Food Freedom through Spiritual Fasting with Sr. Josephine Garrett

Welcome to the sixth episode of the Delay and Pray Podcast! In this final episode of 2022, Beth is interviewing her favorite nun, Sr. Josephine Garrett, CSFN. They first met during the Our Sunday Visitor $100K Challenge; afterwards, Sr. Josephine joined Beth’s Delay and Pray Program. Sr. Josephine is a Sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth and a licensed therapist. 

Goals

Lose weight! Sr. Josephine explains that her experiences with weight and food have been a concern since childhood. She was attracted to Beth’s Delay and Pray Program as a way to lose weight while including God in the process. 

Results

Over the twelve weeks of the program, Sr. Josephine did experience some weight loss, but she emphasizes that the real takeaway was the richness of spiritual fasting, and understanding how involved God is with her experiences with food. 

CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

Sr. Josephine admits that, as a therapist, she was initially prejudiced against the thought model of the Delay and Pray Program, which she recognized as a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) model. However, as she began journaling, she gained a new respect for this process. 

Intermittent Fasting

Sr. Josephine discusses how powerful the intermittent fasting portion of the Delay and Pray Program was for her. Her mornings of fasting became her richest time of prayer. She did experience slight hunger, but more than that, she experienced a spiritual and mental tension that created a desire for the chapel. Beth refers this back to a quote from Fr. Ripperger, who says that mortification leads to delight. 

Group Sessions

Sr. Josephine says she found the group to be equally helpful, whether she was being coached or listening to someone get coached. She still thinks of some of the reframed thoughts from those sessions. She particularly thinks the thought “slow is the only way” when she is tempted to try a program that promises significant weight loss in a short amount of time. She also mentions how journaling helped her uncover the shame that was crippling her weight loss journey.

Beth describes her own goals for 2023 as a pilgrimage, during which she will embrace failure multiple times. Sr. Josephine offers that, entering in a spirit of prayer, sacrifice and receptivity, we can look up from this journey and realize that we’ve been given a gift from God, rather than drudging through a journey of our own manufacturing.

Holy Days, Solemnities, and Sundays

Beth brings up the Eat Fast Feast cycle, and the importance of truly celebrating the historical and deeply important mysteries listed in our liturgical calendar. 

Sr. Josephine admits that she had initial fear around the Feast days, worrying that celebrating on a Feast day would challenge her ability to moderate her feasting or to return to the fast the following day. In recognizing this fear, she became aware of her struggles with food, the limits she’s placed on God, and the self-sufficiency she was practicing. Over time, she has learned not to be afraid of her failures, because she knows how to look at the failure with God.  

Conclusion

In the spirit of failing forward, Beth comments that she was initially afraid to publicly speak about the Faith, because she didn’t want to say anything incorrect. A YouTube video by Sr. Josephine challenged her to confront that fear, and she now credits Sr. Josephine as her inspiration to begin this podcast.