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When We Stop Using Food As A Sedative

I have been tracking every bit of food I eat and beverage I drink using (free!) FitDay.com for about six weeks now. I am learning a lot. The whole point of this commitment is simply to learn, and to understand, what it means to consume an appropriate number of calories. I am staying within a certain number and I find it shocking to see how much I can eat if I keep my food choices in the “whole and healthy” category. Shame about that fried food thing, innit? And oils and butter. Gee, I hadn’t realized that I was using around 6 tablespoons of whipped cream cheese on my toast. Whipped cream cheese is so low in calories! Right, when you use THREE tablespoons.

This isn’t rocket science or even very interesting to people who intuitively get this, or who aren’t compulsive overeaters. My goal for this phase in my life is to be healed of compulsive overeating, which is a lot different than trying to stick to a diet. I have no interest in dieting. I do have an interest in health and well-being.

My struggle right now is that I find it challenging to regulate my energy without the calming effect of a full stomach. Digestion takes energy, and since I am not currently compulsively overeating, I don’t have that natural sedative working for me. As a result, I am feeling a bit manic (I am not clinically manic, but the word is apt). Obviously I should exercise more and cut the caffeine, but this issue is more of a psychospiritual, or even mystical one, than that. I’m sure more exercise and doing without coffee, tea or Diet Coke would calm me somewhat, but I know myself by now. I’m 46, I understand the mechanism. The Holy Spirit, the gods, the Muse, whatever you want to call it, rides me hard and not always responsibly. I notice that since I stopped eating meat as regularly (and less food in general), I feel somehow less grounded.

Right now I am trusting that this is a temporary condition, and that my body and spirit will adjust in time to new patterns of consumption. But I wanted to ask my pigeons if you have experienced this yourselves, and if you have suggestions for maintaining a sense of groundedness during this time of transition. I know it’s ridiculous but some days I feel like I am going to blow away. It’s not hunger, it’s … inner emptiness, or space, and it gets filled up fast and intensely with energy.

Kiss of peace, dears!

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PeaceBang’s Favorite Salad

Zahtar Beets and Greens Salad

A big bowlful of greens. (I love the arugula mix from Trader Joe’s.)
Sliced cooked beets (not canned, for mercy’s sake!)
a sliced hard boiled egg
one big chunk of soft goat cheese
Zahtar spice (I found a bottle of this fantastic spice at a little gourmet deli in Key West)
a little handful of walnuts of raw sunflower seeds

Dressing: 2-3 Tbs olive oil whisked with 1 tb tahini sauce + salt and lemon pepper to taste.

Put your greens, egg, beets and goat cheese in a bowl. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and a healthy bunch of the delicious Zahtar spice. In a bowl, whisk the tahini and olive oil together, adding a pinch of salt and Zahtar. Drizzle over salad, tossing to coat well. Do not overdress, as the dressing is rich.


SisterBang came up with this general concept a few years ago and I have embellished a bit on it. It is the most delicious, satisfying meal. I am eating it for breakfast/lunch right now and thought I’d share it with you. It feels positively decadent!

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At the Weight Watchers Meeting

The leader likes to pass around a photo of herself 50 or so lbs. ago to show us how much weight she’s lost, and to gently make fun of her “before” image. “I had boobs out to here and a booty out to there,” she bubbles. She is a slim woman in a clingy wrap dress and if I could, I would snap her photo for a BTFM “Here’s how a good bra fits!!” Halo of Praise post. Check out this 14 day workout challenge that can help you lose some weight.

Today she did it again. Out came the cell phone photo, which we were to pass reverently around the group, making appropriate murmurs of approval. ooh, you look so good now compared to this, oooh, I can hardly believe that’s you… The leader repeated her “Boobs out to HERE and butt out to THERE” remark, adding, “I was all dressed up to go out with my husband that night, and I thought I looked pretty GOOD.”

The implication being, of course, that she was deluded. One can’t possibly be fat and look GOOD.

I have HAD it with this body shaming shit, and I decide to say something.
“I’m sure you did look good,” I say.
And she shoots back, “THANK you,” as though I have defended her from some invisible fat-phobic heckler. I haven’t though. The only fat-phobic heckler in the room is her. She looks around and makes a comic “I mean, REALLY!” face.
She’s sort of not getting it. She thinks I’m just being polite.

