Rick Warren Sermon, News: "God says your body is the temple of his spirit and you're supposed to take care of it. That's a bigger motivation than 'I want to look good' or 'I want feel good" said Pastor Rick Warren, the author of the 2002 Best Seller, The Purpose Driven Life, and the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church campus in Lake Forest, California. More than 30,000 people hears his sermons and being followed by more than 1.3 million on Twitter.
Warren, 59, said that getting slimmer is more than just exercise and diet. There is a spiritual obligation behind it. Once you accept that you have an obligation to take care of your health, it becomes easier to lose weight, he told Dr. Oz in an interview.
Alexandria Wolfe said "Mr. Warren came up with the idea for "The Daniel Plan" a few years ago while doing baptisms "the old-fashioned way"-by physically raising and lowering people into the water. That day he baptized 850 people. "That's about 150,000 pounds, which is why I'm so buff," he says with a chuckle. "But as I'm lowering people, I literally felt the weight of America's obesity problem," he adds. "I thought, good night, we're all fat!" Then he says he realized, "Good night, I'm fat!"
Mr. Warren thinks a he cannot ask his followers to get slimmer or tone down a bit if he himself is getting bigger and fat. He summoned the people to join him in losing weight and expected to have only 200 people agree with him but to his surprise 15,000 people had signed up in their church's website. For Mr. Warren it important to acknowledge that we need a higher being and support from our community to make this losing weight project a success.
He engaged three friends from the medical field in writing this book, one of them is Mehmet Oz, host of the Dr. Oz Show. Dr. Oz agreed, adding that the community aspect of the Daniel Plan makes it especially effective. "It does help you lose so much more weight when you have people to support you," said Dr. Oz.
The book is named after Daniel, one of the Biblical prophets who abstained from eating meat and drinking wine, rather chose to eat vegetables and drink water only. Daniel Plan instructs people to really on God's grace rather than own will power to eat healthily. For Mr. Warren, faith plays a very vital role in losing weight.
According to the report on Wall Street Journal, "The book, released in December, provides a meal plan that includes lean protein, fruit, vegetables and whole grains, and it encourages regular exercise". The Daniel Plan's diet is largely plant-based, but doesn't have to be vegetarian. It mainly emphasizes eating whole, natural foods and eliminating sugar and processed junk.
"My ultimate goal...is for you to live the life you're intended to live," he says. "You drift through life and let things happen to you, or go by design and say, 'This is what I'm intended to do.' The Bible is very clear that God has a purpose. But even if I know that purpose, I can't fulfill it if I'm out of shape."
