Turning Point

Holding Hannah, feeling good

After Hannah was born, I was determined to take off my excess pounds.  God led me to Gwen Shamblin’s book The Weigh Down Diet,   Gwen’s program was still fairly new.  (Disclaimer: She has since gone off the deep end, so I can’t recommend HER, but I found her first book helpful after years of useless dieting.)

Reading her book was enlightening.  Freeing.  It was an epiphany for me: God made my body.  He made it to work correctly.  When you are hungry, you’ll feel it.  Eat.  When satisfied, stop.  Don’t eat again until you physically feel hunger.  Eat whatever sounds good.  Your body will naturally crave variety.

This was too easy.  Surely I couldn’t lose weight without writing down my calories and fat grams for the day.  Surely must eat only diet foods and stay away from the fattening “bad” foods.  It seemed too easy, but it also made sense.  I knew it would work.

It did.  Over the next several months, I took off 40 pounds.  I wasn’t following Gwen’s advice to the letter. I didn’t just eat “whatever”.  I was already accustomed to healthier foods.  We didn’t eat fried foods.  I was still a vegetarian.  I did, however, enjoy desserts or other traditionally “bad list” foods, just doing so rarely and in small portions.

Gwen also says there is no need to exercise.  That part didn’t make sense to me.  I knew God designed our bodies to be active and useful.  This was the time of my life that I discovered running.

Running with Hannah (just a few months old)

Eating less and running more, and doing some weight-training led to a 40-pound weight loss within about 9 months.  I kept it off for over 3 years.