Resumo de The Weigh-down Diet

If you are overweight, you don't need a diet. You need to fill your empty heart with Spirit as you fill your empty stomach with food. So says Gwen Shamblin, author of The Weigh Down Diet.

As a young woman, Gwen Shamblin learned to eat for comfort. She noticed her thin friend did not eat for comfort but instead ate only when she was hungry. Ms. Shamblin used this insight to discover that feelings can drive a person to eat. As a registered dietitian she helped people lose weight but not keep it off. Finally her biblical studies taught her something important:

Just as the human stomach gets empty, so does the spiritual place. Somehow our society has learned how to keep our stomachs full without knowing how to fill the heart. Ms. Shamblin is religious and she teaches a counterpart to good eating habits: prayer. Ultimately, God loves us and knows what we need, so we need to turn to Him to help us feel more satisfaction in areas besides food.

What is the proper diet? It is to eat whatever you want. Ms. Shamblin explains that potato chips, for example, are not something sinful--they're merely potato and oil. Some foods are more pleasing than others. The real way to eat is to slow down the meal and to stop eating while the stomach is not yet completely full. The answer to the compulsion to eat more than that is to be found in spiritual fulfillment.

What is the proper exercise? It is whatever activity fits into your life and makes you feel healthy.

Ms. Shamblin councils the very overweight to learn how to experience hunger, as many people never stop eating long enough to get hungry. The proper time to eat is not "meal time," but when the stomach needs more food. This is perhaps the toughest habit to change. Although it is important for the family to sit at the table together, it is a free world and nobody has to eat at set times. Also, nobody has to eat what they are given; they can say no.

In conclusion, weight loss follows personal growth outside of food. By depending on God for spiritual nourishment, the dieter will find a long-forgotten freedom of spirit to renew life in a way that really matters--not just in a materialistic sense of personal appearance. Other authors such as Geneen Roth write of meditation as an alternative to prayer for the fulfillment of spirit.

Diets are a form of slavery and external control. True fulfillment comes from putting all aspects of life in proper relationship.

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