gwen shamblin: oh my goodness! awesome audience!praise god for today. we love you, god! we are so grateful to be alive. so grateful!thank you god so much! this is episode i believe seventeen, or something like that, and itis going to be about how to stop when you are full, so i have no doubt it is going tobe one of those that is watched over and over. we are following along, if you are just joiningus, with the basics class, and it is not too late to join or join in with the next group.but we have so many positive comments of people who have been trying and trying and tryingto get their weight off. they have been stuck, and with the combination of the tv show mixedwith the facebook and all the positive comments, doing the weigh down basics class, if youare stuck, you have no excuse not to be doing
all this too, because it works! god is workingthrough this. he is blessing it. so just a blessing and a shout out to everyonefrom all the different countries. in fact, i�ve got it right here in my pocket. i wantto say hi to a lot of you all. hello, or however you say it in your country, but there is alexandrain columbia. i love you baby! and isadora in austria. bride in ireland. olusola in england.annalisa in australia. anna in australia. premavera in portugal. mia in sweden. dupeein africa. grace in africa. bella in africa. lorraine in australia. charity in japan. hello!christina in denmark. gamaliel in puerto rico; you have lost forty-four pounds. that is amazing!then there is anne in england, janis in england, gladys in columbia, melanie in vienna, sophiain germany. then there is liga from latvia,
and by the way, a note about you. you saidyou were on a plateau for half a year, but now after signing up for the facebook class,�god has been doing wonders in my life and renewed relationships with him and even agreater marriage, better relationships with relatives, new friends on the weigh down facebookgroup.� yeah! �love it! god is everything!� thank you for that encouraging note, liga,and we are praying for you and your husband and everyone over there in latvia, and justkeep it up. there are major updates. okay, get this. istarted a thread on the facebook class, and if you have not already put in your weightloss, you need to do that now. it is already up to twenty-two thousand pounds down throughweigh down. great results! these people are
going for permanent weight loss. so that isthe facebook class and chat time. you have got to get on there if you are not alreadyon there and bring a friend. so many are losing their weight, and they are getting their questionsanswered. i mean, please, on sunday afternoons about three o�clock, it is the wildest-lookingthing to sit there and just watch that scroll by with all the comments on there and to seethe spirit of god on so many people who are doing it and getting it right. it is justamazing! so that is an absolute must. so before we go, before i talk too much orwhatever about anything else, i want to bring on not one but two amazing guests. i am goingto bring them both up at the same time, and it is going to be an exciting day, becauseboth of them have lost right at a hundred
or over a hundred pounds and kept it off forseveral years. so i want to welcome our precious joe walston and carmen tedder! yay god! ilove you guys so much! a hundred pounds! it is true! it is true! so my goodness! anyway,let us have a seat, and i tell you what, you all�s stories are amazing. i am going tostart with carmen, but you may remember that she was on the front of good housekeepingmagazine, so if we can go back into the archives and find that picture, that was an amazingtrip, wasn�t it? also a tv show. good housekeeping! that is beautiful! so it has been a while,so why not just tell your story. carmen tedder: my story is that i first foundweigh down in 1997, and i remember going to my first class, and i just cried all the wayhome after that first class, because i thought
i cannot believe that no one has ever toldme this before, and this just made sense to me. it just hit my heart from day one, andi just followed all of the instructions; i followed everything in the workbook. i lookedup all the scriptures and did everything and lost weight permanently, and it has been fourteenyears. gwen: fourteen years that you have kept allyour weight off! that is amazing! you are a totally different person for fourteen years.that means it works, does it not? fourteen years! i know these people listening wantto be that. they want to be that. joe, tell us briefly your story too.joe walston: three years ago i found my way here through circumstances. my sister introducedme to weigh down, and i jumped in a class,
and embraced every bit of the message andgave up smoking, gave up heavy drinking, and lost about 135 pounds.gwen: wow! that is so awesome! i just praise god! i am just honored to know you both. praisegod that you all would be even willing to get on this show and for carmen for drivingin from arkansas and hopping on. now, let us go back and look at a before picture again,carmen. let us look at your before picture and see if you can remember the pain, becausewe have got a lot of people.... it is like week three, and during week three, there isa lot of suffering, because there is a lot of.... you know, you are at a crossroads ifyou remember, when you get into this. you are all excited at first, and then all ofa sudden you have to think about it again.
