106: Food, Glorious Food and Sustainable Weight Strategies for Ministry Leaders

Let's peel back the curtain of battles with diets from Atkins to Weight Watchers, and I'll share how I learned to navigate the emotional minefields that can sabotage our healthiest intentions. 

This episode isn't just about what you eat, it's about the challenges we face with food.  I'll share how adapting your weight management approach to fit your lifestyle is more effective than chasing the latest diet fads. From the debate over how often to step on the scale to the benefits of tracking your diet and exercise with the latest tech, I'll chat about the choices that can keep you focused on good health so you can go the distance with God. Join me as we tackle these topics and more, all while supporting each other in our quest for a balanced life in service and beyond.

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Finding Sustainability in Ministry and Diet

Margie 0:01

Hey there , Margie Bryce here bringing you the Crabby Pastor podcast , and I don't think you're going to be too surprised to know that it's too easy today to become the Crabby Pastor . Our time together will give you food for thought to help you be the ministry leader , fully surrendered to God's purposes and living into whatever it takes to get you there and keep you there . So we're talking about sustainability in ministry . So how do the pieces of your life fit together ? Do they fit together well and things are humming along just fine , or are there some pieces that are tight or absent or just not fitting the bill ? This is your invitation to join me in my glass workshop for a video series , where I am going to do a stained glass project while I talk to you about sustainability and building sustainability into your heart and into your life . So I am going to be doing my art , which is a form of self-care , and I'm going to invite you into that space with me and I'm going to chat . I'm going to chat about self-care and I'm going to show you how I create , and there's a nifty , nifty analogy . Stained glass seems to be a very good metaphor for what I want to talk about , so I'd love for you to join me . To do that , opt in . I'll need you to email me at Crabby Pastor at gmail dot com . That's Crabby Pastor at gmail dot com , so you won't want to miss this . You definitely won't want to miss this . So make a plan to join me in the glass workshop .

Margie 2:07

It's Margie Bryce with the CrabbyPaster Podcast and we are going to be talking . I'm just diving right into this . You know , just like you dive into a big plate of spaghetti , we're diving into food today . Food , food , food . I have to confess , if there's ever a famine in the land , I will indeed be the last person standing this very slow metabolism that I have been gifted with . Yeah , it's kind of a pain . But the other thing , the other way I could self-describe then , is that I used to own a horse and well , actually more than one and one of them was no matter how much hay you threw in there , he would still , his rips would still be showing and I'm like what is going on . So he had a different kind of metabolism than the other horse , where you just throw a little bit of hay into the pen and she would stay nice and fat . So I would be more like horse number two and I would just hang on to whatever weight , just pokey , pokey , pokey , slow metabolism . So I've done various things over the years . I've done a lot of things . You know , years ago I did Adkins , you know , and there's now they reframe that as keto and I get it . Actually , you know you're controlling your carbs and all of that kind of thing and you know I think it worked for me for a time Actually this might be back in the 80s or something 80s , 90s and it did work .

Margie 4:02

But I'm sorry people , no bread ever is , or hardly . It's just not , not , not sustainable for me . And that that's where I went in many instances was what ? What could I do for the long term , the long haul ? And that's where I have to hang out .

Margie 4:27

And I have to do something because I know that if you let me run around in the yard wherever I want to go , in the yard of food , that is wherever I want to go you let me just run . I know where that takes me and it takes me to the land of overweight . Too much , too much . So I have to be doing something . And , trust me , I kind of loathe that actually , that I really have to be this attentive to what I feed my face . I'm thinking this is going to drop like right before a holiday Sunday , so , yay , that's probably going to make your day . But what I have done , you know , because I have done the counting macros . You know where you divide , how much protein you're eating , how much carbs , how much fat , all of that I've done that For some reason .

Margie 5:28

That just doesn't work for me and I know it works for a lot of people , but I have . In fact , I probably should confess this along the way too , because I'm really not meaning to Make any kind of sales pitch at all . Trust me , I don't like doing that kind of thing at all . But I am a former weight watcher leader and you know you can sit in weight watchers and people will always say , well , okay , this is my third time or fifth time or 25th time rejoining . Why is that ? Because we are all foodies in there , not foodies as in the eclectic folk who taste tantalizing meals and they know what they're talking about and what different Sensations there are and how their palates are developing in regards to food .

Margie 6:25

Not that kind of foodie . So it would be the kind of foodie where you know All right , wendy , you know I would say that I eat . When I'm bored , I eat . When I'm anxious , I eat when Well , just , I mean those two alone . When are you not one of those one of you're not bored , when you're not English anxious , you know . So you know kind of identifying what your triggers are , and Weight watchers does help you do that , although they did .

