Certified Health Coach Marissa Costonis, author of Change Bites: 5 Change Management Strategies to Transform Your Health, says, “A health transformation requires more than following before-and-after stories. It requires a step-by-step process that focuses on what happens in-between. Knowing how to start and create sustainable results is the key to seeing success in personal change.”

Her book provides readers with a step-by-step guide for how to change eating habits and health, regardless of eating style, including vegan, paleo, gluten-free and keto diets. This process exposes the pitfalls and challenges of a food change ,no matter how big or small. Her unique methodology implements proven change management best practices and tools used successfully with Fortune 500 organizations, which Costonis draws upon from her decade of experience leading global, large-scale transformation projects for a management consulting practice.

“Fad diets and eating styles come and go these days ,but the process of creating long-lasting changes in our eating habits is similar and rarely addressed,” says Costonis. “This is the most difficult challenge and necessary for achieving sustainable health results. We are constantly lectured to about what foods are good and bad for us, and I think we have all had enough with all the contradictory diet talk. It’s time we hone the skill of listening to our own body’s language to learn what it needs. We also need to switch the dialogue from what to eat to how to support the challenge of change. Quick wins and fad diets may be sexy, but sustainable food and lifestyle changes using proven change techniques are the only way to transform our health.”

The book focuses on five tips to a successful health transformation:

•  Begin with the end in mind: Be clear on your vision of “perfect” health, why it’s important and what you will do with it once you have achieved it. Assessing your sense of urgency by asking, “why change now?” and focusing on the end result will keep you motivated throughout your transformation.

•  Go slow to go fast: While a few big changes may be helpful in the short-term to jump start your eating habits and health, improving each meal one bite at a time creates sustainable change that will last a lifetime.

•  Focus on the foods you can eat, not the ones you need to give up: Identify your “personal best foods” and all the ways to prepare them. Then, begin to incorporate these foods into a variety of meals and expand your palette from there.

•  Create food flexibility: For example, creating a set of 10 simple recipe techniques that incorporate a variety of your personal best veggies gives you the skills and flexibility to make 100 different meals, depending on what you have on hand.

•  Celebrate successes, and look for other ways to use the process over and over to continue making positive changes to your diet and other areas of your life for a true health transformation. This change process can also be used to support a transition to non-toxic beauty and cleaning supplies or pesticides. It can even help in switching up workout routines.

For more information, visit ChangeBites.com.