what got you past that hump and kept you going?carmen: well, the success that i had immediately the first two weeks and realizing that godwas real and that he really did care about everything that i did and knowing that thatwas real, and i did not want to lose that or forsake that. it meant so much to me justknowing that there was a real god and that i could go to him for everything. so knowingthat immediate success, and i have seen on facebook god is blessing people immediately.they are dropping weight like crazy, just off the bat for obeying, and you do not wantto lose it. so that really is what kept me going, is feeling that in my own heart thatit was real, knowing that god was there and that it mattered to him everything that wedo and say and not wanting to lose that relationship.
gwen: would you want to go back?carmen: never! gwen: what would you pay? when you go backand you did not have an answer, what would you have like paid? if somebody could havewalked up and said, �carmen, here you are. by turning to god you could lose all yourweight, be gorgeous and keep your weight off for the rest of your life and have good health,longer life and a relationship with god. i mean it is just....carmen: well, i did pay. i mean i went to weight loss clinics, i went to everythingi could find. i mean it is expensive to search out all of those areas that just leave younowhere. gwen: so you were willing to pay whateverit took. but you cannot put a price tag on
it now.carmen: you cannot! gwen: if someone told you i can give thisto you, you would have gone, �i will do whatever!� it is like a man who finds thistreasure in a field, and he sells everything to go get it. that is what i feel like thateveryone up here, all three of us, would like to express, is we would love for everyoneto understand that with what we have found, we would sell everything to get it again.carmen: absolutely! gwen: is that not right? joe, tell us howyou feel about it. joe: for me, i did spend a lot of money dieting.i did not know that i could change the way that i have, that god would enable me to dothat. i did not know what a relationship with
god was at all. i was quite godless. or ishould say, i worshiped god, but it was me. i wanted to do things my way; my way was notthe right way. i am incredibly thankful for having a relationship with god, for understandingwhat his boundaries are, what his will is, and doing it his way. and i have peace now,something that i was never even remotely close to having any kind of peace in my heart before.gwen: you had struggles with anger, which anybody would, not being connected to god.joe: i was angry. i tried to fill up with anything. alcohol was one of my favoriteswithout a doubt, and i abused it greatly. i smoked a lot.gwen: you got that (alcohol) back under control. joe: oh, yeah, very much so.gwen: where is alcohol in your life now?
joe: i have a couple drinks a week. i mean,one with my wife at dinner or maybe after dinner or when i get home from work maybe.just one, rarely, maybe two; but nothing like.... i drank a lot, let us just put it that way.it was, i am a big guy, and i thought i could handle it, and i did. i put a lot of it away.it was a very expensive habit, if you want to talk about spending money.gwen: very expensive. joe: i liked good liquor, and i drank a lotof it. gwen: it is also something that sends youout, like you are away from home. it is kind of like you want your drinking buddy.joe: oh yeah, and it was something that i did, and i am very thankful to god for allowingme not to hurt somebody, even less myself,
because i did so many stupid things when idrank. but i have total peace with where i drink now. it is totally within his boundaries.i enjoy it. i can have a drink and just enjoy a drink. i am not filling up on it. i talkabout a lot of other things other than the alcohol now, let us put it that way! god isnumber one. god is the focus of my conversation, mygwen: so you have gotten alcohol back under control; you can enjoy it, but it is not yourgod. i know that you are an excellent chef, because i am a recipient from time to timeof some of his unbelievable grilling and your jalapeno peppers that you grill or whatever....i mean, excellent gourmet foods, but you do not over eat. now you are in control. youranger is so much less.
