Seven Starchless Sunsets

Hello. My name is Lauren and I love bread. Rice. Pasta. Potatoes. And did I mention bread?

Jason and I are going for one full week without any bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, or anything else we deem to starchy.  I don't think I'm going to dramatically lose weight or miraculously cure my ailments (this is only a week, after all) but its enough to give my poor body a break for a bit and teach myself to eat more veggies. I don't really remember what prompted me to do it, but last week I decided that, by golly, I was going to go an entire week without bread/starch.  I told Jason of this fact and he said "okay, I'll do it too" and I said "really?" because I had expected him to say "okay, you have fun with that sweetie. I'll eat your pizza and garlic bread for you."  He likes to surprise me sometimes.

Anyway, we started yesterday (because of my traveling and going home and needing to compulsively eat as much nostalgia-inducing lasagne as possible) and it was really hard. I didn't give myself much of a chance after coming back to plan out a meal, so I had to scrape together a lunch for Tuesday with whatever I had already prepared. That ended up being.... wait for it.....

1) A can of green beans
2) A colby-jack cheese stick
3) Honey-drizzled walnuts (Heaven fell out of the sky. I could eat these all day long)

Lets just say lunch left a lot to be desired yesterday. Like more food.  Dinner, however, was tasty. We made teriyaki salmon and sauteed green beans and zucchini. The green beans were good... but I still prefer them not crunchy. I didn't grow up eating crunchy green beans and crunchy green beans give my mouth the memory of things like undercooked pasta. But for undercooked-pasta-green-beans, they were pretty delicious. Zucchini was amazing. Sauteed zucchini always is. It rarely disappoints, that wonderful veggie.

Anywhoozle, today has gone a lot smoother. I planned out breakfast and lunch and we're going to have pork chops with apples and onions and sweet potato fries for dinner. Very excited. (And we decided sweet potatoes were acceptable since they are much healthier than white potatoes and exceedingly delicious.)

One thing that has hit us both already is the sheer amount of bread/starch we consume.  I can look through my fridge and cupboard and see bagels, sandwich bread, hot dog buns, rice, pasta galore, pizza. Mountains of bread!! And while I don't ever plan on cutting bread out of my life, I think already, my eyes have been opened enough to cut way back on it.  I do not need a bagel for breakfast, dirty rice for lunch, spaghetti for dinner with garlic bread on the side. No matter how good it sounds to my cramping tummy. (tmi? sorry.) And, I'm sad to say, I've had days just like that.

So my goal this week is to conquer the power of the Starch Side and use it for good. Wish me luck in battle.