Margie 6:56

I remember the week that he said you know what's your trigger food , or what's the food that you just have to have , or , and I thought , I don't know , I don't have one of , and it finally came . I finally figured it out like Months later that it is chocolate . I have to have some form of Chocolate , so I have to devise ways to make that happen where I'm not , you know , gonna down like a whole box of ho ho's or Something like that . So , yeah , all right . So what what I felt like Weight Watchers did for me was give me a yard to run around in and I'm safe as long as I'm in that yard and and there's a lot of flexibility with it and you can eat bread in that . I mean , of late I have gone to sourdough only .

Margie 7:47

I am blessed to have a niece that Not only does she raise organic vegetables , which all year round in a hoop house and she's very ambitious , but she's taken to sourdough bread , which is only a couple of ingredients actually , and she'll do organic flour and whatever . So I'm kind of just for the sake of whatever I , that's my bread resource at the moment , because you know I can't go the rest of my life without bread . I am not gonna go the rest of my life without cake either . That just is not realistic and it's not long-term sustainable , you know , and at the end of the day you have to find something that works for you . And that's that can be annoying , because I think I've spent a lot of years plumbing the depths of that , what would work for me . And I kind of have learned a good bit along the way , although Life gets in the way , doesn't it ?

Margie 8:53

We were in a small group meeting and I did pretty good with with the meal . I mean , I knew that they may or may not be cooking according to what I would prefer to eat and I had made allowances for that . But then they stuck this I guess it was called a tuxedo cake , you know and they stuck a piece in front of me and it wasn't a huge piece and I , you know , I don't make a big deal with them about what my food Things are , because there's a lot of people with food things today and it just it's . You know , I didn't want to be the added food thing . So I you know , and that day I just said , man , I'm eating this cake , and it was if I had taken two bites and went this is not a worthwhile cheat . I can stop because I just don't want to waste my little points like that . But this was definitely a worthwhile cheat . So I Went home and I looked it up and , oh my goodness , I thought I was gonna stroke out because it was 24 points and I keep in mind that my daily allotment of points is 23 .

Margie 10:13

So on , on the Weight Watchers gig here which I have returned to , this is at least three number three , third time I've joined , I think . I just I just went back to what I knew had worked for me previously and it was cheap . I got a good deal . You know , those are two kind of Non-negotiables for me ten bucks a month . I can do this and I can do it on my own . I know how to do this . But 23 points a day now you get a daily amount , but then you have this thing called your weeklies , and sometimes your weeklies increase depending on how much exercise you do and and I do a decent amount of that and but yeah , I just about stroked out . But you know that week is a week that I lost and I Was scratching my head about that . But Because I was on a three-week plateau , you know , and nothing ticks me off more Then to be working hard at something and not getting any results , that is just Beyond annoying to me , absolutely beyond annoying . So , all right , so I ate the piece of cake and said , well , that's just too bad . I mean , I think I had enough in my weekly bank to cover it , but it was . It was shocking none the less , I mean , anyhow . So I ate the cake .

Weight Management Tips and Mindset

Margie 11:42

But along the way here I have picked up a couple things that I wanted to pass along to you as a Maybe a fellow Sufferer . I've seen people in the Facebook group say oh yeah , you know , food is a thing for me . Number one is you do have to find what works and what you can be at peace with . I mean , maybe it's keto , I don't know , but that just wasn't gonna do it for me . Yeah , and I've had some friends doing various things . I think one friend was doing a process and program through Mayo Clinic and she said it wasn't expensive . She was eating a ridiculous amount of vegetables and leeks and all kind of weird stuff and doing all these new menus and Brand new recipes and I just thought I know , I will not do that . I know I just will not Do that . So knowing that about myself kind of brought me back To what I knew had worked for me in the past and I thought I I just have to dig down and do it . And I got to tell you about that digging down and just doing it .

Margie 12:56

If there is any level of Stress or trauma going on in your life , I think it is very difficult to dig down and do it . I have been trying to dig down and do it for the past couple years and just I just could not get myself going with it . I just could not . So finally , some of the stress level has , you know , abated , it's gone down , and then I'm like , okay , I think , I think I'm in a good place here . I need to get back at it . However , I have to add that as Some major sources of stress start to increase because I noticed this , my three-week plateau , I think was connected to this because at the exact same time there were a couple things that could have caused a little stress .

Margie 13:54

One was just some general relational stress with , with people I know , and the other the other was I Finally decided to pick up some free weights and do a thing at home and I had a friend whose husband is a no-neck guy . You know , wait , professional weight lifter person , help put together . I said , just put something together for me , will you ? That's just like two times a week . I will do two times a week , that's , you know , that's what I know , that I will like , really do so .

