Lazy Lent Fasting Options

The Lent season is upon us and for Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants it’s a time of reflection, abstinence and fasting. According to the Bible, fasting is the conscious denial of physical needs such as hunger and thirst to sharpen spiritual focus, bring deliverance and foster fellowship with God.

There’s fasting from meats, smoking and dainty delicacies; fasting for a predetermined time period ranging from a single meal up to the emaciating 40-day Survivor fast; as well as fasting from all food and beverage – including the nearly heretical idea of fasting Chick-fil-A.

While fasting is a great discipline for any Christian to practice anytime of year, let’s be honest – it’s tough!

For believers who are struggling to hold their Lenten meat fast for the 40-day stretch from Ash Wednesday through Easter, here are some Lax Lent Fasting Options to consider.

1. Lasting: is the refusal to watch any professional sports team that finished in last place last season including the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL; the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA; the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL or Houston Astros in Major League Baseball.
2. Pasting: requires avoidance of all types of historical reenactments including: Civil War simulations, Renaissance festivals and fairs, living history museums, Middle Ages tournaments or visits to Colonial Williamsburg.
3. Vasting: necessitates the unequivocal, irrevocable and unassailable cessation of all superfluous parts of speech that are categorically correlated to exaggeration, overstatement or aggrandizement in all manner, shape, form and nuance. Even though you’re dead Carl Sagan, I’m looking at you with your highfalutin “…billions and billions of years…” hyperbole and such.
4. RhinoPlasting: seeks to subdue prideful vanity via a reprieve from all types of cosmetic procedures including dermabrasion, Botox injections, pricey Oil of Olay snake oils or male calf implants.
5. KimKardashing: involves a complete media blackout on all things Kardashian including Kourtney, Khloé, Lamar Odom, Kris Humphries and Reggie Bush as well as a ban from eating Wheaties that came in commemorative boxes featuring Kardashian step-dad and Olympian, Bruce Jenner on the front. (Note: You’ll thank me for this one!)
6. Jordacheing: this is a fast that eliminates all over-hyped, high-priced designer jeans from fashion consideration and only allows austerity pant wear such as Wranglers or ToughSkins from Sears – the latter of which have triple-stitching, double-reinforced knees and wear like sheet metal.

Question: What other alternatives to fasting might be appropriate this Lenten season?

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Tor Constantino is a former journalist, bestselling author and current PR guy who lives near Washington, DC. He has worked for Fortune 500 companies, CBS Radio, Clear Channel Radio, ABC-TV and CBS-TV affiliates. He has authored his first non-fiction book “A Question of Faith”  and he blogs regularly at The Daily ReTORt.