t enjoy it very much. I wasn’t very hungry in the first place (the chili filled me up!), and the taste was…different. Not good, not bad, just different. I could definitely taste the carrot, celery, and lemon. It wasn’t very sweet. It actually reminded me a lot of V-8, but that might also be because I very rarely drink any veggie or fruit juice.

Dinner

Dinner was chicken fajitas without the tortilla. I went back for seconds on the rice and beans, and added a little bit of cheese. I’ve had so much cheese today…

Dessert was ice cream and cake. I went back for seconds because the cake was delicious. And who could resist ice cream?

Overall, I’d say my first day not counting calories was meh. I didn’t get as many veggies in as I would have liked, and I had a little more dessert than I would have liked, and I’m a little more full than I would have liked, but it could have been much, much worse. 🙂

Whole Foods

First things first, I took my weekly trip to Whole Foods this morning. I ate my bodyweight in free samples, mainly blackberries and a Bruschetta flavor of lentil chips, because who doesn’t like blackberries and Bruschetta lentil chips?

There was also a guy demonstrating the Nutribullet, which my sister got for Christmas. I enjoyed copious amounts of smoothies.

Notable items include: 3 Justin’s Vanilla Almond Butter packets (I’ve wanted to try this flavor for SO long but didn’t want to buy an entire jar unless I knew I liked it beforehand), 2 Lara Bars (Banana Bread and Peanut Butter Cookie), 1 carton of almond milk, and 4 bottles of Suja juice (Glow, Fuel, Purify, and Vanilla Cloud). I really wanted to try the Fiji flavor, but sadly, they weren’t in stock. 😦

Shopping!

I did real shopping this afternoon. I’ve somehow lost the majority of my handy dandy sweat-wicking tanks, so I needed new ones. I also wanted to get a light, sweat-wicking long sleeved shirt for when it was kind of cold but not enough to wear an actual jacket.

I came out of the store with 1 Brooks tank, 2 New Balance shirts, 1 Nike pullover (it’s so light and snuggly!), and 2 packs of Gu Chomps for my long run tomorrow.

Can you spot my feetsies? (And a random lone shoe!)

That was all I intended to buy, until I stumbled upon the cutest boutique. They sold mostly dresses and jewelry, and while I’m not a huge jewelry fan, I love dresses. And they were all reasonably priced, too! As you might have foreseen already, this venture ended in the purchase of a dress and a top, both of which I can’t wait to wear.

     

And now that I’ve bored y’all to death, question of the evening: Do you prefer dresses or shirts/pants?

I typically just throw on a t-shirt and jeans (or put on the athletic clothing I’m planning on wearing for the next day’s workout if I’m feeling extremely low in the effort department), but I’m really trying to get more into dresses because I think they’re so pretty!

My First Post!

Hey guys! Welcome to my blog, where I want to share my food, my runs, my health journey, and my life with you! You can read more about me here. This has definitely been a work-in-progress, and it’s taken so much courage to finally start this.

My afternoon was perhaps one of the most perfect I’ve had in a while.

My afternoon snack today consisted of grapes from Whole Foods’ salad bar and Peanut Butter Finger’s Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding (substituting soy milk for almond milk because I didn’t have any almond milk).

This was my first venture with chia seeds, and I officially wish I could subsist off of these treasures for the rest of my life. They’re wonderfully gooey and crunchy at the same time. I can’t wait to use them in other foods!

I also made a Whole Foods run this afternoon. I typically take a trip to Whole Foods every week to get (good, non-high-fructose-corn-syrup-containing) yogurt and any side extras I want or need that my dining hall doesn’t offer. Some of my more notable purchases today included $5 for 5 Wallaby Organic Greek Yogurt (50% off!), Justin’s Maple Almond Butter (I’m in love with Justin’s nut butters), and Blueberry Muffin Larabars (my second favorite flavor, after Coconut Cream Pie).

Deeelicious food!

I spent most of the afternoon reading Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss on a bench outside of my dorm, in the most perfect weather and under a shining sun.

I’ve only gotten to the second chapter, but it seems incredibly interesting–and a little disgusting. I knew that the food industry was a little messed up these days, but I never really took time to think about just how much.