Delay and Pray

Delay and Pray Podcast

Episode #10: 

Lovability

“The shape of your body often obeys the shape of your beliefs about yourself, 

about love, your value, possibility, and God.” -Geneen Roth

In today’s episode, Beth is discussing the innate lovability of each human being, regardless of his/her habits, thoughts, or the number on the scale.

Many of us let the scale determine our lovability. Beth explains why we are lovable regardless of our eating habits, and how the transformative process of Spiritual Fasting (with the irreplaceable help of the Sacraments) can teach us to love ourselves with deeper compassion, even in the midst of our weaknesses. She explains that Spiritual Fasting can strengthen our understanding of our own self-worth, deepen our desire for Christ, and even love others more fully, without demanding their love in return. 

Listen to Beth talk about a life-changing moment when God explained her own lovability to her through a secular podcast. She also shares a story about a client whose father never told her he loved her, and how Spiritual Fasting helped her rediscover her own lovability - and even the lovability of her father. And there’s a little homework for this week: study the word “lovability,” and see where it takes you!

Help Beth reach her goal of bringing 1 Million Catholics back to the Church: 

Please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review! 

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Episode #9: 

Delaying Alcohol with Lisa Canning

“I thought I couldn’t do this… 

I wonder what other things in my life 

I have been telling myself I cannot do?” -Lisa Canning

Today on the Delay and Pray Podcast, Beth Bubik is interviewing Lisa Canning. Lisa is a former interior designer on HGTV, a mom of ten, and a Catholic life coach and business coach.

In this episode, Beth and Lisa are discussing Lisa’s journey with delaying and praying, specifically in delaying alcohol. Lisa shares that she enjoys a nightly glass of wine and initially struggled with following a protocol for delaying alcohol. But her success in delaying made her wonder: where else might she be limiting herself in her own thinking?

Come along for the conversation as Beth and Lisa explore Lisa’s journey with delay and pray through a difficult life event, and even experience a mini-coaching session as Beth coaches Lisa on her date night desire for a “beautifully crafted cocktail.” Listen in as they discuss the importance of planning, not only the delay, but even the feasting involved in Delay and Pray. 

Lisa’s final advice? “The work is worth it.”

Get to Know Lisa!

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Episode #8: 

The Best Year Yet

“Sanctify yourself, sanctify the world.”

In today’s episode, Beth is claiming 2023 as the Best Year Yet. She’s explaining the transformation that happens through spiritual fasting, and how trusting the Lord with your desires will become easier and make every successive year better than the last. She’s also outlining a few Spiritual Fasting themes for 2023, starting with Fasting for Life.

Transformation through Redemptive Suffering

• The logo of The Catholic Fasting Coach is a butterfly, signifying transformation in Christ - the cross means “through suffering.” 

Spiritual Fasting = More Suffering?

• The Delay and Pray process entails suffering, but no more suffering than you are experiencing already.
• Establishing lifelong habits requires some discomfort.

Scripture for the Year - Isaiah 45:2-3

• Spiritual Fasting develops a trust that turns even failure into a path to success.
• Stepping out in faith becomes easier every year. 

Fasting with A Purpose

• 2023’s Spiritual Fasting Themes
• Fasting for Life
• Fasting for Lent
• Fasting for Fathers
• Fasting for Freedom
• Fasting for Our Lady
• Fasting for Advent

Fasting for Life

• Kick-off January with Fasting for Life
• Last year, through prayer and fasting, Roe v Wade was overturned.
• Beth describes her own journey from pro-choice to pro-life, suggesting that the prayer and fasting of others converted her, and now she is paying it forward.

The Body-Soul Composite

• We have physical bodies (moving parts, complicated systems, and inevitable decay) as well as souls (an animating, spiritual principle, infused at conception, which gives us life, rationality, and immortality).

The Battle

• Cultural norms are strong, but God is stronger.
• The unborn, the mothers, and the people who support the pro-choice movement need us to fast for them.
• “Christ can only be met under the weight of the Cross.” -Fr. Alfred Delp, Advent of the Heart.
• With Spiritual Fasting, we can change the world for the better.

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Episode #7 Shownotes

Top 10 Spiritual Fasting Wins and Fails

“You can’t have grand wins without some epic fails: 

it’s just how life works, this side of heaven.” - Beth Bubik

In today’s episode, Beth is reviewing the amazing accomplishments and epic fails that culminated in the most spiritual Christmas of her life.

Two Basic Parts of Her Journey

• She learned to allow the discomfort of actually feeling feelings, without eating or drinking.
• She offered that discomfort to Jesus to save souls and bring about breakthroughs in her life and the lives of others.

