Overweight as a Child Led to Years of Hopelessness
Jaime Field has made a complete transformation once she began following the principles of Weigh Down a decade ago. She’s lost an amazing 111 pounds and has kept it off for years. She and her husband Todd and two children Gracie and Zachary live in the Orlando area. Today she is a Regional Rep in Florida helping others lose weight and find a deeper relationship with God through Weigh Down.
Jaime’s story in her own words…
“Beginning in elementary school as a child, I desired food and it became a stronghold in my life. My heart’s desire was to please God, but making wrong worldly choices left me in such guilt.
In college, I turned to food for comfort instead of God and it caused even more pain spiraling me into isolation, depression and consuming myself with TV. At 19 my clothes hardly fit and I panicked, looking for the latest diet to fix me. Down a path of numerous diets, every diet made me desire food more with less hope.
“In my pain I couldn’t stop eating, it was like a drug.”
At age 23, I weighed 238 pounds! So I decided to try another personal trainer. I sank. In my pain I couldn’t stop eating, it was like a drug. It had me. One minute I’d be in the mirror trying on clothes and crying, wanting to hide. I had so much shame. I’d leave the mirror and was all-consumed which led to more binging.
Then I got engaged and the desire to lose weight was even greater. While planning my wedding, I took pills to lose weight quick and my heart would race so fast I thought I was going to die. I got to 199 for my wedding in September 2002. By that December the weight was back on. I started praying. This time seeking God for answers.
I wasn’t in church. I’d stopped going my senior year of high school. So in August 2005 I went to a Christian counselor, and she gave me a book about how I was unique. God was not at that office and I didn’t go back.
After crying out to God I heard in my mind “spiritual battle.” Food is a spiritual battle? How could this be? I Bible flopped to “a little bit of yeast gets through a whole batch of dough” and I knew He was trying to tell me something. I saw how this food (sin) had gotten into every part of my life destroying it. AND THEN!!
A Decade of Weigh Down Success with 111 Pounds Down!
It was the summer of 2007 when I met a a girl who had old Weigh Down tapes. She gave them to me and I started listening. The HOPE I felt for the first time came with just the first tape!
Gwen offered simple, truthful answers that were black and white. Biblical answers that were hitting my heart and filling my soul. The answers like, “Yes, this love for food IS a spiritual battle, and it IS greed in the heart.”
So on Christmas Eve 2007 I started my first class and began with God and cried. With Weigh Down, I couldn’t binge again, and I didn’t know what I was going to do instead. But Weigh Down gave me the “how to” and pointed me to run to God instead of food. I quickly learned God gives back WAY more than food.
God brought me to my high school weight and I felt physically and spiritually free for the first time in years. Then in 2009, I became pregnant with my second child. It was a much healthier pregnancy than my first prior to Weigh Down. After losing the pregnancy weight, I still had more to go so I got an accountability partner.
Having a willing heart and choosing to stop eating when I was full because of my love for God, was what finally set me free! Today, I am down total of 111 pounds, from size 20 to 2!
Self and Greed OUT – Love for God IN!
God used my accountability partner to bring transparency and more refinement into my life. With every pound down came more self and greed OUT of my heart and IN came more love for God. It never would have happened without changing the inside. All the TRUTH taught by Gwen Shamblin through Weigh Down and Remnant Fellowship has touched everything, God has restored and made all things new.
We went to Rebuilding the Wall Chicago; it was incredible. Everyone we met was lit up with life and joy. Todd kept saying how everyone was so different and real. We started webcasting Remnant services during my Weigh Down journey, and it was everything I’d been searching for in a church just not in Florida! (Remnant Fellowship assemblies are broadcast online via webcast every Sabbath and Wednesday night).
Weigh Down Advanced unlocked so many lies, such as Zion is in your heart and and we joined the church January 2011. This beautiful message teaches us how to love like Jesus, following His footsteps. I’m sad to say I was a prideful, arrogant wife, but I learned how to love and humbly serve and respect my husband and today we laugh a lot. The “How to Make Yourself Beautiful” sermon catapulted my heart and brought even more refinement.
Weigh Down Unlocked the Door to a Changed Family
The” God Fearing Families” series really spoke to Todd and softened his heart. He says he’s learned the things he thought were important, no longer are and Gwen’s messages have right sided him as a Godly man at work and home. He absolutely loves being with the Remnant men and learns so much from them. Getting to learn this truth and pass it down to our children has been a HUGE gift – stopping generational sin.
The children listen to Zion Kids, and the camp videos Characteristics of Christ and Running for the Crown. We love old talks from Elizabeth like holding God’s hand all day at school and how to love the unlovely. God has allowed Gracie to be a light at school by giving others her smile, obeying her teacher, including everyone and finding the hurting.
It’s also such a blessing having Saints traveling to Florida and how they come worship with us, or we worship with them at their timeshares like we did recently with our dear friends Rob and Tiffani Day. It’s so sweet God gives this fellowship to us living as an out-of-towner.
God will help coordinate at home the colors and decorations for webcasting weddings and festivals (see Zachary and Gracie webcasting this past Palm Sabbath). It’s so encouraging how God keeps us unified, one in Spirit. He will give Bible flops that Gwen uses that week in sermons and just makes us feel so connected being in Florida. It’s truly a magical life, all the things God puts together I could never dream and He makes Himself so visible.
Weigh Down’s Florida Regional Rep
I am in awe all God has done and continues to do so I stay in classes and keep going. I want a beautiful heart for God. It is all for His glory. My dad has been attending classes with me for over a year.
God has allowed me to be a Florida Regional Rep, what a blessing it has been! Currently we are meeting at my home weekly for a local class.
My sister Sara Conner and her family are also members of the church and live in Florida as well, except my niece Kailee who now lives in Brentwood. We travel together for many of the festivals. Every summer Sara and I come for an extended period so the children can attend Summer Day Camp. (Pictured: Jaime, Fanita McNeal and Sara Connor – the Florida girls!)
Such selfless families have allowed us to stay with them an entire month so the kids can be at camp longer. We are closer at the end of our stay than when we first got there and it’s so hard to leave. Their relationship with God grows so much being with their friends during camp and all they get to learn. We adults get to be big kids at camp and we learn and grow too!
This is truly Heaven on earth and a gift that keeps giving. Praise God for creating His willing vessel, dear Gwen and Weigh Down!”
1 Comment
I attend classes at Jamie’s every Wed night. The group and Jamie through the Love of God and turning the love of food down have inspired me to loose 35 lbs so far and through their prayers and helping me stay focused I know the rest will come off!!! God is greater. Jamie has been a great roll model and I love her for it very much.