“No, I mean it.” I say. “I’m not here because I hate my fat body. And I don’t ever want to hold up a photograph of myself at any size and mock my body.” So, then I saw the best legal steroids online that can help me lose weight and improve my bodybuilding skills.

The room is deadly silent. I haven’t said the words in anger — it’s clearly not an outburst, so no one can easily dismiss me as the Crazy Lady At the Weight Watchers Meeting. I’m a woman speaking her mind, politely and calmly, but projecting enough so the whole room can hear.

The leader stands there, and her expression changes from peppy cheerleader to thoughtful leader. She says, “Yes, you’re right. I might have been beautiful but I didn’t feel like it on the inside.” We all nod. She has told us before that she lost 50 lbs. on Weight Watchers and then gained it back “because she thought she knew everything,” and then did that a second time. I think she has some emotional issues she might want to resolve so that she doesn’t put her body through that extremely stressful weight roller coaster again, which doctors say is more dangerous than being fat. I’m sorry that WW International doesn’t work with their leaders on having healthy inner lives before they perpetuate toxic attitudes while counseling groups of people on weight loss by advising them to use cbd oil due to the studies in articles at https://thecannabisradar.com/.

Whether she or the group “got it” or not, my point is that too many weight loss programs have an unexamined, unchallenged and unspoken policy of fat shaming and fat hating. If women are encouraged to hate our fat bodies, we’ll buy more of their product, participate in their programs, and become the kind of conservative weight loss evangelicals who work for Weight Watchers, lead their meetings (at least the ones I’ve attended in my life), preach their gospel and sell their ideology, books, magazines and food products for them.

I like Weight Watchers. I think it’s awesome that they’re now focused on whole foods and de-emphasizing processed crap. I love that they’ve recognized that people used to eat their “points” in empty calories, and that they now encourage better eating habits and not just point counting. That’s fantastic. However, they are still part of a wider culture that teaches women (and to a lesser extent, men) that fat bodies are outlaw, unacceptable, evidence of laziness and immoral choices.

I’m glad I spoke up. Getting healthier is not just a number on a scale. We’ve got to think healthier thoughts, too, at whatever weight we are.

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Slow Down When Things Speed Up

Just a quick note, loveys.

PeaceBang’s ministerial world is at the level of busyness and intensity that you all know, but hope won’t hit more than once in a rare while. All shall be well.

However, after the phone rang this morning with a pastoral emergency on top of another, unrelated, pastoral crisis, I sat myself down for one minute of deep breathing. I slowed down. I walked quietly down the stairs, took the dog out for his walk, did not yank him or berate him for not pooping fast enough, came inside and made myself my breakfast smoothie. That took all of fifteen minutes.

I got in the car, logged my miles, and put on my seat belt. I made a couple of quick phone calls while in the car, but stayed totally calm until I got the hospital.

Everyone at the hospital seemed to be on Special Sweet and Friendly Mode today. How nice!

The calm lasted through the day, until about 7pm when I just got too tired and hungry (even though I had had a 4pm snack). I got home, did not ignore my hunger, made an ok dinner of eggs, and did some cleaning before sitting down to work on a funeral Order of Service. Tomorrow I am attending a leadership conference all day and I do not want to be late, miss it, or attend it in a frazzled or exhausted state.

I made sure to write down everything I ate today. I stayed on my food program. I attribute all of that to reigning myself in during the first hours of my day, going calmly, slowing down, and breathing.

I have a big post coming pretty soon but given the realities of parish life right now, it might be awhile. Meanwhile, ducklings, how goes it with you? I feel myself distancing myself from political debates and overly-concepty conversations about church that feature tons of lingo that only church development insiders know. I find a lot of peace and meaning in focusing on the immediate community right now. Yesterday I went to pay a pastoral call on a woman whom I didn’t know was in the hospital, and took a short walk across her farm, through the woods, and up the hill through a field. The late afternoon light was gorgeous and just gazing out over her beloved homestead was very special. We have had an extraordinarily mild New England winter.

