Category: Feeding The Pastor

Wow, hey, ChubBang has had an Insight!

I lost about 15 lbs. between last summer and the winter, and then I started eating to beat the band and just did. not. care. I could not bring myself to give a rat’s ass about my overeating. It almost felt like a relief. So, because I do not believe in wasting any bit of our lives in self-hatred or ridiculous levels of criticism, and I also don’t have a pathological fear and hatred of fat, I regarded this shift with compassion and curiosity, asking myself, what’s the deal, kid?

Some of was pain. I hurt myself in January while walking the dog and to make a long story short, my mobility has been impaired and I’ve been in a lot of physical discomfort for months. Eating was pleasurable and distracting.

But I realized that some of it was defense, and this was new. Due to circumstances in my personal life, I had added a lot of extra worry and concern and anxiety to my customary ration of that (which, for pastors, is an ever-present reality that we embrace and accept as part of our calling).

I have been eating as a barrier to feeling all that fear and overwhelmedness, and more than that, I have been gaining weight as an outward expression of an irrational fear of being consumed. My nutritionist advised to use cbd according to the recent studies she found at Cannabisherald.co

I’m guessing that the unconscious and irrational fear of being totally consumed by others is not uncommon among the clergy, many of whom are very overweight. So for what it’s worth, my compulsive overeating colleagues, I offer you my current reflection, “Vic, you actually do not have to get physically larger and heavier to protect yourself from being devoured. Just figure out what your boundaries are and lovingly set them.” These are the best legal steroids you can acquire online that have no side effects and also helps you reduce some weight.

Please, no advice or dieting tips needed. I promise you that no fat person needs to hear “what worked for you.” We all know how weight loss works. I am not interested in how anyone eats, but in what is eating us.

Peace, darlings.

Well, it’s high time I told you about Penzey’s Spices if I haven’t already. These people are awesome and cook with me almost every day.

I LOVE salt and am trying to cut back on it, and this delicious seasoning is one of the only spice mixes I’ve tried that makes me forget all about the salt shaker:

It’s got garlicky, herbal flavor for days and I especially love it on avocado or popcorn.

This Turkish Seasoning does have salt in it but it is so flavorful, you don’t need much. I mix this with yogurt to create a yummy non-fat sauce for falafel or barley or smashed up chickpeas on toast:

Just a reminder that I don’t get any deals or discounts from companies whose products I recommend. It’s all for the love, darlings. And our mutual health — yours and mine.

I find that it’s very easy to cut out sugar OR to cut back on high fat foods (like fried chicken wings, which I love more than any sweet stuff), but not both. Ain’t that the damndest?

But it’s a one day at a time life. I do find that drinking plenty of liquids helps a LOT with not getting cravings in general. Drinking plenty and getting to bed at a decent hour. That’s the key to every good thing, so how come it’s so danged hard?

I don’t know about you, but I feel a renewed sense of commitment to my health. There’s too much to do to witness to sanity and decency in the world right now for me to not do my best to be at peak performance.

I have some Lenten commitments that help me feel right in my heart and life, and right with GAWD.

Isn’t it hard to talk about our relationships with God in a way that doesn’t sound smarmy and pious? I hate being smarmy and pious so I’ll stick with irreverent, thankyouverymuch.

On my recent vacation, I had one goal: to pay attention to what I require in order to feel good in body, mind and spirit. That’s all I did. And it turned out to be extremely valuable. I got clear about the following things. I call them the “I Need This And It’s Okay.”

1. I need a lot of time to transition from being awake to being in the day.

This is huge for my mental and emotional health! When I open my eyes, I need silence and calm. This means that I need to get to bed early enough whenever possible to not require an alarm to wake up.
In the silence and calm, I think things out. I think things like,

What am I hoping to get done today?
Who most needs my time?
How is that work going?
Who’s at the very top of my ‘get back to’ or ‘pray for’ or ‘visit’ list?
How am I feeling about that meeting we had yesterday?
Is the issue resolved or do I need to do follow-up?
What’s coming up that I need to plan for?
God, can you help me with a story for my sermon?

