The year was 1986 when Gwen Shamblin founded Weigh Down Workshop, A religiously-based weight-loss program that asks participants to swap God in place of food. The workshop quickly took off and led to various congregations offering this program nationwide and abroad. Then, Gwen founded a church called The Remnant Fellowship Church in Tennessee in 1999. But, throughout time, the Church, as well as Gwen herself, are caught up in controversy regarding their approach.
Produced by Emmy-winning director Marina Zenovich, HBO’s docuseries “The Way Down God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin ” examines the Church’s practices. Gwen had amassed an impressive fortune through her books, workshops, and other items before her death during a plane crash in May 2021. Let’s see the value of her net worth in the end, shall we?
How Did Gwen Shamblin Lara Make Earn Her Money?
Gwen Shamblin Lara was raised in a strict family. After earning a bachelor’s diploma in dietetics from the University of Tennessee, Gwen completed her master’s degree in nutrition and food in the department of food and nutrition at Memphis State University in Tennessee. She developed the concept of The Weigh Down Diet during her time there. At the time, she was convinced that genes, metabolism, and other cues from the body weren’t the only reason certain people were overweight while others were slim.
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Gwen Shamblin Lara’s diet program focused on faith, prayer, and Bible texts. She believed that people would not be overweight if they consumed food when they were hungry and stopped when full and satisfied, as God had intended. Gwen once declared, “Dieting is putting the band-aid on a larger issue. If you take a bird out of the water and then throw it back into the air, the bird can breathe once more. This is what we doWe put people back into the environment that God intended them to reside in. That is a connection to God.”
It is important to note that the Weigh Down Diet does not emphasize calorie counting or portion management. It does not include any particular regimen or workout. Dieticians from Tennessee said, “People are sick of battle and feel helpless. If you put your focus on God and prayer, instead of the pull of your refrigerator, It’s incredible how liberated you’ll feel.” At the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, the Weight Down Workshops were integral to many nationwide churches, with numerous people claiming they had witnessed outcomes.
Gwen published ‘The Weigh Down Diet’ in 1997. She also wrote a few other books in the following couple of years. She later established The Remnant Fellowship Church in 1999. But Gwen and the Church, as well as Gwen, have been featured in news reports over the years due to various controversies. She claimed that genetics didn’t affect how weight loss works for humans, citing Jewish people starving at the Nazi Concentration camps. In an interview, she stated, “How in the Holocaust did you see the people who became really thin? They consumed much less.”
There were some questions about the non-profit nature of her church, her business, and her ability to live lavishly. Employees brought lawsuits believing that Gwen demanded that they be a part of what she believed in. The year 2003 saw two church members found guilty of murdering their 8-year-old son, who was beaten to death. Gwen was a strong supporter of them, along with the Catholic Church, which, through its teachings, encouraged corporal punishment. Gwen passed away in a plane crash at Smyrna, Tennessee, along with her husband and several other Church leaders on the 29th of May 2021. She was 66 at the time of the crash.
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Gwen Shamblin Lara’s Net Worth
Given her illustrious writing career, her popularity in the church, the workshop, and her appearances on television throughout the decades, Gwen Shamblin Lara’s estimated net worth was between $1.5 million and 5 million at the time of her demise.
