In his book, Meier shares health strategies for making doable, realistic behavior changes for achieving lasting results in controllable aspects of health. And there’s quite a bit that people can truly control, according to the author.

“When it comes to habit change, too many people think about what they shouldn’t do, shouldn’t eat, and how much they should exercise based on outside information,” Meier said. “I’ve found that it’s far easier to make habit change stick when you look at it from the opposite perspective: What can you do with your current lifestyle that may improve it? What can you add to your diet to make it better, and how much exercise is optimal for the goals you have?”

When it comes to diet and fitness, there’s no magic wand or quick fix.

“I want readers to realize that living a healthy lifestyle is a lifelong process,” Meier said. “The pictures and stories most people see in the media aren’t typical results or very realistic. It takes years of consistency with diet and exercise to achieve lasting change including a lot of trial and error. It’s all about learning and keeping an open mind — including subjects outside of diet and exercise … like stress, motivation, outlook and lifestyle habits.”

Meier shared his motivation and inspiration for writing his book in this Q&A.

What inspired you to write a lifestyle book?

“It started shortly after I graduated in 2014. I found myself with time on my hands and thought, there’s a lot of general info that I find myself repeating and trying to teach my clients and friends about exercise and eating, maybe I should write a little packet of information that I can just give to others. So I started writing the outline and one chapter turned into to two and two into four and the more I wrote the more I wanted to include other aspects outside of just diet and exercise, so I did.”

There seems to be so much information available about diet, exercise and work-life balance, what sets your book apart?

“Most information that people see when it comes to this subject is via the media, magazines, random online sources and so on. I find a majority of it to be ‘fluff.’ Everyone is after instant gratification. They want the easiest route to the quickest results: ‘Follow my plan because it’s the best and you’ll see results.’ That’s what a lot of healthy lifestyle and diet books revolve around. My goal was to give people the groundwork to build upon, and to most importantly, learn through the process. That’s why I love the fact that my ‘chapters’ are called ‘strategies.’ It’s about trying things, evaluating how they went, and making adjustments from there. I think I’ve found a good middle ground with my book that gives people a place to start and teaches them how you can progress and think about making changes in different ways.”

Based on your experience, what do people typically have the hardest time with? Diet or exercise? Why?

“Ninety-eight percent of the time, diet. Exercise is a tiny portion of our week. Let’s say 3 percent. If someone has others to help them — like a trainer or dedicated friends — they can and should make some easy progress in the gym as long as they show up. The planning, consistency, time, execution, and self-control related to eating — the other 60 to 70 percent of the time — is the challenge. There are so many other variables related to what we eat that make eating consistently well difficult. Some of them being our environment, our job, our stress level, our quality of sleep, our supplementation, our medications, our family and friends, our coworkers, our personal history and our budget. Can you exercise anywhere? Definitely. Can you always have access to good food choices and have the time and resources to eat them? Not necessarily.”

If someone wants to begin living a healthier lifestyle, where do they start?

“I’m glad you asked! They can start by reading this book (no, seriously, please do). But without reading this book, people should start with the smallest habit that moves them in the right direction. Common areas include getting better (not just more) sleep, drinking more water, eating more protein, having a positive and growth mindset, and exercising more consistently (also, not necessarily just exercising more). Maybe most importantly, they need to start with the correct mindset for long-term success. They need to know that what they’re about to embark on is a lifestyle change, not a weekstyle change, not a two-months-before-spring-break-style change, and not a quick fix. Research shows that the more people ‘diet,’ the heavier they get and the harder it is to lose weight the next time around.”

What is your writing process? Did you write in a specific place at a specific time of day?

“As I was working on the book, I pretty much used all of my free time writing and going over the content in my word document. I mention in the book that I believe in standing as much as possible rather than sitting. I wrote almost the entire book standing at a self-made standing desk! And a lot of the time I spent standing, I spent rolling my feet on a lacrosse ball (if you haven’t done that before, give it a try) and stretching my calves.”

Did you self-publish the book?

“After my initial publishing plan fell through due to errors made by the company, I did end up self-publishing with a really awesome publisher called Dog Ear Publishing. I unfortunately had to waste about eight months of time between the first publisher not working out and finding the next one, so it was mildly frustrating.”

What’s the best advice you can give someone who wants to lead a healthier lifestyle?

“It can all be summed up with one statement: Make positive changes as slow as you can while still making noticeable forward progress.”