
DATE: Wednesday, September 3, 1997          TAG: 9709030054

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAT DOOLEY, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  139 lines

FAITH-FILLED WEIGHT-LOSS PROGRAM FOCUSES ON GOD

SUSAN CRANE used to hide candy from her family.

Sometimes, after putting her two young children down for their afternoon nap, she'd slip out of her Port Norfolk condominium and pop into a nearby convenience store.

There, she'd buy chocolate bars and other sweet treats. Munching on them helped ease the loneliness of being a stay-at-home mom, while her husband worked long hours to make ends meet.

She'd always liked to snack. But playing sports in high school, it was easy to stay slim.

Now, in her early 30s, Crane couldn't mask the pounds created by her compulsion. Nor could she hide from her own frustration: At 5-foot-4, she weighed 176 pounds.

To rid herself of the added pounds, she dieted. Exercised. And exercised more.

Nothing ever worked - for long.

Then, about 2 1/2 years ago, Crane read about a Bible-based weight loss program founded by Gwen Shamblin, a registered dietitian in Nashville, Tenn.

If God had an answer for everything else, Crane thought, he had one for weight loss, too.

Soon, she was organizing one of Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshops, with four other people from her Chesapeake church, Emmaus Foursquare Gospel.

She learned to focus on God, not food.

Nine months later, Crane had shed 42 pounds.

And she's kept it off. That, she says, is because she's changed from within.

``The food is not the problem,'' says Crane, who now lives in Suffolk. ``It's what you're using the food for.''

Crane's success inspired others to try the workshop. She's facilitated several. On Thursday, another session will begin, with orientation at 6 p.m. at the church on Portsmouth Boulevard.

New facilitator Kay Eure, also a member of Emmaus Foursquare, wanted to revive the program, after reading Shamblin's ``The Weigh Down Diet Workshop,'' published by Doubleday in March.

Shamblin, a 5-foot-4 inch blonde pictured on the cover, weighs about 110 pounds. But it wasn't always that way, she reveals within the 317 pages of the scripture-infused book.

Growing up in a family of six, Shamblin was an early member of the clean-your-plate club. In high school, cheerleading kept her thin, despite a growing passion for food.

By the time she began studying dietetics at the University of Tennessee, she was feasting on milkshakes, ice cream, sugary soft drinks - and had gained 20 pounds.

Shamblin tried in vain to shed her girth, using low-carbohydrate diets, food exchanges, aerobics.

``The most common diet regimen I used looked something like this,'' she writes: ``Morning was starvation; noon was lettuce, Italian dressing and a diet soda; and in the evening I allowed myself a few exchanges.''

At night, she would jog on the university track. On weekends, she would binge - mixing batches of cookie dough and dipping into much of the batter before it was even baked.

Before long, Shamblin realized that weight loss didn't come by making food behave. It was she who needed to change.

She began studying skinny friends to learn what set them apart. At McDonald's with one of her subjects, Shamblin had downed a Big Mac, large fries and milkshake before her friend had finished her quarter-pound hamburger. When the friend began to wrap up half the burger because she was full, Shamblin watched, aghast.

``I knew no end to fullness,'' she says.

Soon, however, she began imitating her thin friends' behaviors, eating when she was truly hungry and only until she was satisfied. Not only did she lose weight, but she maintained it through marriage and two pregnancies.

By 1982, she was helping women at her church lose weight. But they weren't able to keep it off.

Shamblin prayed for wisdom, and began incorporating Scriptures in her program. A favorite, John 4:34, appears on the Workshop's literature: ``My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.''

Today, the 12-week Weigh Down Workshop has been used in some 10,000 churches nationwide, including about two dozen in South Hampton Roads.

Lessons are delivered by Shamblin, through a series of 40- or 50-minute videos. Between weekly classes, participants read from the Bible and listen to audiocassettes included in the $103 fee.

The program emphasizes God's power over willpower.

Overeaters, Shamblin says, often use food to fill two voids: the stomach and the heart. It's a kind of bondage she likens to the Israelites' enslavement in Egypt.

But using food to fill the heart leads to overweight, Shamblin says.

She encourages participants to transfer their love of food to a love of God.

Traditional diets only fuel the desire to overeat, she says, by focusing on food and by churning out tasteless copies of the real things.

In the Weigh Down Workshop, there are no forbidden foods. No diet sheets. No exchanges. No scales.

Shamblin doesn't even push exercise. She says it can be a problem in itself when it's used for losing pounds instead of enhancing health. ``The only exercises we insist on are getting down on your knees to pray,'' she writes.

Participants start by abstaining from food until they feel the ``growl'' of hunger.

For facilitator Kay Eure, who began the program on her own about three months ago, that took 36 hours.

Eure, who describes herself as ``a dieter from way back,'' says she tried every weight-loss plan she could find, hoping to trim pounds from her 5-foot-6-inch frame. But focusing on food only escalated her desire to eat.

Now, she focuses on God, and is learning to differentiate between her hunger and her feelings.

In her first 10 weeks on the program, Eure, 47, lost about 30 pounds and gained a sense of freedom from thinking about food. Her grocery bills tumbled.

Former facilitator Susan Crane also lost weight right away - 3 inches melted from her waist after the first week.

Crane, 35, eats what she wants but in smaller amounts than before.

Unlike the times she lost weight before, Crane feels confident telling others the change is permanent.

``I know,'' she says, ``because I'm not using food to fix the problems.'' MEMO: For more information on The Weigh Down Workshop, call toll-free:

(800) 844-5208. Orientation for the workshop at Emmaus Foursquare Gospel

Church begins at 6 p.m. Thursday at the church, 4209 Portsmouth Blvd.,

Chesapeake. The 12 weekly sessions begin Sept. 18. For information, call

Kay Eure at 686-5366. ILLUSTRATION: Photos

MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Susan Crane of Suffolk says she lost 42 pounds, and kept it off, by

participating in a Weigh Down Workshop at her Chesapeake church.

Gwen Shamblin's diet book was published in March.