joe: absolutely. and it is really god beingin control. it is give it over to god. you let him make the decisions for you. it isfun to be under the authority of god, just to let god just kind of guide you in everythingyou do. absolutely! let him be in control. gwen: so god controlling your life gives youlife. you controlling your life destroys your life. and that is it in a nutshell. i meanthere is no telling where i would be and what i would be doing. i mean all of us.... becausei mean when we are on our own we wreck our life. but when we have a guiding force, andeven to know that the god of the universe would like want to reach his hand out andguide us, that there is an offer. what would you do, what would you pay to get a hold ofthe guiding hand of the smartest, richest
being in the universe who is more than superman.i mean he could take you anywhere and into any planet and to go anywhere with him. tofind that is absolutely, it is hard on a tv show to express this, but we are trying toget across that we are happier! joe: it is truly precious beyond words! itis! i have never smiled this much in my life, and i have to tell you, no matter how i evertried to fill up on anything else, i never felt the high, the happiness that i have gotin my life now, every day, all the time. praise god, and it is all for god.gwen: i praise god! i praise god for that. waking up happy and anxious to get going.i like to sleep, but i just cannot wait to get up; and the earlier the clock says, thebetter for me. it is like, �oh yes!� you
know, because there is just so much to do.this morning i got up and god put it on my heart to write the prison ministry brochure,and i was just like pouring it out, you know, just like, �you will be free inside thatprison where there are people who are outside those bars who are enslaved. you can havethis freedom inside this place. and freedom, no matter where you are, what your circumstancesare, you know, for all of those who are having a tough week, i want you to remember thatsome of these people that i read to you, the ones who are in africa, they have to waitone hour to download and buffer before they can even see a few little minutes of thistv show. and we get all upset if it is not instant or whatever. so we are blessed tobe able to even get it. and then the people
that have it so easy sometimes are not appreciativeof being able to get the information. you were on a tv show; several maybe, but....carmen: the today show and tyra. gwen: you were on tyra with me, and then thetoday show? so that was fun, i am sure, getting to express the joy of this. but the worldis not always going to understand it, and the world is going to like go, �right!�a relationship with god helps you lay down alcohol, lay down lusts, lay down... but godis the answer, and he is a jealous god. he is not going to let another program, i donot care what they are doing, he is not going to let another program that is not teachingyou to fill back up with him. and the ones who have copied this, most of the times donot even copy it right. so they do not have
good results. god has blessed this place andblessed the people in it. the people cannot come up with testimonies like this. they havehad two people on in one day who lost over.... what do your joints and everything feel like?joe: personally i can say it is amazing for me. i mean i was always achy. my knees hurtconstantly. my ankles would swell up, and my feet were... it is amazing, actually, withmy weight loss, my shoe size actually got smaller.gwen: oh sure, your shoe size goes down. joe: and everything is more comfortable. imean just i went from becoming a champion... i play softball; i play tennis now. it isa lot of fun. yeah, the ability to move is amazing. you just cannot carry; put a hundredthirty-five pounds on your back and walk around
and see how far you get. i just cannot believethat i could actually function at all in that condition, but yeah, god has healed me totally.i mean i have no pain in my knees anymore, and my back is wonderful. i don�t have anyproblems with that. i am sure that you (carmen) share some of the same sentiments.carmen: yes. i was young, in my twenties, so i did not experience a lot of that, buti was just still embarrassed to even go see my husband at work, and just being embarrassedto be out and just wanting to be... but i knew that god had made me to be, but thati was not. gwen: wow! i was going to say, just the shame.forget the physical pain. the shame of it all. but this is a program of hope. this wholething is about hope, that god can do this.