The Journey: Adventurous and Dangerous

• This journey took her out of her comfort zone.
• Raw emotions and sticky thoughts emerged.

“I am patient”

• Her thought for 2022 was, “I am patient.”
• By attending a long daily Mass, Beth practiced patience by trusting God with her time. 
• She also practiced patience with her finances by delaying a greatly-desired purchase.
• In both cases, she learned that when you are patient, God provides generously.

“Easy Choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.” - Juzy Gregorek

• She learned by doing.
• Amazing results came through hard work and lots of prayer and fasting.

The Top 8 Wins of 2022

1. She became an expert Spiritual Fasting Coach.
2. She learned to schedule her life around meeting Jesus in the Sacraments.
3. She has kept her weight off now for two years and her health is optimal.
4. She joined the $100K OSV Business challenge and achieved 11th place out of 1300 businesses. 
5. She left her Corporate Sales job to fully pursue the Delay and Pray Spiritual Fasting Business and consulted for Metanoia Catholic as an Instructor. 
6. She started a podcast, filmed a professional on-line course, began an Alumni Membership, hired a team, learned to Market, hired consultants and coaches, and wrote half of her first book. 
7. Personally, she and her husband purchased an old lake house.
8. She has strong family support.

2 Epic Fails

1. She didn’t rest enough in 2022
2. She had to learn to fail and deal with adversity.

The Best Thing Ever About 2022:

• Changing lives for the better and listening to all the miracles happening in the lives of her family and clients 

Beth’s Scripture Verse of 2022

• “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. No, new wine is put into new wineskins.” (Mark 2:22)
• Shedding an old wineskin and forming a new one is challenging.
• Redemptive suffering in the form of Spiritual Fasting is the new wineskin.
• Jesus Christ is the New Wine.

2022 has been the best year of Beth’s life… until 2023 happens! It is going to be grand!

Want your own Top Ten list this time next year? 

Join the Delay and Pray Group Coaching and Course! 

Lose the weight permanently and bring miracles into your life. 

Check out the links below for more info. 

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Episode #6: 

Food Freedom through Spiritual Fasting with Sr. Josephine Garrett

“If we fail, we figure it out and go forward.” -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. 

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Episode #5: 

Resetting Your Health in Both Body & Soul with Jenay Franco

“If you’re really opposed to (spiritual fasting), still take that chance. If anything, it might be a sign that it’s something that God really, really wants for you to be able to detach, to prune in the vineyard.” -Jenay Franco

Welcome to the fifth episode of the Delay and Pray Podcast! Today, Beth is interviewing Jenay Franco, a certified Catholic coach who helps driven Catholic moms let go of perfectionism. In this interview, Beth is asking Jenay about her journey into spiritual fasting, from the initial resistance to the many benefits she has experienced over the past several months. 

Resistance

Following a very difficult summer, Jenay felt the call to dive into spiritual fasting but experienced resistance towards it. She explains that she didn’t want to “add any more suffering to her life,” admitting that she didn’t believe it when Beth told her that she could actually experience joy in this process. 

The Experience

Beth and Jenay discuss the various components of the Delay and Pray program, such as:

• The mindset shifts that help unravel the interior knots around fasting
• The biological as well as neurological shifts of trading short-term dopamine hits for the more meaningful, long-term joy that comes with delayed gratification
• The spiritual shifts of sacrificing for the benefit of souls
• The experience of long-term stability and peace over short-term comfort

Beth also explains how to train your brain as you transition into this delayed way of dealing with food, so as not to lead your brain into a devastating feeling of deprivation.

The Results

Spiritually, Jenay realized that her choice to fast for her husband, her marriage, and her kids revealed many more opportunities for sacrifices in her daily life. She and Beth discuss how learning to fast helps you to sacrifice for others while making the task at hand easier. Physically, Jenay is feeling more balanced, her anxiety has decreased, and she has lost nearly thirty pounds.

The Scale

Beth and Jenay talk about how the scale is simply data: an objective measurement of progress. Checking every day helps you to divorce your self-worth from the number on the scale, and to become curious about why that data fluctuates. It helps pinpoint variations in sleeping and eating patterns, and is a reminder that this is not a diet: it’s a regimen of Eat, Fast, Feast that helps you experiment with what is best for your body. 

Failing Forward

Jenay and Beth discuss the concept of failure while incorporating the Delay and Pray regimen. Jenay suggests that Christ would avoid the shaming speech that we inflict on ourselves, and would speak to us with mercy and compassion. She also mentions that the word “fail” feels heavy, and Beth suggests replacing the word “failing” with “learning.” 

