Author: Ellie Krieger MS RD with KellyJames-Enger

ISBN: 1-4000-5102-9

 

The following review was contributed by:  Helen Kaut: To read more of Helen Kaut’s Reviews Click HERE

When you try to eat more healthily, lose weight, exercise more and feel less stressed a strict diet is the first thing you attempt to transform your life. But after a while the choice of food feels limiting and you can’t keep up with the grueling exercise regime. You want to achieve too much in a short period of time. The result: You give up before you notice any visible progress and pile on the pounds.

“Small changes, big results” is a 12 week program which addresses this dilemma. Dietician Ellie Krieger teaches you how easy and effective it is to make small changes without either breaking the bank or suffering from being miserable, hungry and frustrated. Instead of categorizing foods into bad and good, she favors a different system , “usually, sometimes and rarely”, which allows you still to eat even those foods which are normally labeled “bad”.

At the start of the program Krieger advises the reader to keep a food and exercise diary to become aware of his/her eating habits. She also asks you to write a letter to yourself detailing what you want to achieve and she recommends you to get moral support from friends and family. The introduction finishes with a lifestyle questionnaire which helps you to find out how healthy you really are. It also serves as a snapshot of the current habits and helps to chart your progress.

The 12 chapters are like building blocks. Each chapter builds on the previous and introduces three small changes, one for nutrition, one for exercise and one for general well-being. The chapters follow the same structure explaining each change in detail and are supported by useful info boxes. These include for example tips on how to boost your energy, how to find the right heart rate monitor  or “21 ways to introduce fruits and vegetables into your life”. Each chapter has mouth watering recipes which are easy to cook.

In the first chapter Krieger introduces her healthy list of foods you should have in your kitchen and which replace non-healthy options. She also explains the use of the food and exercise diary. As the main exercise Krieger recommends simply walking. In week one you just walk at a slow pace 20 minutes per week, but with each week you increase the intensity, speed and duration of your walk. She also teaches stretching and simple weight exercises to boost your strength. In the first week she also introduces a simple 5 minute breathing technique which helps to focus on the moment. She gradually builds on this exercise and in week 6 you learn different forms of meditations.

With every week the action summary gets longer and longer picking up the previous changes.

Her small changes also include bedtime rituals for enhancing better sleep, eating “intuitively”, drinking enough fluids including water, reading food labels and substituting refined sugar with healthier alternatives. Halfway through the program Krieger tells you how to stay motivated. This includes taking stock of the progress and setbacks and rewarding yourself for your achievements.

An appendix full of useful information such as supplement recommendations, serving sizes and a list of the “usually, sometimes, rarely” foods finishes this book.

Ellie Krieger does not reinvent the wheel in terms of fitness and health advice and some of it you might have heard before. But she gently leads the reader into the right direction without overwhelming him/her and explains in an easy to understand way the scientific background of her nutrition advice. If you have given up on diets in the past this book might be a good start to change your bad habits for good.