Day 1

The Five Essentials

Each of us is in a different place with our health, but the Essentials — Faith, Food, Fitness, Focus, and Friends — will hold up your life, enliven your body, enrich your mind, and fill your heart.

FAITH

Health comes from recognizing and using God's power in your life and treating your body and mind with the care that he intended. When you learn to rely on God's power, you have the key to lasting change. Spiritual health gives you a foundation for building habits and perspectives for health in any area.

FOOD

You can actually eat anything based on one rule: Eat real, whole food. Eat a colorful variety of real, whole foods from real ingredients that you can make yourself — or that are made by another human nearby. If it was grown on a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, leave it on the shelf.

Simple, real, fresh, delicious, nutrient-packed foods that are easy to cook, foods that come from a farmer's field not a factory, foods that traveled the shortest distance from the field to your fork — that is what we should eat. A chicken, a vegetable, a bean, a nut, a grain, a fruit, an egg. Everything else is fake food that depletes energy and health. Real food heals and nourishes. So eat real, whole foods made by God.

FITNESS

Your body is designed to move and become Daniel Strong. What images come to mind when you think of the word strong? Do you think of the prophet Daniel? Daniel possessed strength that went well beyond the size of his muscles.

Daniel Strong = A pursuit of excellence in body, mind, and spirit for God's glory.

Before you even start a fitness plan, the key to success is to choose activities you enjoy doing.

Take the Daniel Strong Challenge to improve your fitness, combining prayerful movements, loosening breaks, active games and aerobic activity, and youthful strength training into your life, and watch what happens! We encourage you to do the fitness challenge for 40 days to change your fitness habits. To begin — even if you have never exercised regularly or haven't in a long time — go to chapter 9 in The Daniel Plan Book, where you will receive a "play of the day" and a plan that focuses on all the aspects of fitness you have just learned — in small, doable steps.

FOCUS

You can have solid faith, healthy food choices, and plenty of exercise and still sabotage your health. The potential saboteur? Your brain. When your brain works right, you tend to be happier, physically healthier, and more thoughtful, because you make better decisions.

Two of the most important parts of the Focus Essential are to know your motivation and renew your mind. This requires disciplining your mind to have accurate, honest thoughts and bringing your attention each day to those things each day for which you are grateful.

FRIENDS

When it comes to your health, every body needs a buddy. We need each other. In fact, the New Testament says over and over to love one another, encourage one another, serve one another, support one another.

Research shows that people getting healthy together lose twice as much weight as those who do it alone. Friends are the secret sauce of the Daniel Plan.

TODAY'S STEPS

1. Assess your health in each of the five Essentials before you start and again at the completion of the program. Go to danielplan.com/start and click on the link for "essentials survey."

2. Start reading The Daniel Plan: 40 Days to a Healthier Life.

3. Begin The Daniel Plan 40-Day Fitness Challenge; see chapter 9 of The Daniel Plan book.

Day 2

Know Your Motivation

Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you. (Psalm 37:5 NLT)

One of the most important parts of the Focus Essential is to know why you want to get healthy. Without a clear sense of motivation, it is harder to stay the course. But once you know why you care and must be healthy, your motivation fuels you to stay focused. Ask why you want to be healthy. Is it to live in God's will? To have mental clarity? or to be a great role model for someone you love?

Write down your motivation — and look at it daily. It's most effective if you approach it from two perspectives: To attain benefits and avoid consequences.

For example, participant Mandy Cameron told us, "My greatest motivation is to model the Lord for my grandchildren and to work with children.... I notice the responses of others when I look good and feel good; I even notice the nudgings of the Lord more clearly. Perhaps this relates to having a sense of contentment and well-being. I am more loving and more compassionate when my body temple is functioning closer to optimum operating level."

Write what you believe God wants for you and what you want for yourself in each of the Essentials. use the results from the essentials survey to guide you. Be positive and use the first person. Write your purpose with the expectation that with God's power it can happen. If you need to, work on it over several days. After you finish with the initial draft (you will frequently want to update it), place this list where you can see it every day, such as on your refrigerator, in your phone, or as your desktop wallpaper.

Fitness: Another important piece that will help you make progress is your health numbers. Find out and record your basics: height, weight, BMI, blood pressure, waist measurement, hips measurement, and activity level (sedentary, light, regular, active, vigorous). The Daniel Plan Journal includes pages to record these numbers, or you can star your free Health Profile online danielplan.com/start/.

TODAY'S STEPS

1. Write down your motivation for better health. Post it where you can see it every day.

2. Know your health numbers.

Day 3

Commit Your Plans to the Lord

Put God in charge of your work, then what you've planned will take place. (Proverbs 16:3 MSG)

Setting goals is a spiritual discipline. Goals stretch you and help you become all God wants you to be. setting goals will give a destination for your vision. Move forward toward health in all areas of life by creating sMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) in response to your results from the Five Essentials survey.

Specific goals are clear. tell your brain exactly what is expected and why it's important. A specific goal usually answers who, what, when, where, why.

Measurable emphasizes tangible benchmarks. If a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether you are making progress. A measurable goal usually answers how much and by when.

Attainable means the goals need to be realistic, even though dreams can be big. Extreme goals usually invite failure and frustration.

Relevant means you choose goals that matter and answer yes to these questions: Does this seem worthwhile? Is this the right time? Does this match your other efforts/needs? Being relevant also means your goals are relevant to God and bring him glory. Any goal that brings you closer to him and makes you want to serve him and others is a goal that matters.

Time-bound emphasizes attaining the goal within a...