This is just lying in bed thinking. I need this time. If I don’t get or take this time I feel out of breath, rushed and frazzled by 10 AM.
You might call this prayer. Sometimes it is prayer.
A lot of the time, actual prayer time happens later in the day or at night in bed on the other side of the day.

2. No aggravation before 10 AM.

This means that most e-mails get read later in the morning.
There is nothing so important that it can’t be postponed ’til late morning. This helps me keep my perspective on everything, and I believe it has helped my stress level and mindfulness about how to respond to challenging issues.

3. I need to take my dog for a proper walk.

Back everything up. He gets a half an hour of unrushed snorfling time, even if it takes me ten minutes to get the both of us dressed for the cold, and lately it does. Did you know that they make little doggie galoshes? They do, and my beagle wears them because if he doesn’t he gets ice stuck in his paw pads and salt burns.

4. I need to properly feed myself and my animals.

This means actual breakfast and coffee, not gulped on the run. Not a Power Bar. Not a string cheese. The animals don’t get kibble slapped into a bowl. They get a thoughtfully prepared meal, even if it’s just kibble. It’s all in the way I prepare it for them.

5. I need to read.

Even 20 minutes of reading helps me feel grounded in wisdom and sanity. It has to be something good, but it has to be concentrated reading, not clicking.

6. I need to keep food at church.

It has meant the world to me to have small containers of actual food at church. It means everything not to scarf down a Power Bar at 4pm or go home starved and light-headed.

7. I need to cook.

See how simple these things are? Feed myself and others. Rest. Wake calmly. The cooking thing is essential for me to feel connected to how I am feeding myself. It is essential. When I don’t cook for a week or even four or five days I feel like an orphan, and it doesn’t matter if I go to restaurants or get good take-out. It’s the alchemy of taking out the ingredients and patiently and creatively and gratefully transforming them into delicious food that I eat in my own home off of my own plates that nourishes me. Cooking is love, and I feel love when I cook. I also make food for others and that makes me happy.

8. I need to have something fun to look forward to in the not-too-far future.

Dinner with friends. Someone stopping over for coffee. A theatre outing. A date with a cute guy. A fresh setting that isn’t church or home, the grocery store or the snow piled sidewalks.

9. I need to stop working at the end of the day.

Just stop. If I have a night meeting, I have to work. But I try not to have too many night meetings.

10. I need to recognize that I cannot participate in and support every worthy organization that begs my loyalty and attention.

I cannot keep up with the demand as a minister on behalf of my congregation and I cannot keep up with the demand as a private citizen. I must choose a few that I can support and accept that I have to let a lot of pleas for time, talent and treasure go unanswered. It’s hard, but it’s the only way I can stay clear and not drown in requests.

It feels selfish to make a list of personal needs in the season of Lent, which calls us to deny ourselves (please, darlings, don’t give me that new-fangled thing about how Lent is now about ADDING something. That’s crap! Give me my hair shirt and my ashes!). But while my timing may not be liturgically on fleek (and I believe I am the first to use “on fleek” in that context), it is honest and authentic. I needed to get clear about my needs and try to live into them for my own good and the good of my ministry.

How about you, dumplings? What do you need? What are you becoming aware that you need? Line ’em up. Let’s look at them.

I was feeling so entirely crummy. I was just dragging myself around. I was so blue. I couldn’t get my mojo going. And then I started to feel remarkably better. I could hop out of bed some of my customary peppiness! I could do smart things like start the morning with a big glass of lemon water. I could bother to do my skin care regimen at night. I started cooking nutritious meals, and getting some spring in my step again.

So I reviewed my food journal and my calendar to see if I could trace the source of the crumminess.

And you know, it was all because of sugar.
A half a dozen tiny Halloween candies at night over a period of a few nights. A cookie here and there. A sugary cocktail.

Blech! Grrrrr! And other cartoon noises! I am not super hyper-vigilant about sugar intake; I get plenty of it through ketchup and a teaspoon of jam now and then, or a shot of cider, or fruit. But I really, really cannot tolerate refined sugar and especially not in the form of chemicalicious mass produced candy. So: lesson learned.

Hey, are any of you eating fermented foods to aid in health and digestion? I’m going to blog on that soon. Until then, make mine Stevia.