Fitness coach Jess Dukes, 31, lost 75 pounds in a year and a half by incorporating small changes into her daily routine. Dukes, who lives in Bellevue, Washington, says she used to work a hectic office job that made it difficult to change her bad eating habits.

Dukes says many of the people she coaches are in the same situation.

“Oftentimes, when I see people start trying to lose weight, they try to change everything at once. They completely get rid of everything they love eating-wise and they start working out intensely, and they can’t keep up with it,” Dukes tells NBC News BETTER.

Dukes, who first told her story to Women’s Health, started with a tiny change — swapping sugar and cream in her coffee with Stevia and almond milk. Overtime, she weaned herself off of those until she was able to drink her coffee black.

“My goal was to just do one habit change at a time,” says Dukes.

Here’s how Dukes says she integrated small changes into her lifestyle that helped her lose the weight.

She slowly gave up eating out

Dukes says that much of her weight gain was related to eating out nearly every day. She worked a busy office job and got most of her lunches to go, and often ate dinner at restaurants. She began to bring her lunch to work, and made a rule to only eat out on Saturdays and Sundays.

“Rather than giving up eating out completely, I saved those things for the weekend,” she says.

After three months, Dukes craved restaurant food less and less. She found herself making more and more meals at home on the weekends.

“By the time you’ve been on track all week, you feel so good that you get to the weekend and you’re like ‘I don’t really want to go out for ice cream, and I don’t really need to go out to that place because I feel really good,’” she says.

She slowly adopted a diet of mostly lean meats and vegetables. She started to realize that she had more energy and didn’t feel bloated, she says.

“I never realized that wasn’t normal to feel that way until I started cleaning up my diet, stopped eating out as much and realized I had less brain fog,” she says. "I wasn’t as tired all the time. I had energy. When I got off work I wasn’t ready to lay on the couch all night.”

Dukes says she goes out to eat less often, and when she does, it’s usually a date night with her husband.

“But every time I go out to eat I don’t feel like I need to splurge and order everything on the menu anymore, so I save it for special occasions,” she says.