CHAPTER 1

How It All Began

PASTOR RICK WARREN

Wow! Everybody's FAT!

That shocking thought kept reverberating in my mind onebright spring day as I was baptizing 827 adults.

I'll admit it wasn't a very spiritual thought for a pastor to have,especially while baptizing! But I was getting tired, since our churchbaptizes the way Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River—by loweringpeople under the water, then lifting them back up.

That day, based on the average weight of Americans, I lifted morethan 145,000 pounds!

I had read plenty of articles about the growing epidemic of obesity,diabetes, and heart disease in America, but that day I actually felt theweight of America's health problem in a dramatic way.

While my first thought was that everyone I baptized was overweight,my second thought was more personal and pointed:

But I'm fat too! I'm as out of shape as everyone else is!

In that moment of clarity, I realized the terrible example I was givingwith my own health. How could I expect my congregation to takebetter care of their bodies if I was such a poor model? I had ignored myown growing problem for thirty years.

Let me explain:

I grew up in a family that didn't drink alcohol or smoke, but allfood—no matter how unhealthy it might be—was considered okay.And growing up, much of my life centered around food.

Every memory of my childhood, both good and bad, was connectedto food. When we were happy, we celebrated by eating. Whenwe were sad, we consoled ourselves with comfort food. If I had a difficultday as a child, the antidote was cookies and milk or a piece offresh pie.

Living on five acres in the country, my dad grew a huge vegetablegarden, my mom loved to cook, and we all loved to eat. Eating wasour entertainment, and we had huge meals every night. In fact, ourhandmade fourteen-foot dining table made of a single four-inch slabof redwood was the largest piece of furniture in our house. It dominatedour home, and our family life revolved around the meals weshared together.

Blessed with good health, a high metabolism, and an active life, Icould eat everything I wanted and as much as I wanted and never gaina pound. When I married kay, I was as thin as a flagpole even thoughI rarely exercised and ate junk food constantly. I paid no attention tomy health.

Then, in 1980, at age twenty-five, I became the founding pastorof Saddleback Church in Southern California. As the church rapidlygrew to thousands of members, I worked long days, ate meals onthe run, and spent hours sitting while leading meetings, counselingpeople, and studying for sermons. I began adding a few pounds everyyear, but because my energy remained high and I didn't care muchabout appearance, I ignored my growing health problem. By 2010, Iwas severely overweight.

Ironically, over the past decade I had sent nearly 21,000 of ourchurch members overseas to 196 countries to serve the sick and thepoor through a program we developed called the P.E.A.C.E. plan.The C of the P.E.A.C.E. stands for "Care for the sick," and our membershad compassionately cared for the health of others around theworld who were suffering from poor nutrition, poor water, malaria,and HIV/AIDS. But I ignored my own declining health and that ofmy own members.

That baptism was my wake-up call to the health issues in my lifeand in the lives of those in our congregation. I knew drastic changeswere needed, so I began educating myself about preventative health.What I learned shocked me:

• For the first time in history, as many people are suffering fromthe result of too much food as malnutrition. While millionsof people suffer from not having enough to eat, millions arestruggling with the effects of being overweight.

• Seven in ten Americans are overweight.

• Diabetes, heart disease, and other "lifestyle-based diseases" nowkill more people than infectious diseases worldwide.

The next Sunday, I stood before my congregation and made thispublic confession:

Friends, I've been a poor steward of my health and a terribleexample for you. While we've been helping many around theworld, I've ignored the problem here at home.

So today I am publicly repenting, and I ask for your forgiveness!God expects us to take care of the bodies he has given us,but I have not done that. Now, I've only gained two to threepounds a year, but I have been your pastor for thirty years. SoI need to lose ninety pounds! Do any of you want to join me ingetting healthy?

The audience responded with sustained applause.

Honestly, I expected that maybe a couple hundred people wouldjoin me in my quest to get healthy, so I was overwhelmed when morethan 12,000 Saddleback Church members signed up that day! Now Ineeded a plan. It had to be simple, inexpensive, and scalable. Since Iwas preaching that day about a man in the Bible named Daniel whorefused to eat junk food and challenged a king to a health contest, Inamed the program The Daniel Plan.

Since I knew nothing about getting healthy, I recruited threenationally known doctors—Dr. Daniel Amen, Dr. Mark Hyman, andDr. Mehmet Oz—to coach me in getting healthy and help me designThe Daniel Plan to be used in our church. All three doctors graciouslyvolunteered their expertise and time for free because they care aboutour health.

Over the first year of The Daniel Plan, Saddleback members collectivelylost more than 250,000 pounds! But even more important,we learned insights, developed skills, and established habits for alifetime of healthy living. The Daniel Plan is far more than a diet. Itis a lifestyle program based on biblical principles and five essentialcomponents: Food, Fitness, Focus, Faith, and Friends. These last twocomponents—faith and friends—are what I call the secret sauce thatmakes The Daniel Plan so effective. When you have God and a grouphelping you, you now have far more than willpower helping you makepositive changes, and you are far more likely to...