The Sacraments

Jenay shares a beautiful testimony of the power of frequenting the Sacraments during the Delay and Pray program: she describes a day of fasting when her hunger disappeared after receiving the Eucharist. Beth talks about how the health benefits of spiritual fasting become a side benefit as the spiritual benefits grow. She points out that you can get enough of food, but you can never get enough of Jesus.

Conclusion

Don’t wait until January 1st or Lent: start fasting now! It benefits you and teaches your children virtuous habits. Jenay encourages everyone listening, whether they’re hesitant or downright opposed, to still take a chance on spiritual fasting. She promises that you will not recognize yourself by the end of the journey. 

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The Group Coaching Experience

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Episode #4: 

Eating to Enough

“Spiritual Fasting is the spiritual weapon of our times.”

Welcome to the fourth episode of the Delay and Pray Podcast! In this episode, Beth is explaining the concept of  “eating to enough” by incorporating the “Eat Fast Feast” Calendar into your week. Sharing examples from her own life, Beth reveals how following this calendar can not only help you attain the health benefits you crave, but can also lead to profound spiritual growth for both yourself and your loved ones - and like everything else, it gets easier with practice!

Eating “Enough”

• The definition of enough: As much as is required.
• Eating “enough” leads to success on Fasting Days and moderation on Feasting Days.
• Eating, Fasting, and Feasting is the essence of the Delay and Pray program.

The “Eat Fast Feast” Calendar

• Eat Days: Mon/Tues/Thurs/Sat
• This schedule consists of three normal meals each day.
• Eliminate sugar, flour, processed food, and alcohol.
• These foods are delayed until Sunday and offered to God.
• With these sacrifices, you nourish your body and change the world.
• These are the days of “The Great Experiment”: learning what is healthy for your body and practicing “eating to enough.”
• Fasting Days: Weds/Fri
• Abstain from meat.
• Either eat less food, or eat less often.
• Intermittent Fasting is an option, but not necessary.
• Incorporate more Sacraments on these days!
• Sunday Funday!
• Enjoy small feasts on any item you have been delaying.
• Celebrate the Resurrection on Sundays!
• Remember: Sunday is a feast day, not a binge day.

Delay AND Pray

• This experience is only successful with the delay of food AND added prayer.
• This process will reveal vices and encourage the growth of virtues.

Make Your Calendar

• Make room in your schedule for prayer, Mass, adoration, confession, etc. 
• Slowly make adjustments in your food plan.
• Choose both weight loss goals and spiritual goals. 
• Use this calendar all year for tremendous transformation of body and soul.
• Use it in conjunction with the Church calendar.
• These patterns and rituals create good habits, and these habits turn into virtues.

The Church Has Always Been Calling Us To Spiritual Fasting.

• Jesus himself tells us that some demons can only be cast out by both Prayer and Fasting! (Matt 17:21) 

“Choose Your Hard” 

• Fasting from food is more demanding than giving time or money.
• It takes preparation, thought, regimen, and community. 
• Fasting leads to healing and obtains breakthroughs from God.
• We can help save souls by spiritual fasting.

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Episode #3: 

Trading Sugar for the Sweetness of Jesus

“I imagine my body as a spacious stable open to the dwelling of the Infant King, 

as opposed to all the inns of Bethlehem that had no room for Him.”

Welcome to the third episode of the Delay and Pray podcast. At the time of this episode’s release, we are in the middle of Advent, the season of longing and preparing for the birth of Christ. In this episode, Beth is discussing ways to prepare our bodies and souls for the celebration of Christmas through Spiritual Fasting, and how this heightens our desire for the one, true sweetness of the Christ Child. 

Preparing 

• The purpose of Advent is to shine light in the darkness.
• Imagine yourself as an Advent candle, “giving light at the cost of one’s own substance.” - Fr. Alfred Delp, Advent of the Heart.
• By spiritually fasting, you are making a physical space within your body for Jesus to fill with his love. 

Waiting

• Holidays are often an excuse to over-consume as a way to celebrate.
• Focusing on the Christmas stable helps prioritize the Holy Family by inviting them into your heart by making physical space for them in your body by fasting off sugar, flour, and alcohol. This creates a small hunger, a space, for them that God can fill with his love. You then become more like a humble and inviting stable rather than an Inn--too full for Jesus. Imagining this scene within us promotes both spiritual and physical health without missing out on the holiday celebration. 
• “The less sugar I consume, the more Jesus I want to consume.”
• In the video, “What Happens If You Stop Eating Sugar For Two Weeks,” Dr. Eric Berg explains nine ways that sugar consumption impacts the body (link below).

