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Summary: you can lose weight
Review: my review is going to be short and sweet. you WILL lose weight on this "diet"!It is not a diet but a totally new way of thinking. i lost over 60 pounds and have kept it off for over 3 years. please just give this book a try!
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Summary: Stop dieting as we know it!
Review: It's such a simple plan, and yet so revolutionary for our time: "Eat when you're hungry. Don't eat when you're not." Ms. Shamblin presents a well-crafted book to help readers get back to the way our bodies were made to be: slim, healthy and happy. She gives us a very interesting and eye-opening section detailing the way in which our bodies need and use food. She encourages us to seek fullness from God rather than from food. This book helps the reader put food back in its place as a neccessity of life, not a love affair or hobby. Very eye-opening! If you're sick of denying yourself happiness by using different diets, you must read this book, and get your whole self--body and soul--back on track.
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Summary: Losing control can be a good thing!!
Review: If you feel like your weight, your eating habits, your relationship with food, and even your life as a whole are out of control, think about this--are these things even yours to control? Give them all to God--they are his anyway. Weigh Down took me from a size 14 to a 4, but more importantly, it showed me a God who is so in love with me that He will move mountains to gain my love in return. It is an amazing book! I read some other reviews citing concerns about accepting junk food and the lack of emphasis on exercise, and I felt moved to share my experiences. When I accepted that the food wasn't bad and worked on changing my responses to food, I found that I could eat chips and dip(no low fat for me!) and satisfy a craving without eating the entire bag out of boredom! Fat is okay! Calories are okay! Sugar is okay! You may go on a chocolate splurge initially because the guilt is gone--However, as you become more in tune with your body and your God-given hunger and fullness signals, you will also become more aware of your body's need and craving for healthy foods. In my second or third week I remember feeling hunger and looking in the refrigerator. I went straight past the french onion dip and the leftover fettucini alfredo and zeroed in on a tomato. I had never seen anything more appetizing in my life! God will take care of you. He will make your body crave healthy foods and a balanced diet. He will make your body crave exercise so that it can feel strong and capable. He will provide! You have got to let go and let God. I think that in this book and in her sequel "Rise Above", Gwen Shamblin has the courage to step on some toes and question almost every ingrained attitude and belief about food that our society has fed us over the years (no pun intended). I reccommend this book to anyone who feels out of control. Give the control to God, and watch his miracles take place in your life and in your wonderful body. Thanks.
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Summary: Shamblin distorts the Bible to blame and demonize fat people
Review: Gwen Shamblin starts off with a good idea -- God can give you strength and comfort when dealing with weight problems, as with other problems. But then, she adds in a lot of things that don't make sense. For example, she claims that everything that exists was made by God, therefore all foods were made by God, therefore you should enjoy any food you want, as long as you only eat a little. Using her reasoning, heroin and cocaine were made by God, so it's OK to enjoy heroin and cocaine "in moderation"!!Shamblin also promotes the idea that obesity indicates a lack of closeness to God, which is offensive. I have two pet cats who are thin -- are they more religious and spiritual than I am? Are my two other cats, who are fat, less spiritual and religious than my two thin cats? In laboratory studies, rats become enormously fat when a part of the brain (the ventromedial hypothalmus) is removed. So, does cutting out the ventromedial hypothalmus sever the rat's connection to God? I was fat even when I was an infant, and throughout childhood. Did this indicate that I was using food "to fill a spiritual emptiness in my life," even before I was weaned? Obviously, obesity can result from all sorts of things that have nothing to do with a lack of spirituality. Shamblin is quite serious when she says that that fat people aren't close to God: "God does not go down to the pigpen," she said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal (October 30, 2000.) She believes fat people can not be saved and are not children of God (same interview.) I guess Shamblin feels that murderers can be forgiven, but fat people are just pure evil. Maybe Shamblin should take a closer look at the Bible -- where does it say that being fat is a sin? I don't remember "Thou shall be thin" as one of the 10 Commandments. Shamblin should read Proverbs 28:25 "He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat."
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Summary: Trust
Review: The Weigh Down Diet is not just about food, structure, diets, or punishing yourself as a means of making yourself fit the status quo of the public eye. The Weigh Down Diet is about giving it all up to God. It's quite a challenge, but once you start you realize just how easy being thin and healthy can be. Foods you never used to glance at suddenly seem so appetizing! The best part is Gwen Shamblin is an expert. She knows the human body, she knows nutrition, and she knows GOD. I recommend this book to anyone in need of some spiritual and physical healing.