Margie 14:31

But when you start something new like this and your body's going wait , wait , wait , it does cause a level of stress and you have to give your body time to adjust to that . Okay , fine , we did that . And then the stress , the relational stress , kind of abated and then all of a sudden , the way it started Coming back off . I , you know what can you say ? But as you are Tracking , that kind of thing is you're tracking your weight , you know If you're getting on the dreaded scale and some people say you need to get on every day so that you can learn To understand and live with the daily fluctuations of the weight .

Margie 15:12

I , you know I can't do that . I don't need to get on the scale first thing in the morning and and then have a two pound increase because I had Mrs Grass soup with extra noodles and there's an outrageous amount of sodium in there . But still , after you've done something like that and you get on the scale and suddenly you're up two or three pounds , even though you know it's because you ate sodium , you start the day off cheesed . Who needs that ? I don't . So I , when I'm gonna get on the scale , I know that I have an eight out for a couple of days and I haven't , I don't know . There there was one gallon weight watchers that always the night before away and she would eat a bunch of asparagus because it was a diuretic . I thought I don't know . I I don't think I would have pulled that off , so I just didn't bother with it , but she could always do that .

Margie 16:09

So maybe getting on once or twice a week again , you've got to figure out what's gonna work for you , if you can become friends with your scale because you get on every day and you see the couple pounds of Fluctuation and you're okay with it . You're not starting the day off cheesed off because of it , then by all means do it . But you need to at least measure and be aware . And I think it's James Clear that says he's the author of Atomic Habits . He says you measure , you care about what you measure , or you measure what you care about One of the two of them . Either way . Either way , the net result is you got to become friends with getting on the scale at some point , whether it's weekly or every day . I would not do every day , but it's up to you . Go for it .

Margie 16:59

The same thing goes with your movement . You know , that's kind of the code word for exercise , but movement , how much movement you're doing , and I like my Apple Watch for that , which is indeed synced to the Weight Watcher app . So we know how that all is going . So if I'm on the indoor bike because it's Michigan and I do not get outside on the bike bike until it's 47 degrees at the least and I know this because I got on the bike when it was 46 degrees and I said never again , this is too cold . So 47 degrees is my minimum , which we might , I don't know . Sometimes we're lucky , right now it's we're kind of lucky out there . But I did get on the indoor bike and you know it self calculates and I'm I'm good with that . But again I'm measuring something because I want to be able to have a piece of tuxedo cake and it's not like the end of the world .

Margie 18:02

So I am firmly entrenched in tracking what I eat , which , when I'm off and not doing it , it just seems overwhelming , just the idea of writing down everything I eat . Well , I don't write it down , I track it in the app , which you know they have a nice little app going . I will say that for them . But you know my fitness bell is also a good gig too , if you can kind of get that rolling . So I will track and keep track of what I am putting in my face here .

Margie 18:44

Here's the thing I I can easily under eat , and I know that's that's weird . I just got to a discussion on some Facebook group that I said you can't , you cannot under eat because and this is the very annoying fact of weight loss you can't under eat , you can't over eat . So you have to kind of learn that , your upper boundaries and your lower boundaries . Which is why I like Weight Watchers , because then I have this little area that I know I can run in and I'm happy with that . So so you can't under eat , you can't over eat . You actually can under eat and just start gaining weight because your body is like what , what is there ? Is there starvation in the land ? Is there a famine here ? Is there what food shortages , what ? What's going on ? So eating less is not going to be helpful , and I can very easily eat less and get by in life .

Margie 19:49

So so one other quick thing that I will give you is that and it's easy to do this which is eat the same foods all the time , in the same quantities , and , as I said , it's just quick , convenient . Well , I ate this yesterday so I could get by with that again today . You know your body does better when you vary the pace , because then your metabolism is like what is going on ? Okay , she ate . Let's say , for example , here that it's 23 points a day . Or if you want to say calories I don't know we'll say 1450 calories is your daily intake , and you know , you could probably multiply that times seven-ish and get an idea for the week . But maybe one day you want to eat 100% of your allotment the next day 85% . The next day 110% , the next day you see what I'm saying have a varied intake amount and that will kind of help your metabolism going . And keep in mind you're getting this straight from the horse's mouth here , the the easy keepers mouth that varying things up will indeed net you that nut in your metabolism .

