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Weigh Down Workshops have been held in churches around the country for several years, and the participants overwhelmingly report satisfaction, some 92 percent according to a market research interview. In most cases that translates into significant weight loss, but even when the weight is slow to come off, people in Weigh Down Workshops report they are satisfied because their whole life has changed. What's it all about?
The Weigh Down "diet" requires no counting -- of calories, fat grams, exchanges, food categories, even pounds! That's an incredible relief, but that's not to say that this is the E-Z Diet of all time. What is required is listening to God and listening to your body.
Gwen Shamblin's message in her workshops and her book Weigh Down Diet is that anyone with unhealthy food cravings is actually suffering from spiritual hunger. Learn to eat only when you are truly hungry, stop when you are full, and turn to God to fill your spiritual needs.
Eat when hungry, stop when full -- sounds logical and kind of easy, doesn't it? Well, it takes time to get this right. You need to learn some new habits of eating and how to perceive true hunger and fullness. Meanwhile, though, you can eat what you want and enjoy it. There's a great description of a new way to eat M&Ms (slowly, one at a time, instead of by the handful!).
Gwen Shamblin is a registered dietician with a master's degree in food and nutrition, has worked as a state consultant, and as a university instructor in the field. She's got a refreshingly simple take on the whole eating business after all that -- if you eat less, you will lose weight; and, your body will naturally seek the variety of foods it needs without your mapping out a federally endorsed eating plan.
Helping people get to a healthy weight is important, but Shamblin sees her calling as deeper than that. This vivacious, down-to-earth woman exhibits a delight in God that is up-front and personal. She eagerly shares the gift He has bestowed on her, that of communicating in a simple, direct way how to transfer love of food to love of God.
Her approach is simple but not simplistic. She's not naive about the struggle required to shift your focus from an idol, in this case food, to the true God. In fact, most of Weigh Down Diet is a guide to getting through the "desert wilderness."
The great value of the Weigh Down Diet is that in casting aside more complicated methods of dieting, you are free to get on with something a lot more important in life -- finding out what God's will is for you. In turn, God will provide unexpected strength and encouragement for you to get food and eating into proper perspective and start moving toward a healthy weight.
Jeannie Crawford-Lee is a reviewer in Nashville, TN.
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