INTRODUCTION

THANK YOU SO much for picking up this book. I’m so glad you’re here. If you’re frustrated and fed up and feeling like you just want something to go well, you’re in luck: in these pages, I share 50 of the tiny tweaks my clients call game changers.

Sure, I could have written another diet book, but does the world really need another book telling you what to put in your face? We’re bombarded with diet information all day, every day, but we’re not offered much support or many resources for how to figure out which advice applies best to your unique situation or how to stay on track toward your goals when life inevitably gets busy, stressful, or challenging.

As a dietitian and integrative nutrition health coach, my work is about food. But while creating meal plans, interpreting lab values, and prescribing therapeutic diets are important, once my clients and I dig a little deeper into all the other stuff going on in their lives, we discover that food is just the beginning.

For example, people regularly ask me for meal plans, but the majority of the time, their greater struggle turns out to be sticking to those plans. My clients tell me that they’re feeling overwhelmed by what’s going on in their personal or work lives or that stress and anxiety keep sending them back to the unhelpful habits that had gotten them off track in the first place. Loneliness creeps up and anxiety hijacks their best intentions.

My real work, therefore, is helping people change their behaviors and establish patterns that will empower them to stay well for the long term.

Over the years, I’ve come up with dozens of simple, easy-to-implement strategies that have helped my clients achieve their goals. (I’ve also relied on these strategies in my own life!) And I’m so happy when I receive feedback like:

• “I’ve never felt so normal about food.”

• “That lunch hack was a game changer.”

• “This meal-prep thing is a game changer.”

• “I love your little hacks.”

• “I feel like I can do this—and keep doing it.”

• “I had no idea this could be so easy.”

I was riding on the subway one cold night in 2017 when the idea hit me: What if I put together a little book of game changers? At the time, my father was very ill, I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed, and the last thing on my mind was writing a book. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized how much all of those tiny changes were helping me, and, more importantly, I realized I wasn’t the only one out there struggling with stress and having a hard time finding the approachable resources I wanted.

So I started jotting down all those hacks and game changers, and I thought a lot about my clients’ feedback, and what began to emerge was a story about healthy habits to rely on when life gets real and throws you wild stuff that spikes your stress and anxiety levels. The result is the book you’re reading now.

The great news is that nothing I describe here is fancy or expensive or hard to implement. These little hacks are small shifts or changes you can make in your everyday life. You can use just a few or you can use them all—my only rule is that you honor your mind, body, and spirit, and check in with yourself along the way about what feels good.

While my primary area of expertise is nutrition, I introduce other techniques into my work to complement those dietary approaches. Sometimes I discuss subjects related to exercise, mental health, and other lifestyle factors, and sometimes that means I refer to other practitioners. For chapters in this book that focus on topics I am not an expert in, I spoke with individuals who do have that experience and insight to share with you.

Unfortunately, I can’t make the stress or anxiety-provoking situations themselves go away (though it would be cool if I could, wouldn’t it?). But these approachable tools will empower you to confront the crazy in your life with more calm and confidence than you even knew you had.