Whitney Sabo

I was born and raised in a "Christian" home. From the time I was born, we were in church every Sunday, and there I was taught that I just needed to ask Jesus into my heart, and be saved. After growing up in church, I attended a "Christian" college, where I was filled with a lot of knowledge ABOUT the Bible, along with a lot of pride. However, it wasn't until I was introduced to the Weigh Down Workshop, that my life truly began to change.

It was through Weigh Down, not any church or school that showed me how to truly get rid of sin and self and have a relationship with God Almighty! Despite being in a church, my weight was something I had struggled with my entire life. As a child I was definitely chubby, and then as I got older, into my teenage years, I was somewhat able to control my weight with sports and exercise. However, I was still always heavier than I wanted to be or really should have been. The real weight problem came when I went off to college and instead of gaining the "freshman 5", I gained the freshman 30. I was depressed and disgusted with myself and I was also out of control. I had no idea, but I had so much greed in my heart for food. I didn't know what it was. No one had ever told me that my overweight and overeating were evidence of the greed in my heart. Since I had been somewhat chubby since childhood, and had many overweight relatives, the problem must have been genetic, so I thought. I had been told I would have to watch it my whole life.

Praise God for His deliverance from all these lies! I was desperate to lose weight, I tried everything! I tried every diet from the cabbage soup diet to completely starving myself. I would exercise 3-4 hours a day, and when I got tired of that, I would just throw up my food. Praise God that in His mercy, none of these solutions worked. There were times when I would lose weight, but I could never keep it off. I had not found a  permanent solution.  In March of 1997 I began my journey with the Weigh Down Workshop. I started by reading The Weigh Down Diet book. As soon as I heard Gwen's teaching of hunger and fullness, I knew it was the truth and that it would work. I initially lost some weight using the Weigh Down principles, but I did not really understand that it was about so much more than food and weight! Therefore, Weigh Down became just another diet to me. I did not understand that it was all about obedience to God. When I would do Weigh Down (in other words, obey God), I would lose weight, but most of the time I was not obeying, and I was still bowing down to my false god of food. Greed still ruled in my heart.

By the time I finished college, my weight had pretty much remained the same, and I had completely missed one of the basic principles of Weigh Down...that obedience was not something I could just do if I felt like it, but that obedience to God was the foundation of a relationship with him. In the fall of 2001, I started in Weigh Down Advanced. For four years I had toyed with the principles of the Weigh Down Workshop, but it was through this Weigh Down Advanced class, as well as hearing Gwen speak at a live event that completely turned my life around. We joined Remnant Fellowship and I started putting the principles of Weigh Down into practice. I finally was obeying God instead of the food, and not just for a day or a week. This was a permanent change. God took 40 pounds off my body, and I weigh less than I had weighed in junior high school! It was so amazing to me that I could be at this weight, and still eat all regular foods. No calorie counting, no exercising, no food exchange lists, no banned foods, no Styrofoam rice cakes - it was so wonderful! And while the weight loss was a huge blessing from God, it did not even compare with this new relationship with God Almighty!

After joining Remnant, there have been so many other things in my life that have CHANGED! I have laid down the love of money and material things, which led to overspending; I have laid down lying, praise of man, disrespect of authority, anger, jealousy, and SO MUCH MORE!! My life went from being all about me to being all about God! I now LOVE to serve others when before I used to only serve myself. I praise GOD for this message of TRUTH that has completely changed my life. My life is now peaceful and blessed. I have a wonderful Godly marriage, sweet obedient children, and my relationships with my family are better than ever. There is truly no place better on earth!