Celebrating

• Diversify rest and celebration away from food. 
• Reframe your thinking about the holidays.
• Trade the sweetness of sugar for the sweetness of Jesus in the Sacraments.

Powerful Reasons to Delay and Pray During Advent

• It helps eliminate mortal sin.
• It attains a healthy body to serve Christ.
• Small sufferings and self-denials open up a mysterious depth of closeness with Christ and his Blessed Mother.

 Make your body the Christmas Stable with your Spiritual Fasting this Advent.

You won’t regret it.

Links in Today’s Show:

The Group Coaching Experience

Video: What Happens If You Stop Eating Sugar For TWO Weeks

Video: Exorcisms: What Catholics Need to Know w/ Fr. Chad Ripperger

Book: Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings

Episode #2: 

From the Wastelands of Want to the Promised Land of Desire

“When your goals and dreams are based on how you can improve the lives of others, 

the whole universe conspires to make them come true.”

Welcome to the second episode of the Delay and Pray Podcast! In this episode, Beth is exploring motivation, the “key to success,” and the role it plays in helping us to attain our goals. She explains that, to be successful, motivation must be integrated into the very meaning of our existence, or the well-being of others. 

So, How Do You Begin?

• Start with earthly motivation, if necessary.
• Dream big dreams, intertwined with Godly mission.
• Normalize failure.
• WANT to want it
• Imagine the goals coming true.

Deciding Goals? Ask Yourself These Questions:

• What do I seek? 
• What is my desired result?
• Am I willing to set long-term goals of happiness?

Your “Delay and Pray” Goals:

• Your Bodily/Earthly Goal - The “Delay”
• Decide measurable steps to reach the goal.
• This isn’t a Wasteland of Want: it’s the Desire you Seek.
• Invite God into the goal. 
• Ask yourself: “What substance needs to be delayed in my life?”
• Your Spiritual Goal - The “Pray”
• Who or what are you praying for?
• Choose the “why that makes you cry.”
• Nothing is too big or small for God.
• Consider:
• Why are you choosing these goals?
• What will it cost if you don’t commit today?
• Ask yourself: “Why do I choose to have a life where the escape button is better than my actual life?”

The Benefits of Delay and Pray in Spiritual Fasting:

• It will reveal your true desire: Jesus.
• It will bless others.
• It will move you toward the long-term goal of happiness.

Invite Jesus into your goals. He is waiting for you. 

Those who genuinely wait on the Lord will not be disappointed.



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Ep. #1 -Losing Weight through Spiritual Fasting- Show notes

“Prayer knocks, fasting obtains, and mercy receives,” St. Chrysologous

Welcome to the Delay and Pray Podcast! 

Join Beth Bubik, The Catholic Fasting Coach, as she shows you how to shift your thoughts away from deprivation and dieting, and to achieve permanent weight loss through Spiritual Fasting. All you need is commitment, motivation, organization, and prayer - and Beth can guide you through it all. 

Permanent weight loss through spiritual fasting is not only possible, but it is OPTIMAL for your health. This is all about increasing the health of your body and soul while praying for others—especially your family. 

Learning to Fast

In her first episode, Beth shares her background in Catholic coaching, as well as her personal experience with Spiritual Fasting. Inspired by her own mother and Our Lady, she uncovered the deeper meaning in fasting, as well as three of the main struggles Catholics face in learning to fast:

• No one teaches us how to spiritually fast
• We are creatures of habits and patterns - we need practice fasting!
• Most Catholics don’t understand the body-soul composite

Beth’s carefully developed program, Delay and Pray, is a powerful tool to teach Catholics how to spiritually fast and lose stubborn weight with a 4 Step Method, or the “4 T’s to Delay and Pray.”

• Transformational Goals
• Thought Work 
• Tools 
• Theology

But what IS Spiritual Fasting?

Spiritual Fasting is simply delaying food for a period of time for a spiritual purpose, or abstaining from a particular type of food for a period of time. 

As a Spiritual Fasting and Weight Loss Coach, Beth will use the mindset coaching tools she has acquired through her training in the Life Coach School and Metanoia Catholic to reflect your own thoughts back to you, and help you unearth the indulgent emotions and sticky thoughts that are keeping you stuck on your weight loss journey. And she will do it all while helping you deepen your faith and lead a more fulfilling and fruitful life. 

Interested in diving in and learning more?

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The Catholic Fasting Coach

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