let us talk a few minutes about stopping whenyou are full, because when you get to week three, people are like, they say, �look,i can wait all day for a stomach growl. i can sit there and wait and wait and wait.but when you get that food in front of me, i cannot stop.� so i want to go over that,and you all can come up with some of the things that helped you all the most in the classes.they are at week three, and a lot of that is going on. how to stop when you are full.now i am going to let you see a clip from weigh down basics so that you can be jealousthat you have not signed up for it. so anyway, watch this!video clip: weigh down basics gwen: there you go! there is a nice little....see what you are missing? did you all both
take weigh down basics?joe: yes. gwen: yeah, okay. i feel like i came backat the end and just tried to say let us go over the basics over and over and over, soeach week we are pounding in the truth. but let me go back and summarize those four things.the first one was, you know, pray. look, let me just go ahead and just, let us face it.you can join up with any program. there are people who have copied me, because i havebeen around for so long. we are the pioneer of this faith-based. there are people whohave done weight watchers at church, and they just drug in a weight watchers program ofcounting calories and exercise over into their church building, then added prayer on topof that. that is not what god wants. god does
not want you to diet. i can tell you rightnow, that will not end sensual indulgence. that will not cure you. it is not going towork. so this is the only program that fights that dieting, and the rest of them are programsabout your body and all this kind of stuff, and they are all telling you to look for specificfoods and do not eat these foods and do not eat those foods. and we are sitting thereand the dinner that you helped me with the other night was fillet, and regular foods.but my heart is not greedy for too much, and i showed you last week that big old vesselof food. when you cut out half of the food, you are cutting half the salt and half thefat. forget these low-fat foods, i mean because when you cut the amount down, you have cutit in half. they are just adding water to
it or adding.... i mean, it is tasteless.i mean, you need to learn to taste the food so that it will turn off the eating behavioror this victimization, but those four points � pray, rate your foods, then stop, andthen the last one is to tell yourself the truth.okay, think about it this way. try it without god, and you are completely missing the entireprogram. start over today, and the whole thing is about a connection with the mainframe computer,and that is prayer. it is a funny little word, but it means �communicate with god,� everyday, all day. why does he want it? i do not know, because how in the world does he doit? i will never know. i am not a god, and i do not want to talk to everybody. but godis so massive, and his brain is so big, and
he is the one who is down here searching forthose in the midst of all this spiritual warfare who will pray to him. and the whole reasonyou are in behind these bars of lard or behind all this prison of alcoholism or whateverit may be, it was not for you to lose weight, and it was not for you to be gorgeous, eventhough that is the end result, but the fact is that it was to find god.so it is not just the first little thing, �okay, pray.� i mean find him. seek him.get down on your knees. look for him. just every day get up and go, �god, i want toconnect, i want to connect, i want to connect, i want to connect.� that is why i am tryingto get everybody to go back in and watch these last four sermons from sabbath mornings. andthis next one, i mean tuning in, because it
is all about this connection. and if we donot get it, we are not going to make it. it is like that life where you are out in theocean and you are drowning, and if you do not get in there and connect, and you havegot to do it right to connect. who is crazy enough to disconnect from, youknow, it is like your own life support in the hospital, and you go in and you just likestart ripping the tubes out, so that you can just die. who wants to commit suicide? notme. i want life. satan wants you to disconnect, but god wants you to connect. so i am tellingyou the most important thing that you could ever, if you want to know how to stop....connect! he has got the self-control inside there. pray, �oh god, help me to find stomachhunger, and then help me, god. help me. and
then you love him so much, because he doeshelp you to stop. i cannot give you all the details of how he is going to do it. i meanhe is so creative it is different for everybody. it would take books and books and books andbooks to write everybody�s way of escape, and there are some just wild ways of escapeout there. i say get on facebook. let elizabeth start a facebook thing and everybody startwriting down your ways of escape and how you stop. but ways of escape, letting you knowthat it is god involved. the ways of escape remind you that you arenot doing it. you are not pulling yourself up by your own will power. you have an unbelievablegenius god who can get you to stop the over drinking, stop the lusting, and he can dothis! and it is awesome! and if we have the
stop and the mayo clinic does not have it,all these hospitals cannot do it, and they all just like relegate it and just say youare never going to stop. the churches all say you are never going to stop. you cannotdo it. you are just ?? and you are never going to stop. this one place is telling you, youcan stop! praise god! you can! let me just do a little quick advertisementhere. you are watching the �you can overcome� show through the weigh down workshop, throughremnant fellowship churches. i just wanted to remind you where you were. you know. soyou are watching this. so you can stop, okay, but you cannot do it without god. you havegot to pray. you are rating your foods, and do you know why you are rating your foods?do you know why you are rating your foods?
