Why did you decide to write this book?
I seemed the picture of health on the outside, but inside a host of health problems were beginning to pile up including sinus and digestive troubles and a weakened immune system. Eventually I developed acute neuropathy which felt like waves of tingling and numbness from my legs up to into my face. After years of searching for answers, I eventually found a functional doctor who told me to give up gluten, dairy, grains and sugar, and I walked out in tears.
“What now?”, I thought. All I found were before and after pictures of food and health transformations but nobody addressed the struggle in-between and the process they used to get from one point to the next. The secret for HOW to change was the missing piece.
Ironically, the concept of change was not new to me. I had worked in corporate change management consulting helping lead large-scale change initiatives around the world for years. What was I so afraid of? I was supposed to be a change expert!
I began to wonder if any of the change management frameworks I had used in business could apply to my own food and health transformation. I went back to all the best practices and to my surprise they could all be applied to food and health! Using myself as a guinea pig I began to create a new health change model and the “5 Bites to Health” was born!
I became a Certified Health Coach and continue to use the same process with my clients today with great success from toddlers to teenagers, parents and executives. So many people want to change their eating habits for one reason or another and I wanted to write the book, Change BITES to help them regardless of eating style or magnitude of the change.
I became a Certified Health Coach and continue to use the same process with my clients today with great success from toddlers to teenagers, parents and executives. So many people want to change their eating habits for one reason or another and I wanted to write the book, Change BITES to help them regardless of eating style or magnitude of the change.
How does mealtime become an issue of control?
Children don’t have a lot of control over things in their lives. Don’t worry, this is the way it’s supposed to be or you end up with a child that is in charge and rules the house and we all know how that turns out! Children are so incredibly smart and they can sense your anxiety about wanting them to eat healthy. They learn pretty quickly that mealtime is a great way to push your buttons. Parents jump through hoops to get their children to eat and kids notice. It becomes a game of “how high” where children test how far parents will go to appease their food preferences. Going to extreme lengths catering to our children’s eating preferences, is not the measure of good parenting so how did we get here? Our parents never had this problem!
As parents, we have the best of intentions. One of the fundamental jobs as parents is to feed our children. Watching my kids not eat the nutritious food I prepared actually pained and infuriated me as if I wasn’t doing a good job. It was like watching them put their hand on the stove but they didn’t feel a thing except for the satisfaction of feeling in control.
Take the emotion out of the food. The more angry or anxious you get the more power you give the food. Just keep making a variety of healthy foods part of the routine and if your children are hungry, assuming they haven’t loaded up on junk, they will eventually eat it.
What are ways that parents can minimize power struggles while encouraging healthy eating?
Here are my Top 10 ideas:
1. The number one thing to do as parents is to model good eating habits and behaviors. This means, “SAY less” and “DO more”. From toddlers up to teenagers, the more we harp about how healthy a food is, the less they want to eat it. Just lead by example.
2. Only keep food you want the family to eat in the house which may include a few cookies or desserts. Imagine putting all the snack and junk food on your counter in a pile. Now consider that all of it will eventually end up in your family’s stomach.
3. Instead of teaching your children “good” and “bad” foods teach them as soon as possible to recognize how certain foods make them feel. For example, if you notice they are tired, have stomach pains or a headache, ask them what they ate today and see if they can play detective!
4. Don’t give up on foods, especially if you like them! Just because the rest of the family doesn’t like fish doesn’t mean they won’t at some point. Try making it different ways (e.g., breaded, with lemon, over pasta, in tomato sauce) and they may just try it after the 20th time!
5. Feed kids when they are hungry. If they are starving off the bus at 4:00PM, have dinner then. You make the food rules for your house.
6. Make a list of “Personal Best Foods”. Interview your children and make a list of all the fruits and veggies they like. You might be surprised how many there are! Keep these foods on hand and prepare them in a variety of ways to support variety.
7. Spoil them in the produce section of the store. Tell them they can pick out whatever they want. Have a scavenger hunt to look for fruits and veggies.
8. Work together to prep. Have the kids help make bags of smoothie ingredients for the freezer. Lay out all the ingredients and let them pick their “recipe” and label the bags.
9. Get them involved in cooking even if time is short. Pull up a chair and give them specific tasks that won’t slow you down but give them some control. Kids love using measuring cups, adding a dash of salt or pepper and tearing lettuce pieces for the salad. They can take pride that they helped cooked dinner!
10. Finally, keep your eye on the prize. Be clear on why your family’s eating habits are important to you beyond basic health. Perhaps an allergy, behavior problem or history of family illness is a factor or maybe you want to be able to go out to dinner or travel as a family and enjoy a variety of local foods!
Costonis is author of Change Bites, 5 Change Management Strategies to Transform Your Health, which just reached #10 on Amazon Best Sellers in Business and Health after just one week!
ABOUT CHANGE BITES
Change Bites is the only book that 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. This unique methodology is the only one to implement 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.
ABOUT MARISSA COSTONIS
Marissa Costonis is a health change guru. She is owner of Change Bites, LLC and a Certified Health Coach by Institute for Integrative Nutrition who helps people make easy changes in their eating habits one bite at a time, whether food is the culprit or the cure. She spent over a decade in change management consulting leading a variety of change initiatives around the world. When she developed neuropathy and several health problems began to pile up, Costonis was forced to completely change her diet. Overwhelmed and confused, she began to apply all the leading change models and frameworks to simplify her own health transformation with great success. The “5 Bites to Health” process was born. Today Costonis conducts individual and group coaching programs, workshops and enjoys guest-speaking engagements to share her unique approach and support others in their journey to health.
Connect with Marissa Costonis on Facebook @changeonebite, Instagram @changebites, Twitter @change_bites and LinkedIn and visit www.changebites.com.
Change Bites, 5 Change Management Strategies to Transform Your Health is available in paperback on Amazon.
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