Faith can heal and similarly, a holistic method of weight loss involves spirituality. Debi Dunbar Mahoney and Annette Murphy from Oklahoma City claim to offer guidance about the Spiritual Principles of Releasing weight.
Rather than the traditional weigh ins and set goals for weight loss, this is a weight loss methodology that teaches spiritual lessons to lose weight forever by helping participants discover the root cause of their struggle with weight loss.
A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever
The concept of holistic healing as part of a weight loss program is not a new one and it is one that has already been propounded by Marianne Williamson in her book,
A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever. The book hypothesizes that it is “weighty thinking” that is responsible for us failing to lose weight and also the reason why we regain the weight lost.
The idea is that it isn’t just the body that has to lose weight, but the emotions and the mind as well because otherwise we have this subconscious urge to regain the weight lost.
The goal is to lose not only the weight but also the thought forms that gave rise to the excess weight in the first place. Otherwise the weight is doomed to return.
The Weigh Down Diet a Bible Based Weight Loss Movement
Another spiritual based weight loss movement is the Weigh Down, a Bible based weight loss movement that seeks to find and satisfy the inner hunger as propounded by Gwen Shamblin.
Here as well, the idea is to distinguish between emotional or spiritual hunger and actual or physical hunger and to learn not to use food to try to satisfy the former.
It is a learning process that aims to retune the body in a way that one eats only when actually hungry and also learns to recognize the signs of satiety, so that one stops eating when satisfied – not full but satisfied!
One has to start seeing the body as a gift from God that is not to be abused. Neither is there any deprivation here: the tasty treats such as cakes and ice creams are not prohibited, but they are a gift from God and not to be overdone.
It boils down to a simple fact that we are preoccupied with food. Even when we are on a ‘diet’ it is this obsession that probably undermines our efforts at weight loss.
