Before we begin learning the new approach, I want you to know why diets do not work. This will help explain why you have not been successful and give you more hope that you are not a failure and that you can do this program.

Diets do not work because they are basically just making the food behave. When we have taken out the sugar and replaced it with an artificial sugar, thrown out the fat and replaced it with an artificial fat, thrown out the calories and replaced them with non-caloric fluff or indigestible hay, we have made the food behave or change. We have not changed our own behavior. We do not have to change how much food we chew and swallow, because the food itself has changed to larger volumes of low-calorie content. One serving piece of food that used to contain 115 calories now contains only 70 calories. Since the same volume of food now contains fewer calories, you can eat a larger volume. Never mind that it is tasteless and unpalatable. You do not have to take fewer bites of food to lose weight; you can even take more bites on a diet. However, you eventually go back to the regular foods. This is inevitable because you get sick and tired of diet food, and your body craves regular food. As a result, you gain weight back quickly because you were reprogrammed to chew even more food while on the diet!

Pills, liquid fasts, appetite suppressants, and counting fat grams change your environment temporarily, but they do not change you. They are like taking aspirin for a fever. Yes, the fever goes down temporarily, but as soon as the aspirin wears off, the fever goes back up. Why? It is because the aspirin does not get to the root of the problem—the bacterial infection. What you need is an antibiotic.

We believe the Weigh Down approach is the antibiotic or what is needed to get to the root of the real problem. The real problem can be partially defined as a desire to put more food down the esophagus than the body wants or, put another way, wanting to chew more food than the body can handle. Making the food behave by changing its content (low fat, low calorie) will not help you change this desire to chew more food. In fact, dieting is the perfect environment to cultivate a deeper love for food. Using the Weigh Down approach, we will not ask the food to behave. Instead, we will teach you how to behave. More importantly, we will teach you how God can take away the desire to overeat.

Just as dieting does not help your heart desire less food, neither does exercise. Exercise has virtue for physical training. There is no substitute for exercise when it comes to muscle toning, cardiovascular conditioning, and bone strengthening. It can also help with digestion and with healthy functioning of your organs. “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). We believe that exercise is great for physical training, but it does not retrain your over-chewing. Exercise could even work against you in terms of weight loss. Our goal is getting you to chew less food. But it is very tempting to continue to overeat and then compensate by walking around the block. Do not misinterpret—we are all for exercise. However, our goal is to focus all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength on eating less food. The only exercises we insist on are getting down on your knees to pray and getting the muscle of your will to surrender some of the extra food you have been eating. That is a whole new exercise. (Many are too large to get on your knees right now. That is OK—just get on your knees in your heart.)

Just know that everyone who traveled this journey and lost weight permanently did not have to increase energy expenditure through exercise. Not everyone can exercise. What about the disabled? What about the person who loves to exercise but has been injured? Are these people doomed to gain weight? No. Let me explain.

Exercise will not increase the speed of your weight loss, because you now will be using hunger and fullness as your signals to eat. In exercise, your body needs more oxygen, so immediately and automatically, you breathe harder. Exercise will also make you more thirsty. You will require more water to satisfy your body’s needs, so you will automatically drink more water until those needs are met. Likewise, even though hunger is deferred temporarily, within twenty-four hours, your body’s hunger increases automatically to cover the body’s extra caloric needs. So if you want to exercise, fine; but exercise will not help you to lose weight faster. It will allow you to eat more food, just as it allows you to drink more water. The goal of Weigh Down will be a decreased desire to eat large volumes of food. If you are less active because of an inability to exercise, your hunger will decrease to meet your fuel needs. You never have to fear missing an aerobics class or workout again.