New sugar- and fat-laden concoctions arrive regularly on the shelves of America’s supermarkets, luring more and more Americans into the grip of obesity.

Effective and easy dieting techniques often are seen as a saving grace.

Can we get an Amen? No, seriously. And you may want one, too.

Religious dieting, nothing new in the world of weight loss, is making waves once again. A simple Google search using the words “weight loss” and “God” turns up nearly 6 million hits.

Faith-based dieting guru Gwen Shamblin, founder of the Weigh Down Workshop in Franklin, Tenn., attributes the timelessness of her diet to the fact that it is, well, anything but a diet.

“If everyone stopped dieting today, they would start losing weight,” Shamblin said. “The more you focus on the food, the bigger you get; and that’s what I discovered was my problem.”

Shamblin lost the 20 pounds she put on in college, as well as several rounds of post-birth baby weight, through the program. And, like all the Weigh Down seminar coordinators, she’s kept it off.

So, what’s the trick?

“Do you remember when you were really young and playing was more fun than the food was and your mom had to call you in to eat?” Shamblin asks. Weigh Down workshops help people return to that frame of mind, except they start loving God more and food, well, not so much.

“They just eat when they’re hungry. They stop when they’re full,” Shamblin says.

Weigh Down was started in 1986, becoming the largest faith-based dieting seminar in America by the late ’90s. But participation tapered off soon after that.

The Internet may have been Weigh Down’s godsend. Since it began offering classes online in 2004, participation has soared. “Just in the last year, online participation has grown 500 percent,” says spokeswoman Candace Anger. Now several thousand people worldwide are logging on to take the seminars. Anger also attributes the “return to faith” to the business cycle.

“People will follow fad diets and say, ‘I’m only going to eat protein!’ And when that diet doesn’t work, they say, ‘OK, I’m going back to God!'”

Psychotherapist and weight-loss coach Frank Smoot agrees that more and more people are turning away from dieting and reaching out to God to shed their excess pounds. His e-based book and weight-loss support center www.weightlossgodsway.com are comparable to Weigh Down, and Smoot says interest in his teachings is steadily increasing.

“Weightlossgodsway.com was only launched in September of last year, and I’ve had hundreds of buyers from all over the world. It has also become the major source of my (weight loss) coaching clients.”

For those who squirm at the “r” word, Weigh Down’s Shamblin offers a few words of encouragement.

“Everyone’s religious. Religion is simply what you adore,” Shamblin says. “But certain things you adore don’t give a dividend.”

Skeptics urge participants to be mindful of some potential pitfalls. Weigh Down doesn’t teach how to fend off the heart-unhealthy fried Twinkies at the county fair. Nor does it urge you to “Sweat to the Oldies” (poor Richard Simmons would cry!)