Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight (38 page)

You dine alone, with everyone in your home eating at different times and in different spots.

Which version do you choose? The occasions during the day when you eat are extremely important to your physical and emotional health, even if you don't realize it in the moment. Also, the time that any of us has to spend with
loved ones—parents, kids, siblings, and spouses—is ultimately limited. If you don't make use of those mealtimes, you don't get them back.

Starting today, which story will you tell in these spaces?

Kitchen Memories Can Linger

Each of us carries into our adult life impressions, attitudes, and behaviors instilled in us in childhood. It's very likely that deep in your mind you have tucked away experiences that took place in the kitchen and dining room that still influence how you think about food today.

Did you memorize family recipes from yellowed, faded cards and learn to take pride in your cooking? Did a loved one feed you ice cream to console you after a bad day at school? Or are your kitchen memories not so happy? Did a parent who survived hard times scold you if you didn't finish your meal? