 Many people struggle to get started when they're told they need to improve their eating habits. Here are some tips that can help you achieve sustainable positive change. Firstly, it's important to take a step-wise approach to making dietary changes. One or two small changes each week will lead to more sustainable change than trying to make many drastic changes all at once. Identify target areas for change, like times of day that are particularly challenging for you or situations in which you tend to overeat. This can help you to define those step-wise changes and to come up with an action plan. For example, in week one, you might decide to replace all of the sweetened beverages in the fridge with unsweetened sparkling water. You might even find creative ways to remind yourself of this change by brushing and flossing your teeth soon after dinner. Additional goals added in the second week might include bringing a homemade lunch to work instead of grabbing a hot dog from the vendor down the street and replacing the high-calorie, heavily processed snack foods in the home with fresh fruits and crisp vegetables and maybe a healthy dip. Later on, you might choose to avoid meat on one or two days of the week and instead eat plant-based proteins like beans or lentils on those days. Behavioral changes alone can be an important part of the step-wise action plan. They can facilitate weight control even without consciously changing the foods you eat. If you like the idea of focusing on behavioral strategies, try signing a contract with yourself. Stating that for the next month, you will only eat when you're seated at a table using cutlery and a plate. This change alone increases the likelihood that the foods you eat will be well thought out rather than impulse foods. A similar behavioral change is the decision to cook at home twice, three times or maybe even every night of the week. The chances of those foods being healthier than what you ate before are pretty high. Sustainable dietary improvements require a realistic, targeted approach that focuses on progressive improvements in your diet without the fear of failure that comes when you try to achieve unrealistic dietary goals. Food is one of the greatest joys of life and optimizing your health means identifying the foods and eating behaviors that will satisfy you while protecting your long-term health.