The Weigh Down Diet

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Summary: The simple way to break the hold that food has on you.
Review: In my first month in the Weigh Down Workshop I shed 21 pounds and a full 12 inches from my chest, arms, thighs, and abdoman! The Weigh Down Diet is an excellant book which combines nutritional information, spiritual insights and encouragement, and common sense. Gwen Shamblin outlines how to listen to your body as it tells you what, when, and how to eat. Her book is well layed out, with logical divisions, excellant graphics, and appendices on children, diabetics, testomonies, and other relavent "side" issues. The Weigh Down Diet will point you in the right direction and encourage you on your journey

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Summary: Why aren't Christian's healthier????
Review: Must be all the pot lucks? We need to keep our inheritance and keep good care of our temples. this book will help. I also like Jordan Rubin's "Maker's Diet" and Pastor Henry Wright's "A More Excellent way", which talks also about the spiritual casues for weight gain.

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Summary: A Deep Solution to a Wider Problem
Review: Ms. Shamblin's food research has turnedup a real answer to an age-old question. Not too amazingly, God has quite an opinion on this topic. Those who desire to live "by the Book" (and to be free of excess poundage once and forall) will find great hope and much help in her textbook. A "thinking person" cannot miss the depth and clarity of God's heart in this matter. The reality of her findings closely mirror most Biblical teachings--too simple of an approach to be taken seriously by the proud. After managing fitness centers for years, watching people struggle with weight problems, and battling with it myself, I cannot express how grateful I am to Ms. Shamblin for taking the time to search out every passage in the Bible that deals with food, eating, and God's wonderful plan for making it work in the real world. What a refreshing and sound approach to keeping weight in check in a society where being "on a diet" FOREVER is both depressing and unrealistic. Super book!

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Summary: Twisted Scripture
Review: Gwen has some good principles in her book, but she consistently takes scripture out of context. I remember laughing out loud at some of her mix-ups. You WILL lose weight if you follow her method (only eat when your stomach growls), but I think there are much much better ways than waiting until your body tells you-- "Hey, I'm starving!" She claims the headaches will eventually go away, but my body must be the exception to the rule because the headaches never went away.

I would seriously consider researching (just type Gwen Shamblin and cult into google.com) her before buying this book and contributing to her self-made, self-proclaimed church/movement.

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Summary: Let God fill you instead of food!
Review: The main point of Ms Shamblin's book is to trust in how God created your body; He made it perfect! My family has been reading this book and attending the classes and it is working not just with weight loss but in so many other aspects of our lives. The author clearly states that our bodies were made to want many different types of foods. Yes, I may desire Mickey D's for lunch, but I only need half the burger and a few of the fries, not the whole thing. Then for dinner I may just want a nice crunchy salad. Sure, I love to take a nice walk in the gorgeous sunshine, but I'm not a slave to exercise anymore! The thing that makes us mess up is when we start to ignore how we were made, and try to fill the need for God with food, cigarrettes, alcohol, etc.

I have never heard anything from the Weigh Down Workshop books, classes, etc that was not coming from a place of honesty and love. I believe that the reason so many "Christians" have a problem with this series is that they want to say they're good Christians because they attend church, or sing in the choir or give a little money to charity, but they want to continue to poison their bodies with cigarrettes, or greed for too much food, or over-drinking. If you are a true seeker of God, I'd recommend this book and that you take it's principles to heart and not let things like greed or pride get in your way. I know I am much happier since I did.

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Summary: Where is God's grace?
Review: I have done some research on Gwen Shamblin, she is a cult leader and it frightens me that she is using her weight loss books to teach others her very limited and legalistic view of God.

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Summary: Funding and Recruitment Base For Remnant Fellowship
Review: For the person looking for a spiritually based weight loss guide... it works. Gwen replaces food with God. The message is so strong that almost all WeighDown people know that overweight people are sinners.
Weigh Down Workshops are recruitment pools for Gwen's church, Remnant. Using your lost weight as her proof of how she can change your life, she will ask you to leave your church for hers. She is a self-proclaimed prophetess that demands total obedience. I lost my wife to this cult. The prgression is: WDW, WD Advanced (recruitment hook), then Remnant. ALL of the WD Advanced / Remnant people here in my area MOVED TO TENNESSEE!


Rating:
Summary: A Mixed Blessing
Review: I don't quite know how to rate this book. On the one hand, the principles Gwen sets out in this book do work. When I started this program back in July I weighed 239 (the heaviest I've ever been) As of today, with the Lord's help, I weigh 212. I've always known I could never stick with a restrictive diet. But this is one I can stick to. It's so easy and no one has to know. You can eat this way in public or anywhere else. No one will know unless you tell them. I feel this book is biblically sound.

That said, I do have serious reservations about recommending this book because of Gwen's new church. I have done some research and do believe it is a cult. While I would recommend this book to others, I cannot recommend anything Gwen has written since "The Weigh Down Diet" Which is a real shame. If it weren't for her teaching of false doctrine, I think Gwen would have some great insights to share with anyone who has ever struggled with their weight. But under the circumstances, I think it best to avoid the teachings of Gwen Shamblin (apart from this book) at all costs.

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Summary: Been to the meetings and now know why they don't work!
Review: I consider myself a caring and giving Christian woman: I volunteer and mentor in my community and struggle with saying No to more opportunities to do so. I have attended many Weigh Down Meetings here in Alabama (the Exodus from Egypt series) and after trying and failing after several attempts to lose weight (apparently despite every non-food related good deed I do- I am still irredeemable because of overeating) I finally tried to figure out why this program wasn't working.

For one thing, I found myself immobilized by guilt. I must be the worst person in the world, unable to choose food instead of my God. Unfortunately for me and all those like me who poured so much of herself into this program for years, this is the wrong cure for this particular hurt. Feeling more badly about myself for overeating, is all that I've ever achieved with this program. It has made me question whether I am a good person in the eyes of God because of food! (I can't help but think this isn't what God would want. And I know many many wonderful God-fearing women who've dropped out of Weigh Down and left feeling more despondent about themselves)

Please I urge everyone to not buy this book and instead buy "It's not about Food" by Carol Emery Normandi and Laurelee Roark - the founders of Beyond Hunger. Gwen has "borrowed" much of the same principles from this program (Eating whatever you want as long as you're hungry; Recognizing that food is being used to fill emotional holes) but with some very important differences. For one thing, you learn that you are entitled to the very emotions that lead you to overeat in the first place, rather than "giving them to God" and not being allowed to have them again. (I recall accounts of Jesus also having emotions here on earth) You are lead on a gentle, spiritual, and caring path to recovery from binging/overeating, rather than being stuck with guilt and self-disgust about having this soul-deep struggle in the first place.