Suzanne Fowler and The Light Weigh |
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Suzanne Fowler offers us what some call, "faith based" weight loss.
However, in doing research I found there is faith-based weight loss and
then there is faith based DIET INDUSTRY (which Gwen Shamblin has become).
Fowler offers weight loss but not diet industry. She is, according to one site, the
mother of 7 kids (that's wonderful in itself). Her "weight problem" she is
a bit evasive about. She supposedly had fought "weight" since the
4th
Fowler decided that since her program worked so well for her maybe she should share it with others battling the same struggle. For a price, of course. $125 bucks for the "Light Weigh" materials which can be purchased on her website. The "Light Weigh" program is 12 videos, and Bible study materials meant to be used at meetings for 12 weeks as well as audio tapes to listen to, outside of class. According to a newspaper article, the meetings include a Bible study and discussion and of course, the video by Suzanne. Suzanne said in her interviews that there is no "weigh in" at the meetings but participants do discuss their progress with the program. According to a happy "Light Weigh" participant, after you finish the 12 weeks, you start back at week one and repeat the 12 weeks thus enabling the meetings to run continuously. Suzanne didn't mention this but did say that people should continue going to meetings after the 12 week program. (the source said she liked the program but had not lost a "ton of weight" however, managed to keep from gaining during the holiday season). In the videos, Suzanne talks about topics on the Catholic faith, how to eat foods and looking to the saints for an example of spiritual living. For example, one of the videos, according to the newspaper article, featured "Holy Spirit Milk and pizza". According to Fowler:
Apparently participants in the program are given beads to use to help them to avoid overeating or eating too many goodies. They are told to offer up not eating a goodie or second portion as a prayer-sacrifice for their loved ones. Every time they do this, they add a bead to the string. According to one source, participants are supposed to journal their progress also. (this is sounding more and more like a diet, isn't it?) The fundamentals of the program according to one post on a bulletin board from a person who had gone through the program include:
Supposedly the program also "teaches" people to recognize when their bodies really need food. Suzanne remarked in one of the interviews that people overeat because they are trying to fulfill the need for God which creates a hole in their hearts, an idea taught by Gwen Shamblin also. And once this "hole" is filled, people are no longer hungry for a lot of food. Ascetic saints are given as examples of this without regards to the fact that saints followed BOTH extremes i.e. St Thomas Aquinas was very fat and he wasn't the ONLY round saint, either! Fowler does NOT offer any free information on her site about what the program is like - basically has testimonials and "bromides" (generalities) about having more faith. Suzanne also gives speeches all over the country and although she is generally identified as the lady who started "Light Weigh", her speeches are on a range of Catholic subjects including building the family and more. Fowler has also written a cookbook which includes a recipe by Bishop Fulton Sheen for meatloaf. At a faith conference in 2005, where she was a featured speaker, the promos said she was a "revert" to the Catholic faith, having come back to the church in her early adulthood. It also stated that there were over 1000 Light Weigh groups all over the world. There may be more now. I listened to two shows featuring Fowler as a guest. In the second show, Suzanne gave mostly generalities about faith but in the first show aired in 2003, she was more detailed about what the program taught. Especially significant was one of the phone calls from a successful user of the Light Weight - a person who apparently was able to continue working the program and keep her weight off. She asked Suzanne, "What do you tell people and family who say you are too slim and not eating enough?" Suzanne answered that this was a cross that many successful Light Weigh folks had to bear and to just say that you are full and cannot eat any more or you will get sick. Suzanne said that she gets that all the time, also - about being too thin and not eating enough but God has designed your body, according to her, to know what it needs. The Light Weigh program has some good ideas. Offering turning down food we do not wish to eat, as a prayer is a good idea. Also, people who have followed the Light Weigh have said they have learned a lot about the faith which is another plus. On the negative side, being healthy has a lot more to do with WHAT we eat rather than portion control. However you cut it, eating non foods like donuts is ALWAYS unhealthy even if you don't eat much of them. Fowler is also very light on exercise - can do it if you like or not - again how you feel. And most folks do NOT feel like exercising despite the health benefits. Also, I do not feel it is good to think of God as worrying about our size or what we eat or even if we smoke or drink, since this is NOT something Jesus considered important enough to emphasize to His Apostles. Let's put it this way - if Mother Teresa weighed 350 lbs or smoked like a chimney or even enjoyed alcohol sometimes, would that make her any less, Mother Teresa? Being fat is only a sin in our society - it is NOT mentioned as being a sin in the Bible (the gluttony mentioned is not just about food but ANY commodity which we can overdo, like bigger houses, more cars or EVEN too much emphasis on looks!)
This sounds judgmental and I don't mean to be and this is certainly nothing against Suzanne as a person for indeed, she appears to be a very fine person. But even if Suzanne's motives are pure and NOT involved with size or looks, would many people be able to follow the program for God alone without expecting the benefits of losing weight?
The show you might want to listen to - Suzanne comes on at the 16
minute point: Also here is Suzanne's website: article by Suzanne Fowler "Break Free from dieting" |
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and then, after pregnancy, found herself overeating and sometime came to a
realization that she should
stop overeating and the Catholic church would offer the tools for doing
this. So she devised a Biblical weight loss program for
herself, which called for listening to what her body said, not eating when
she wasn't hungry and if she was hungry but had "enough", her program
called for praying her way against the "Temptation" to eat more. She
lost 40 lbs which rendered her a size 5. (In a recent article, Feb
2006, she said her loss was 53 lbs and that she took a size 12-14 in
college which definitely is more average sized than fat and now she is
very thin, possibly underweight. And since medicine states that
being as little as 5 lbs underweight is less healthy than being 70 lbs
overweight, it's questionable whether her program is really God's idea of
something her body should be, although of course, her svelte size fits well
into our society's parameters). 