THE TRUTH EXPOSED

Hi, dear readers, How are you?

I am really doing well with my eating and how i feel emotionally/spiritually!!!

I ate mostly raw yesterday AND today AND all week, and only when i was physiologically hungry. Yay!

I am definitely onto something following hunger/fullness, and feel a new effervescent freedom and lightness. A burden has definitely been lifted from me - binge eating and weight gain have stopped, almost effortlessly. I'm on track! I'm mostly raw! I'm in control! I have zero fear of binge eating today. yay!

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Today i had 3 tangerines and a golden apple for breakfast.

For lunch, i had 2 cups of torn up romaine with about a 1/3 cup wonderful homemade raw almond-veggie pate' plopped on top, with 1/2 of a nice cut up tomato. That was delish. Savored every bite. Sometimes i eat with my eyes closed now so i can really pay attention. I wait for the growl...and the enjoy! For dessert, I had an old dried up date stuffed with raisins. That was not so hot!

For snack, i was hungry and sucked the juice and some of the pulp out of about 5 tangerines. Then i had a cup of plain herbal tea.

For dinner, we were out and opted for Chinese. I ordered the steamed mixed vegetables with tofu and brown rice. I ate about a 1/3 of the portion dipping peices of broccoli or tofu ever so slightly in the flavorful brown sauce. I enjoyed! I boxed the rest up. I ate with my eyes closed again and the Chinese counter lady was looking at me when i opened them. haha!!! She musta thought i was nuts! It really helps to pay attention!

I was hungry, so when i was 'satisfied,' i knew it. The food stops tasting as good. i stop feeling the food hit the pit of my stomach. i sigh. And i know i'm done. These are all clues i learned about and listening to them is working!

For snack, i wanted a treat. I bought some fat free greek yogurt. I had about 3 oz worth with a little raw honey.

We watched a movie last night and my belly was grumbling and grumbling. i ate an apple. Then had banana, blueberry, carob smoothie. that hit the spot.

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Unfortunately, or fortunately, since i broke my toe, and i am layed up, I have had time on my hands, so I've been able to research and investigate more into Weigh Down Workshop and it's associate church, Remnant Fellowship. What i found out...are alot of ugly things, and I think i am closing the door on that workshop and permanently un-recommending it.

That said, since i am paid in full for the next 6 weeks, I think i will "take what i want and leave the rest," and see the class through until the end, just taking from it what i want, while keeping my eyes WIDE OPEN to any pressure, manipulation, force, coercement, which i've been feeling, and thank God, resisting.

Doing research on the WDW, i ended up at www.spiritwatch.org., a anti-cult Christian Watchdog group, which is heavily critical of Weigh Down and Remnant Fellowship, the church that sponsors the Weigh Down Workshop ministry. Or actually the church that was formed so that WDW could become a non profit and become tax deductible.

Finding all of this crap out about the ministry, I kinda feel like Diane Sawyer, like a true investigative reporter. On the other hand, another part of me is so sad and feels a real loss. I had hoped that Weigh Down was gonna be a good thing, but it turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Man, you gotta be vigilant these days!!!

Now, pause for a second - the teachings that i've been talking about that they taught: following hunger/fullness, waiting for the growl, seeking God for comfort, I still wholeheartedly believe in!!!! I want to continue to follow these teachings and incorporate them so well into my being that they BECOME ME!!!

Except i don't want anything else WDW offers.

It's the ministry and it's church, Remnant Fellowship, that i have a problem with, a BIG problem with.

I actually wrote a letter to www.spiritwatch.org, the watch dog group critical of WDW, documenting all of my strange misgivings with the mininstry these last days and how i came to the conclusion to sever ties with the organization after my class is over.

I don't have time for a longy now, so i'll just give the most important part.

www.spiritwatch.org exposes Remnant Church and Gwen Shamblin as being really seriously seriously dangerous. I didn't believe it at first, until i read, at GREAT length how church members are reeled in unsuspectingly, thinking the church had the best intentions, only to be brain washed, manipulated, and abused. Remnant Fellowship sponsors the WDW. Church members are all WDW participants. So, instead of going to normal church where the focus in on God, they go to a church where the focus is on THIN and on how little you eat. I've been feeling pressured, so i really believe everything i've read about Remnant Fellowship on www.spiritwatch.org. According to them, and ex-members testifying, Remnant Fellowship members are:

