The Daniel Plan

By: Rick Warren, Daniel Amen, M.D. & Mark Hyman, M.D.

Pastor Rick Warren is the pastor of Saddleback Church.  One day while Pastor Warren was baptizing over eight hundred people he realized that many people were overweight including himself.  He began to reflect upon his own health and the relationship he had with food.  He soon realized that he had been ignoring his health and was being a poor example to his congregation.  After doing some research, Pastor Warren decided to stand before his congregation and ask for their forgiveness.  He explained how God wants us to take care of the bodies that He has blessed us with and asked if anyone wanted to join him in getting healthy.  That day over 12,000 church members signed up in joining him on his journey.  Now Pastor Warren just needed a plan to assist his congregation with getting healthy.  Pastor Warren writes, “Since I was preaching that day about a man in the Bible named Daniel who refused to eat junk food and challenged a king to a health contest, I named the program The Daniel Plan.” (Page 15)  Pastor Warren then asked Dr. Daniel Amen, Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dr. Mehmet Oz to help coach him as he knew very little about how to get healthy.  All of the doctors agreed to help and the program proved to be a success.  During the first year the members at Saddleback lost a combined total of more than 250,000 pounds!

This book is about the plan that the Saddleback community followed.  I found the book to be very informative.  It focuses on five key elements: Faith, Food, Fitness, Focus and Friends.  There is a chapter dedicated to each of these key elements to further explain how they can assist with living a healthy lifestyle.  I enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend it to others.  I included how Pastor Warren came up with the name of the plan above as some people may think that the book is about fasting. 

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