put the cameras on me. do you know why youare rating your foods? do you know why you are rating your foods? �because you cannothave everything! you cannot have everything. you cannot! did your mama not tell you that?you cannot have everything! your mom told you to clean your plate. i am telling you,you cannot clean your plate! you cannot have everything! the plates are too big in thiscountry! so who told you a whole sandwich? who is theone who got together and came up with the bread size? and the bread size has gottenbigger and bigger and bigger. so before when you started weigh down ten years ago and youcut your sandwich in half, well, it was a half of a sandwich. now you cut your sandwichin half and it is a sandwich and a half. i
mean i am sorry, but i may have to start awhole new program, because we get our serving sizes and our plates so big, and i have tostart going, instead of cut your food in half, i have to go: �cut your food into a fourth,or whatever it may be.� it just gets bigger. it is greed that does not stop, so you hadbetter watch out. but you cannot have everything. now knowing that you cannot have everything,you rate it. rate it, and eat a few bites. then the less you eat the less you are goingto want. you will finally find that turnoff that says that is enough, that is comfortable.that is comfortable. stop. you eat slowly so that you can feel it. and then you getaway from it. i am going to read you this. i could do a whole sermon on this, but itis called the �flee� scriptures. i corinthians
6:18: �flee sexual immorality.� i corinthians10:14, �therefore, my dear friends, flee idolatry.� so you are fleeing these, wetalked about last week, all these sensual things up here that you create that thereare no boundary for. if you let that rule you, you step into the twilight zone, andi am telling you, you will be either sick with sexual diseases, or you will have kidsscattered all over the country or be divorced or wreck. i mean you are never to play aroundwith that stuff, because it will wreck your life. i know of no one who has that conditionwho has ever had a penny to their name. they are all broke. they are all broke. you havegot to flee that. flee idolatry, the love of anything above god. i timothy 6:10, �forthe love of money is the root of all kinds
of evil.� so it says, �but you, man ofgod, flee from all this.� people who are eager to get rich, it is like they get upthere every day, and what gets them out of bed is, �i am going to make that money.i am going to make some more money. i am going to make more and more money.� and you hadbetter flee all that and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.i mean how beautiful are all those characteristics that you take with you. well, first of allit makes you popular, if you have all that. are you not a lot more popular now?joe: oh my goodness, yeah! i have so many friends. i mean i have been blessed in mylife with a few nice friends, and they were good people. i mean it is hundreds of friendsthat i have now, truly, people who would lay
down their life for me if necessary. it isan incredible blessing, and it is all from god. it is. there is no question about it.gwen: and everybody loves carmen. i mean, everybody loves you. so you are more popular,but all this is more fun to pursue, do you agree?carmen: very much. gwen: and then 2 timothy 2:22, �flee theevil desires of youth.� so that is the answer to it. all our young people, flee the evildesires of youth. by the way, elizabeth wanted me to remind you that there is going to bea facebook youth thing, and a facebook thing also where you are getting on there as justmen. joe: the men�s is tonight.gwen: oh, the men�s is tonight? you will
be on there saying hi to everybody. then allthe men, and then the youth. there is going to be one where we will gather all the youthon the facebook at one time, rock �n roll; love that. but �flee the evil desires ofyouth. pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the lordout of a pure heart.� james 4:7, �submit yourselves unto god. resist the devil andhe will flee from you.� resist him. resist this devil. the devil is wanting to kill you,and that is all he wants. he wants your death. so it is a war out there. so i am trying tobuild this. connect to god. flee those head desires. flee satan; i mean resist him andhe will flee. you do not want him around. he is lying to you. and then finally, tellyourself the truth.
