Gwen Shamblin Lara

In 2009, Gwen and Weigh Down were featured on such television programs as WeTV's Secret Lives of Women, CBS’s The Insider. In late 2011, She began producing a live Internet show, titled You Can Overcome.

The popularity of Gwen's teachings has resulted in its appearances on BBC, 20/20,, A Current Affair,, The View, and Dateline (Australian) as well as in such magazines as Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, and many newspaper articles. She has been featured on The Today Show, CNN's Larry King Live, DaySide, and The Early Show. Participants from the Weigh Down Workshop have been featured on the cover of Good Housekeeping, in the Ladies' Home Journal, in People Magazine, First magazine, Quick and Simple, and in numerous newspaper articles. In 2007, The Tyra Banks Show devoted an hour-long program to Gwen, the Weigh Down Diet, the Fellowship and participants from Weigh Down programs.

In 2001, NewsChannel 5, a local Nashville news station, aired a story entitled "Is it a ministry or just big business?", looking into how Weigh Down Workshop's money was spent. Towards the end of the interview, Gwen states that "half of [the money] goes to the government, the other half goes to keep it going so someone else can be helped." According to the news report, "She says she would sell her belongings to keep the ministry going."

Gwen founded the Remnant Fellowship Church in 1999, which at first was a small gathering at the back of the Weigh Down building in Franklin, TN in the shipping department. In 2002, the Shamblins purchased 40 acres of land in Brentwood, Tennessee, where construction for the church building took place.

By August 1998, Weigh Down was holding more than 21,000 classes with over 250,000 reported participants worldwide. Weigh Down Workshop classes would eventually spread to all fifty US states and every continent, becoming "one of the most popular weight-loss programs in the world" by mid-2000. Gwen has also been traveling to other cities as part of the Rebuilding the Wall tour.

Gwen Shamblin Lara is the author of The Weigh Down Diet. First published in March 1997, this diet “advises using spirituality to avoid overeating and has sold more than 1.2 million copies.” The publisher Doubleday reported selling four hundred thousand copies in less than a year. In this book, Gwen expounds on her theory that there are two very different needs in each person: a need for food and an emotional need. According to her, people should only eat when they feel real, physical hunger and stop when full; prayer and Bible reading will fill emotional needs instead of food. Overeating is equated with greed. A core principle of The Weigh Down Diet, when people feel an urge to snack but are not experiencing physiological hunger, Gwen encourages participants to read the Bible instead.

Gwen was raised in a Church of Christ family. She has two children and seven grandchildren.and as of March 1996, Gwen lived with her family in Ashlawn, a historic mansion in Brentwood, Tennessee, that was built in 1838. In 2018 she married Joe Lara

In 1996, Weigh Down, which consisted of a forty-person staff, began building a headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee. The same year, Gwen Shamblin Lara and Weigh Down began hosting an annual summer convention, known as Desert Oasis, in the Nashville area.

According to the Associated Press, by January 1995, the program could be found in over 1,000 churches in forty-nine US States, as well as at locations in Britain and Canada; but by July 1996, the workshop was at about 5,000 churches, with close to ten percent located in Gwen's home-state of Tennessee. As many as eight churches in Britain were hosting workshops by December 1996. Some participants in the US would also host meetings in their private homes.

Gwen developed the program while working on her master's degree at Memphis State University. As part of a counseling center, she held the first class in a mall in Memphis, Tennessee; the program was initially only offered as small classes in similar retail and other non-religious settings. In 1991 or 1992, she began hosting the program at Bellevue Baptist Church located in the Memphis area. The program consists of twelve-week seminars guided by video and audio tapes featuring Gwen. The meetings consist of a group viewing of one of her videos, along with prayer and discussion. By 1994, the program quickly spread as far away as Europe and was offered in about 600 churches in at least 35 US States.

Gwen began her consulting practice in the area of weight control in 1980. She had struggled with her weight while attending school. She became "convinced that genetics, metabolism and behavior modification alone couldn't explain why some people were thin and others battled the bulge." In 1986, Gwen founded the Weigh Down Workshop, a weight loss program which has “no forbidden foods, exercise regimen or weigh-ins,” and avoids “calorie counting.” As The Tennessean points out, the program lacks “some basic elements,” like exercise and guidance on food selection, as recommended by the American Dietetic Association. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, “the Weigh Down Workshop attempts to help participants develop the discipline to eat only when they are hungry and to stop eating when they are full.”