God be with you.

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You Can’t Eat Energy: On Treating the Body Like Balaam’s Ass

FATNESS, AHOY!

Oy. Well, I’m going to SHARE because I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this and by writing about it I may get some clarity and resolve. Because if I know one thing about my pigeons it is that you’re wise and supportive and will not commit the irritating sin of throwing a lot of well-meaning advice at me that I already KNOW. Geez, I hate that.

When I fell off the treadmill at the end of October I sprained my left foot in a very interesting way that caused my chiropractor to sarcastically congratulate me for my creativity (I adore him, so please don’t feel that I was offended — we make each other laugh). The injury has cost me hundreds of dollars in medical bills in the form of chiropractic adjustments and massage. This is worth the expense to me, as I am just too old to bounce back from this sort of thing using my old technique of Ignoring It Until It Gets Better On It Own.

So the thing is, this wasn’t a huge injury or anything — just bad enough to keep me off balance and in fairly constant mild discomfort. Bad enough to mess with my general alignment and bad enough to keep me out of the gym. Ha ha!! Like I had been anywhere NEAR the gym! Ha ha! But I HAD been walking regularly and I had been dancing and doing some physical activity and I had not been engaged in the sort of competitive-style eating that the holidays tends to encourage both in the form of Festive Occasions and in the form of “I’m So Tired Let Me Just Stuff Bread Into My Face Until I Feel Alive Again.”

I start each day with a super healthy smoothie packed full of things like acai and flax seed oil and a banana and greens and whey protein. Then I am nice and sated and forget to eat again until about 4pm, at which point I am stupidly ravenous and berating myself for missing lunch. So I either stuff my face at that point and feel miserably full until I’m hungry again around 11pm, or I drink a bunch of coffee or tea and then stuff my face a few hours later for dinner.

This isn’t an everyday occurrence but I’m not going to lie to you: it’s way too regular a practice. And it’s really bad. I know that, my nutritionist knows it, you know it and God knows it (well, I’m not sure that God knows it since God is sort of beyond nutritional knowledge in my theology, but you know what I mean).

I realized today that this horrible cycle isn’t just a matter of not being present to my own body, it is about realizing — DUH –that I cannot consume energy in the form of food. Energy comes from general health and well-being, and those things happen from being in balance. If I need to rest, I need to REST, not to eat. If I am exhausted from being in low-grade pain from a sprained foot, I need to take some Advil and get off the foot and rest, not eat my weight in baked beans.

A therapist or nutritionist told me years ago — or maybe I figured this out myself? Or maybe I read it in Geneen Roth — that our bodies can interpret tiredness as hunger. By some messed up process, the tired person’s brain sends signals to the stomach saying, “Oh wow, we are SO hungry right now! In fact, we are so hungry that we are in danger of starving to death! We better go tear into a loaf of bread and a big chunk of cheese immediately before we pass out and die!” And so the tired body stumbles to the fridge and, like a zombie Weight Watchers defector, slaps together a Dagwood and consumes it while standing at the counter. ARGH ARARRARAR NOM NOM NOM Then the zombie lurches back to the study to finish its sermon.

I am going to try this radical plan, my friends. Three meals a day or six snacks. Please don’t feel you need to instruct me on the methods to curtail this madness; I know them. What I need is your compassion and solidarity, as you have mine. All I want to try to do is be more present to my body, to its pain and its need for rest, and not treat it like Balaam treated his ass (Numbers 22: 21-38, one of my fave stories). My body is not just an instrument that keeps me upright and works the fingers so they can type my thoughts, or a thing that I drive around in the car so it can keep company with the suffering or attend meetings. It is not just a preaching machine or a laundry, cooking and grocery shopping robot. It is not just a thing to be enclosed in spandex and adorned with make-up and hot boots in order to be attractive on a date. It is a dwelling place of God’s own spirit, a fearfully and wonderfully made incarnation of divine love and holy purpose. It is a human being and deserves tender and attentive care and courtesy.

As do yours, my doves. Please be kind to yourselves, feed yourselves well and with reverence, and ask for help when you need it. Lots of love from Sister PeaceBang.


Hey Balaam! Quit smiting your ass!