i will tell you what the truth is, all thosethings above. you can stop, and you are not a victim. do not let these lies of satan giveyou an excuse to keep eating, because the person who waited all day, praise god! butif you do not stop and imagine yourself like when you are satisfied getting up and leavingthe food and maybe even giving it to somebody else who does not have a food problem. takethe food away. throw it away. wrap it up. whatever you are going to do with it. butget away from it. go take a walk. go find god and get away from the temptations. sodo not sit yourself down at some restaurant where you are stuck there for two straighthours every night where there is so much food there that you cannot stop. do not put yourself....get away from there. make a plan to get someplace
else. now, you may not like that thought,or you may think, �oh my goodness! what am i giving up? what are you giving up? youare giving up death. you are giving up a burial for yourself. you are giving up guilt. youare giving up anger. you are being disconnected from god by disobeying,so you are getting god. then he will come back in and reward you with something thatis better than a two-hour binge. so that is grace; and grace, it says in titus 2:11, graceteaches you to say no. so what kind of grace are you getting? there is all kind of graceout there. you know me, i don�t trust; there is so much false religion out there, but thetrue grace, titus 2:11, �for the grace of god that brings salvation� � that is thegrace that we are pursuing. �the grace of
god that brings salvation has appeared toall men. so here he is. it is through christ, but it teaches us to say no to ungodliness,worldly passion and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present agewhile we wait...� what we are waiting for and what we are anticipating and what ourconversations should be about are the glorious appearing of our great god and savior jesuschrist. that is what we are waiting on. what are you waiting on? �for the stock marketto go up? what are you waiting on? you have got to wait on and imagine the face of godand him greeting you and saying, �well done, good and faithful servant.� so he came,it says, �jesus christ gave himself up for us, to redeem us from all wickedness and topurify for himself a people that are his very
own, eager to do what is good � eager todo what is good.� i love this. you know? this is beautiful! we were made for good works.so i mean this is beautiful. so i ask you again, has it been worth it to pursue thosethings over a big pile of food? carmen: there is no comparison.gwen: speak it, carmen. carmen: i mean just being able to obey thebible and understand it. that fact alone is not worth losing, much less answered prayersand everything else that comes with this relationship. i mean just on the way here, i was prayingfor gas money, and i won a five hundred dollar bonus at work yesterday. and i never win anything.but it just came across as an answered prayer.then on the way here i did not have to stop
and get gas. i got here on one tank of gas,which has never happened, ever. there is nothing else that can compare with being able to goto god for needing something and have it provided for you.gwen: and then, when you let him provide it, you are closer to him; instead of grabbingfor it for yourself. you can get up and pursue money. you can get up and pursue...and i amnot saying we do not go to work. i work, and i believe in work, and it keeps you busy andkeeps you out of trouble. and you are supposed to provide for your family. you are supposedto work. but it is working for.... god has the bank. god has the money. then he comesback and does something like that. and then that needs to go on facebook, because thenthat encourages the next person to believe
that god is going to provide. it is beautiful.he is the resource for everything. you do not need something else. god is everything.you need god for everything, no matter where you are. and what about you, joe? what areyour.... joe: god has given me more than what i need.it is incredible, because as hard as i went after everything in my old life, i mean ichased money very hard and pursued all the wrong things. it all got taken away, and nowgod is giving back. i just go to him for anything that i need, and he knows what i need, andhe makes sure that i am very, very well taken care of. it is beautiful and it is wonderful.it is a great life. i would not trade it for anything. thank you.gwen: no, i thank god. i thank god. he has
appeared to all men. he has appeared to you,and this is not about just another little adjunct class that you are taking on the sidefor fascination or interest. this is about being born again to a whole new life. you are looking, take one more look at the beforepictures and the after pictures. you are looking at the physical evidence of a new life for carmentedder, let us look at her before picture. okay, there are several of them, but it wasunhappy. now there is her after. and then joe�s before picture or pictures, or whatever.there is one, and that hurt. that was painful. that is the old life, and now here is the new life � old life to a new life! praise god! praise god!i want to end with you are looking at two people who said no to ungodliness. they stopped,and they continue to stop when they are full,
and that is better. and i just want to makesure that you understand that you can do it too. you too can overcome through jesus christ and this connection through christto god almighty. so until next week, just remember you can overcome through christ.so thanks for joining us! awesome day! thank you all so much. 1
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