-coorced into eating miniscule amounts of food to be holy and pure
-taught that holyness with food is the only way to heaven
-chastised constantly for their impurity and lack of discipline if they overeat one bite
-called to weigh-in before the church public
-publicly ridiculed and ostracized for not losing weight
-compared with other members, who lost weight faster
-ostracized for asking questions and doubting any church rules or teachings
-made to worship Shamblin and take everything she says as gospel
-made to believe that Shamblin is a prophet
-taught to abuse their children with a rod with sticky tape on it so it doesn't leave marks
-taught to deny their children food
-taught to obey their husbands without question
-praised for what they DO and how little they eat, instead of praised for being saved by Grace
-made to follow bizarre legalistic rules and doctrines without end
-discouraged from exercising because it might make them hungrier
-brainwashed and mind-controlled into believing they are getting holier and holier the more they obey Shamblin because she speaks for God as God's prophet
-wooed to join the church and move to Tennesee if they want to get saved
-taught to consider all other churches the 'whores of Babylon" and Remnant as the only TRUE church
-taught to turn a blind eye to the fact that Gwen's husband does not attend church
-taught to hide problems within their families and to appear perfect to the public and media
-coerced to give money to the church to be holy, when it has 10's of millions in the bank
-coerced to attend long extended festivals and events multiple times a year, fasting for weeks, for the sake of purity, which can never be achieved
-anaylzed and severely criticized in front of their peers and are forbidden to state their side or case during these trials
-told they no longer exist if they are found wanting
-kicked out of the organization, revoked priveledges or demoted if they gain weight, don't lose enough weight, question without blind faith, or find fault with Gwen.
-made to recruit new membership and must hide embarassing truths about the church from new members

Etc. Etc. Etc.

It appears all is not rosy over there in Brentwood, Tennessee....

When little wierd things happened, over and over again, a whole list of them over the last few days, I got increasingly suspect and really funny feelings about the organization. I'll tell you about it another day.

Nevertheless, after reading the article, "Cults,Cultism and Gwen Shamblin's Remnant Fellowship (http://www.spiritwatch.org/remnantcultism.htm), and other articles on the site and others dedicated to exposing Remnant and Weigh Down, i finally understood why i had been feeling so funny all along.

Remnant Fellowship IS a cult.

Members are asked to follow Shamblin with blind faith, never question her authority, and are controlled, abused and manipulated agressively. Many ex-members are so persecuted by the church, they are almost suicidal when they finally leave the church for good.

Here are the criteria of a cult:

1. Milieu Control – simultaneous isolation/ rejection of external influences and creation of new world order of group’s vision

2. Demand For Purity – pressure to engage in a continual process of self-purification from all the group deems impure and unholy

3. The Cult Of Confession – communal exercises to compel confession of failures, reinforce submission to authority, and discipline through shaming, fear and guilt

4. Mystical Manipulation – an exaltation of the group’s authority through an allegedly spontaneous, yet staged event aimed at inspiring or evoking awe/wonder

5. The Sacred Science – group claims, authority and wisdom of which establish "new truth" never before achieved & available exclusively only to group members

6. Loading The Language – unique group vocabulary meant to directively evoke and condition thought and practice by conveying specific meanings

7. Doctrine Over Person – resolving of tension between group truth claims and personal experience at the group member’s expense, regardless the cost

8. Dispensing Of Existence – belief that group authority is so absolute that it can infallibly determine the right of people, relationships and even cultural institutions to exist or not exist, and thus given any actual recognition

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Remnant Fellowship fits all of the criteria of a cult.

And i almost bought into it! And shared about it so excitedly here! And i saw all of the glaring red signals along the way. I was saved just in time.

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I a healthy FEAR, but truly mixed emotions about WDW because it has been SUCH a good influence on me, this waiting until you are TRULY hungry and waiting for the growl. But, when i read how the more advanced classes of Weigh Down and the Remnant church doctrine perverts what seem like good teachings at first and perverts them and perverts them and distorts them and makes them so severe to control and pressures members to submit, and attacks members for overeating or overweight, and tells them they are sinners for eating one too many bites of food, and that the only way to get to heaven is to be skinny and barely eat a thing, I KNOW this organization is not something i want to get involved any more deeply in.

Any church that makes you feel bad about you, guilty, like a sinner more and more the longer you go, to reel you in deeper and deeper is not for me. Besides, I only wanted to get thin and stop binge eating. i don't think I need to starve myself or become a super-hero Christian reading the bible night and day to do that. I believe i have to be seriously SPIRITUAL and live my life from Spirit, but religious? Not necessarily. And definitely not religiously-obsessed like members must become to be viewed as 'holy,' and 'righteous.'

I'm sorry because i was feeling so much closer to God and feeling connected to a group with the hope i'd find somewhere really fitting to worship, and also no longer overeating or binge eating. We all want to find a home. WDW and Remnant are not it.

In my quest to find the truth about food for myself, how to stop binge eating and lose weight permanently, i thought i'd found a portion of the answer at WDW. But, i suppose I can continue along the same lines as i've been doing, following my God-given intuition about raw veganism coupled with on-demand intuitive eating (all food is made clean by God) without the church, find other resources for fellowship and emotional support, and continue developing my growing relationship with God, without being controlled and manipulated by a crazy big haired woman and a mob of anorexic ascetic control freak Christians.

If I have to join a cult to get thin and lose my obsession with food, i'll find another way!

xoxo Michelle Joy