real food daily | Left Coast Contessa

Today was the first day of reading period. I have a love hate relationship with the first day of finals. Last year Izzy almost choked to death on her food. Last Spring I was worried about getting all my work done on time. I am happy to report that today was nothing but productive! This is the first time I’ve had a car during finals and I have to say, it feels really good to get out of Westwood when studying.

First I went to Panera for a bagel breakfast. Note, the reading you see is maybe half of my Critical Race Theory reading. No kidding.

Oy. Discovery of the day: Panera started listing calories! I felt good about this everything bagel at 300 calories (I also ate an apple). I was horrified by the counts though. I used to, well, binge at Panera. Is binge the right word for consuming 1500 calories? I think so.

Oh well, that’s over now. Moving on.

I was super productive at Panera. I worked diligently and didn’t even listen to music. I took minimal facebook, email, twitter breaks and didn’t watch any Youtube videos. Who am I?! I worked from 9:30 until noon.

Around noon I realized that I needed a break. I drove and parked at the Santa Monica Library and walked to Real Food Daily. The last time I went to RFD was for a blogger meet up and I knew I wanted to go back. Today was the perfect chance! I got a small plate because I had other snacks packed (like a Z Bar). I choose the BLT Tartine.

Look at that avocado! Love!

The sandwich has vegannaise which is totally better than mayonnaise, at least in my opinion. This was an excellent lunch pick me up. Next time I go to RFD I’ll make sure to say hey to Katie who gets to work there! Can you even imagine all the amazing food? Must be the best job ever.

After I ate I ambled back to the Santa Monica Library for more work. I was very, very productive. On the way home I picked this little guy up from Susie Cakes…

He was yummy. Then I went on a 4 mile run which was good but kind of cold. I need to work out a system for when its under 60 degrees and I go running.

Dinner was grilled salmon with salt, pepper, EVO, thyme and cumin (random I know). But it turned out pretty fantastic! I also had roasted Brussels sprouts and sweet potato fries.

Side dishes!

The sweet potatoes were left in a little too long but you know, it happens.The Salmon was DELISH and took a short amount of time to cook. I have leftovers and I cannot wait to dig into them tomorrow!

Now I am watching Glee and Biggest Loser. If Ada doesn’t make it to the final 4 I am going to go insane! Hope everyone had a productive day!

Finals: Day 1

Cookies Consumed: 1

YouTube Videos watched: 1 (thanks to vivi. It can be viewed here)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a blogger meet up with some LA area Healthy Living Bloggers. We met at Real Food Daily in Santa Monica, which I have been dying to try for months.

Real Food Daily features vegan and organic food. I have heard high praise from my friend Molly who claims it has the best fake bacon of all time. I tried it and it was pretty freaking good.

I was so excited a few weeks ago when Monica contacted me and asked it I wanted to attend a meet up. Of course I said yes.

Attendees included: Ameena @ Fancy That…Fancy This, Andy & Amanda @ Two Boos Who Eat, Brittany @ Pretty Fit, Pretty Healthy, Pretty Happy, Deb @ Smoothie Girl Eats Too, Erika @ Health and Happiness in LA, Jenn @ Girl Heroes, Kaitlin @ Kaitlin With Honey, Katie @ A Joy In Class. Everyone was super nice and you should check out their blogs! Add to your google reader!

It was so refreshing to be in a room with a group of people that are all bloggers! Everyone talked about food, photography, running, the blog community at large, and the Foodbuzz Fest (I wish I was going so bad!). The healthy living community is so supportive. I’m glad I get to be apart of it.

For lunch I made sure I got something with fake bacon. I settled on the club sandwich:

This sandwich was bar none the best vegan food I have ever had. All the ingredients were very fresh and Molly was right, amazing fake bacon. This sandwich didn’t stand a chance.

After lunch we headed outside for more photos.

Benefit of hanging out with bloggers? I’m not the only one taking a copious number of pictures.

This is Amanda, Kaitlin and I. We are talking about running a half marathon together. I hope it works out because they are both awesome! It was a total trip to meet both of them because I love their blogs and communicate with them all the time over Twitter.

Overall, the blogger meet up was a huge success! Thanks again to Monica for organizing it. We should do it again soon!

**Special thanks to Amanda and Andy for letting me use some of your pics**