Home
The 'Weight of Sin' Nearly Destroyed Her Faith
By Craig Pinley
EASTON, CT (March 10, 2003) - It seemed so innocent at the time - a weight loss
program that used Scripture to support weight loss theories.
Amity Alicea of The Covenant Church of Easton was 5-feet-2 inches tall and
weighed 210 pounds. She had tried for years to lose weight, but nothing
seemed to work. When she heard about a weight loss program that claimed to
incorporate Christian principles, she thought she had found the answer to
her problem.
In the late 1990s, Alicea, her husband, Jorge, and their son moved from
Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Florida. It was at a Florida church they
attended that she heard a speaker share her positive experience with the
weight loss program. The family later moved back to Bridgeport where Alicea
discovered The Covenant Church in Easton was hosting that same weight loss
program.
"I had asked God to help me out with my weight," said Alicea. "I've been on
diets since I was nine. I was really at the end of my rope; I was ready to
give up. I was really depressed and I cried out to God. The next week I
heard this lady and when I heard that my home church (in Connecticut) was
running a workshop, I thought God had set this all up for me."
According to Alicea, the Connecticut sessions opened in prayer followed by
a video that ran 45 minutes to one hour in length - the program's national
director was the speaker. After watching the video, the group discussed
issues and delved into a workbook that coincided with 12 audiocassette
tapes that individuals listened to during the week.
"After I joined I was hearing things like 'start eating when you're hungry,
when you hear a growl, and stop when you're satisfied.' When you're hungry
at other times (called head hunger), 'that's the time to pray, read your
Bible and ask God to fill up other areas of your life that you fill with
food.' I could relate to that. For my whole life I had that struggle. Right
away, I gave it my all because I believed this was the way, even to the
point where if all that satisfied me was a quarter of a sandwich and a chip
for lunch."
Twelve weeks after starting the program, Alicea had dropped 38 pounds. "But
it was not only the weight," Alicea said. "I believed eating was
interfering with my relationship with God. I was reading the Bible more and
praying - I thought this was the answer."
Alicea became coordinator of her church's weight loss program in February
2000. It wasn't long before she began struggling with eating. "I became
pregnant with my daughter in April 2000 and thought a lot of things were
related to that," she said. "But it was a mind battle. I began to think
that God was unhappy with me. I think how I felt had a lot to do with the
fact I was under nourishing my body."
Because she was so concerned with being right with God, Alicea kept her
food intake to dangerously low levels. She only gained 12 pounds during her
pregnancy and began to feel the effects of the weight loss, even if no one
else could perceive it. By the time her daughter, Sara, was born in
December 2000, Alice weighed around 130 pounds. "People would say that I
looked great and I would tell them I felt horrible," said Alicea.
Once Sara was born, Alicea began a cycle of binge eating and starving,
although her weight stayed fairly constant. She would eat half a bag of
chips, half a bag of cookies and a candy bar at a sitting and then not eat
for a day or more until her stomach growled again. Many who suffer from
bulimia throw up after such binges, but Alicea wasn't able to purge the
food. That would increase her guilt. She prayed often, but would not share
with anyone what was happening to her.
"Sometimes I would go for days in this stage - feeling yucky, reading the
Bible and trying to make a fresh start," she said. "My husband wasn't aware
of how I was feeling. He thought I was fine. He knew that I would wait for
hunger pains before I ate. If he thought I was harming myself he would've
stopped me, but he saw that I was losing weight and he thought I must be
healthier."
In early 2002, the national weight loss program introduced a new eight-week
advanced tape cassette session. The tapes stated that weight problems were
more directly affected by one's faith - you're hungry for a relationship
with God, but you're feeding it with food. Alicea and three others began
attending an eight-week session that was being held at a friend's home.
"This was a lifelong struggle and I believe God had sent me an answer,"
said Alicea in explaining why she continued to participate in the weight
loss program. "There were chapters and chapters of scripture in every tape.
It may not have been stuff you wanted to hear, but it was something I
wanted to believe."
In April 2002, Alicea attended a regional weight loss conference and says
she became more convinced than ever that her sins could not be forgiven if
she continued to overeat, which she considered a sin. She decided shortly
thereafter to leave her church.
"When I came home from that conference, I decided to really read the Bible
and ask God to tell me if I should leave my church. I had read all of the
scriptures she (national director) had talked about - scriptures that said
if you don't obey Him you couldn't be forgiven . . . after a while I
believed what she said. At church you hear that Jesus will forgive you even
if you've sinned over and over. But now I wasn't so sure.
"I read entire chapters of the Bible and everything I saw pointed out to me
that she was right," Alicea continued. "At first I decided to leave after I
finished my Sunday school teaching (responsibilities). Then I decided to
call the Sunday school superintendent and tell her I was leaving."
Alicea's husband was skeptical of his wife's decision, but her aunt, Bobbie
Morgan, began to enlist the help of others in the church to pray for her.
Tiffany Morgan, Bobbie's daughter, began speaking to Alicea about the
program. Bobbie told Alicea she thought the workshop's overall program
could be destructive.
On the way home, Alicea began to sense that the Holy Spirit was convicting
her to research the Bible further. After reviewing the weight loss
program's national web site information, she decided that God's forgiveness
was available, even for her. She decided to completely cut off her
involvement with the program.
Alicea told her story to her church, especially those involved with the
church's weight loss program group. The church immediately stopped the
program and supported Alicea during the weeks that followed. Alicea is now
working with her church's preschool and believes she has her normal life
back. She lost more than 90 pounds, but she's more relieved to be
unburdened with the guilt she once felt about her spiritual walk.
"When I first got out, I felt so betrayed by myself," Alicea said. "I
stopped reading my Bible - I had been reading for hours each day. And I
stopped praying. But I felt so completely lost, like my whole knowledge of
God was lost. I feel so much better now."
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
