BEHAVIORS OF CHANGE

A comprehensive self-help guide to transforming behaviors in order to reach personal goals.

Debut author Christian provides readers with a blueprint for contentment, drawing on references to his own successful effort to lose 100 pounds. For the author, this weight loss was just one part of what he refers to as a thorough mental, emotional, and spiritual “housecleaning.” Specifically, he analyzed his own habits, imposed new disciplines, and followed through on them, and as he tells this story, he consistently strikes an inclusive note, broadening his focus to include his readers: “The next significant shift in your journey might be in front of you,” he writes. “Who are you, where do you want to go, and who do you want to become?”: These are the basic questions that Christian poses as he tells of his own transformations—becoming a born-again Christian, and changing his diet, his exercise regimen, and, ultimately, his physical appearance. At one point, he reports an eerie incident in which his old friends initially failed to recognize him. He clearly lays out several practical steps for readers, so that they may take control of their lives as he did, while effectively stressing the organic unity of his process: “Your mind, body, and spirit,” he writes, “must equally be strengthened and changed in effort to act in unison to defend future relapses.” Christian also looks at events in the lives of famous athletes, including basketball legends Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and the late football star Walter Payton, as examples of self-doubt and fulfillment. However, the author’s warmly confessional discussions of his own worries, struggles, and triumphs are the book’s highlight.

An optimistic plan to remodel a life from the inside out.