Margie 21:25

And I think , the most important thing of everything that I've said here , you know , as someone who has I struggle is seems very insufficient , very insufficient to what I've done since I was in my 30s and I said to myself I do not want to trot down the family path of the diabetes , if I can help it , because there was a lot , lot , lot of that type two and that , basically , is where you know , where you just pooped out your pancreas and it just can't go no more . I did not want to go down there , that route , because it was heavy . It still is heavy in the family . So so I've struggled with this for a long time , or worked on it , I've worked on it and then I've gone oh nuts to this , I'm not working on this anymore because this is just too fatiguing , it's just too annoying to whatever . But then you know , the older you get and you really start looking at your overall health and thinking differently about these things . So at the end of the day , you have to find something that is doable for you , something that you know . I will do that , like my girlfriend who's she said she dropped like 15 pounds on this Mayo Clinic thing where she's making leeks and she's ate more vegetables in her life , which is always a good thing . Eating more vegetables , that's always always an area that I could stand to improve on .

Margie 23:02

But I just knew I was not going to spend that kind of time with the new recipes , and I just knew it . You know , it's about really being honest with yourself and I know I can't do keto because I just at some point I'm just going to fall off of that . And so at some point somebody's going to stick a tuxedo cake in front of me , and you know , if you get together with your small group two times a month , let's say , and there's food involved because we'll do once a month , we'll do food , and then the other time is a zoom . But I'm thinking if , once a month , if somebody sticks a small piece of pie in front of me or a 24 point tuxedo cake , you know I need to be able to eat it and just not go to the guilt farm about it and have it be okay , because I've attended to my eating and attended to food and properly fueling my body so it can do what it needs to do , and I've done that the majority of the month , so it's just not criminal . So that's what I want to leave you with is find something that you know okay , I could do that .

Margie 24:14

This is not in any way shape or form a campaign for Weight Watchers . It works for me , but there's other stuff out there . I've seen friends with good luck with Noom . Any of those things kind of try to steer you towards adopting more healthy eating , and that really is the bottom line of it . And steering us away from a lot of the processed foods is always always a good idea . You know , shop the perimeter of the store , as they say , and not not doing a lot of processed stuff . And that doesn't mean you never can , because once you get to the place where it's , you never I am never going to , never going to have a piece of bread that my brain goes does not compute . So you need to find something that does compute for you and then walk in that way . Will you be perfect all the time ? No , will somebody stick a tuxedo cake in front of you and you will whoop that puppy down ? Yes , but it's about being dedicated to keeping on , keeping on , working on it , and that's it . Working on it . Slowly but surely you can turn the tide and and I'll be right there with you , because I get a feeling I'm never , ever going to stop working on this , this side of the dirt anyway . So that's my food diatribe for you and I hope it's encouraged you maybe to rethink or something in regards to your food intake .

Margie 25:59

Are you wondering whether your fatigue , your lack of motivation , your lack of interest is burnout Maybe ? I just wanted to let you know that I have a resource on the website , margiebricecom that's B-R-Y-C-E , margiebricecom , and it is a burnout questionnaire free for you to download , and kind of self-assess and get a sense of where you're at . There are questions that not only ask about what you're going through , but maybe how often you're experiencing it , and that's that's kind of a key to where you might be , because you have to know where you are in order to chart a course forward and most pastors who experience pastors and ministry leaders who experience burnout rarely know that that's where they're at until they're well into it . And if , if you're unsure about that little statistic , so far , everybody that I've interviewed on this podcast who has experienced burnout when I asked that kind of question , they're like , yeah , I didn't know , that's where I was at . So again , go to margiebricecom . It's on the homepage of the website and you can get your burnout questionnaire and kind of see where you're at .

Supporting Self Care for Ministry Leaders

Margie 27:37

Hey , friends , the Crabby Pastor podcast is sponsored by Bryce Art Glass and you can find that on Facebook .

Margie 27:46

I make stained glass , that's part of my self care and also by Bryce coaching , where I coach ministry leaders and business leaders , and so the funds that I generate from coaching and from making stained glass is what is supporting this podcast and I will have opportunities for you to be a part of sponsoring me and , as always , you can do the buy me a cup of coffee thing in the in the show notes .

Margie 28:20

But I will have some other ways that you can be a part of getting the word out about the importance of healthy self care for ministry leaders . Hey , thanks for listening . It is my deep desire and passion to champion issues of sustainability in ministry and for your life , so I'm here to help . I stepped back from pastoral ministry and I feel called to help ministry leaders create and cultivate sustainability in their lives so that they can go the distance with God and whatever plans that God has for you . I would love to help , I would consider it an honor , and in all things , make sure you connect to these sustainability practices you know so that you don't become the Crabby Pastor .