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Summary: Oy Vey!
Review: One theological point I take issue with in this book is that God's Word concerning clean and unclean foods represents "tedious eating rules" to paraphrase Gwen. Do Christians really believe that Jesus would eat pork and other unclean foods, which are detestable to Torah-observant Jews, if He were here today? I don't think so. If you study the full context of all of the "all foods are clean" verses in the New Testament, you will find that the various Jewish writers are in fact not declaring pork and other such foods to be clean and suitable for human consumption. Skip this book, and try "What the Bible Says About Healthy Living," by Dr. Rex Russell.
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Summary: Right Idea
Review: I have read and tried many diets only to gain more weight like everyone else. But now I know that 'eating when hungry', 'eat what you want only until you're full' works best and that by doing so, your body lets go of the blockage and stressful energy that dieting mentality gives your body in the form of 'extra weight'. I have always thought that being obsessed with when, how, what we're told we're supposed to eat has only put tension, taken away my self-control and my natural ability to lose weight. Having said that, this book's ideas are just what we need but even being a Christian myself, it's the case of 'using God's name in vain'- it's a little much to say that God wouldn't have put junk foods in the world if it wasn't meant for us enjoy. Well, does the same apply to drugs? This book could have just given us simple outline much like the book by Deepak Chopra- 'Perfect Weight'. I think it's the one that makes the most sense, is simple and together with a book by Stanley Burroughs, 'The Master Cleanser' (used partially in the day so as to avoid a whole lengthy fast) works tremendously well to get a hold of your true appetite. I understand Gwen's good intentions but it really is too exaggerated by carrying a good idea too far.
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Summary: This book can help the hopeless!
Review: I did not have an easy life. I was abused as a child and I allowed myself to blow up to 230lbs at 5'7". I had just gotten out of a life threatening relationship with someone when god put this book in my path. I was truly broken spiritually, mentally, and physically. I was at the lowest part of my life and I could not bear to look at myself nude in the mirror. The Weigh Down Diet book is the book that truly made me realize how much God loves me. I am now 23yrs old and have been holding a steady weight of 138 for 3 yrs. now. Gwen Shamblin's book teaches you how to let go and let God be everything for you. The rules of this book go against everything that we have been taught in school. We are not supposed to count calories, fat grams, sugar grams, etc. These focuses just leave you feeling paranoid everytime you put something in your mouth. Please read this book, you will not regret it.
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Summary: I must read for all who have struggled to lose weight!!
Review: If you have struggled with a weight problem as long as you can remember ( like me ) this is the book for you. I finally feel free of food, and I am losing weight!! I have never felt, so much freedom in all of my life. This is the first time that I have been on a diet that as soon I started, I knew this was the last diet that I would ever need.
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Summary: A good basic concept of eating, but...
Review: I enjoyed The Weigh Down Diet because it addressed the issues that people have with eating for the wrong reasons. However, after speaking with my doctor about this plan, he alerted me to a couple of major problems. First, Gwen doesn't emphasize exercise as part of the WD Plan. My doctor pointed out that exercise is vitally important to overall health and wellness, not to mention the benefits to your cardiovascular system. Also, if you leave out exercise, then if you ever eat too much, you have the chance of gaining back the weight you lost initially. Also, as another reviewer mentioned, Gwen basically says you can eat anything and lose weight, as long as you don't eat too much. The theory may be right, but in practice it doesn't add up. Your body needs a variety of vitamins and other nutrients to function properly, and subsisting on barbeque and brownies doesn't give you the balance you need in a diet. Finally, I am concerned with the people who may get discouraged because they feel like God isn't allowing them to lose weight. I say that because Gwen leads you to believe that if you pray, study your Bible, and follow her principles, you will lose weight. Sometimes that doesn't work, and so there are those who will feel that God has given up on them, and that worries me. I have found that, although I didn't lose as much weight initially, the First Place plan worked better for me, because it gives you guidelines for healthy eating, motivation to exercise, and accountability within your small group. Gwen's concept of not eating unless you're truly hungry is sound, but the nutritional and fitness advice leaves much to be desired.
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