Expert: Eleanor Edwards - 9/17/2008

Question
I am a very overweight teenager and I am very depressed. I am very ugly too. I am 17, I am in a Christian family and we go to church and are devoted to God. There is something that I cannot understand, though, and it is depressing me a lot and I tend to dwell on it a lot.

It is about my weight, and the way I look. First off, I know that everyone sins, but I believe that I am a very good person. I try to always do the right thing. I have never drank or done drugs and I plan to stay a virgin til I am married. I pray to God on a regular basis and one thing I pray about is my weight. I have been struggling to lose weight for over two years. I have been exercising 4-5 days a week for the past year and following a diet plan set out by a doctor. I have been doing everything right. Yet I cannot drop a pound no matter what I do. I am so depressed and I hate the way I look.

What depresses me even more is, I am a good person, why can't I have just this one little thing? Is it just too much to ask? What makes me so angry is that there are people out there with NO morals -- celebrities who are greedy, porn stars who are basically prostitutes, etc. -- and THEY are the ones who are thin and beautiful. A guy in my class was playing a joke on me and he emailed me a picture of a porn star and said to me, "don't you wish you looked like her" and I was so upset. Why should a PORN STAR have a thin perfect body and tons of hair and a pretty face (well she looked trashy, but she was STILL prettier than me) yet someone like me, who tries to be a good person and has faith in God looks like a whale? I am not saying that if you are a good perfect Christian then you should be thin and beautiful, but...why not? I know quite a few Christian people who are unhappy with the way they look. It's just not fair. Good people often do not have the looks or the fame, and yet all the greedy celebrities and porn stars and the like seem to have everything.

I pray for a lot of things, but I also pray for ME, that I want to lose weight. It seems like God is against me, when it comes to my looks and my personal goal of losing weight. I just don't understand it. I am not asking to be "rewarded" with good looks just because I am a Christian, but...why do all those evil people have looks and great bodies and everything? Why should a PORN STAR have a thin body, and I don't?? You would think God would be on my side. If you are truly beautiful on the inside, you should be beautiful on the outside. I know that is not how life really works, but I cannot get over this. I get so angry that I am so fat and ugly.

It is just not fair!!!!!

Can you help me understand what I am feeling?

Answer
Hi Lara,
I totally understand how you are feeling. I became a Christian when I was 12 but had been very overweight from a young age. I remember weighing over 140lb at the age of 9. By the time I was 18, I'd stopped weighing myself very often but was around 220lb.

I'd tried loads of diets, eating plans, exercise regimes but none of them worked. I just couldn't stick to any of them longer than 3 weeks. I felt like such a failure.

In January, I stumbled across an online bible weight loss course. It's totally free, no strings attached but I was still very skeptical. But I decided to give it a try, it wouldn't hurt to try. I don't know how He did it but God used that course to totally transform my life.

At 5'5" tall and 157lb, I still have a little way to go but I am the lightest I have ever been (since being 140lb age 9!) and it is all thanks to God and the way He used the lessons in the online course.

I've now gone on to become a weight loss mentor for this same course. If you'd have told me a year ago that I would be a weight loss mentor I'd have laughed in your face! How could a fatty like me be a weight loss mentor?! But God has taken the worst of me and used it for His glory and honor.

If you'd like to have a look at the course, it is still of course totally free. The address is:
http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/lords_table/

They have courses for lots of things but as you will see, the weight loss one is called 'The Lord's Table'.

As a mentor, I've had the privilege of seeing God use this course to totally transform lives, spiritually and physically. I can't believe I had to wait until I was 30 to find it but boy, was it worth the wait!

I'll be praying for you Lara that you'll at least give it a try with an open mind because if you ask the Holy Spirit to help you with this, He will.

Please keep in touch (even if you don't decide to try the course) as I'll be praying for you and would love to know how you are. Feel free to e-mail me any time.
In His love and service,
Eleanor
eleanor@eleanoredwards.co.uk

Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.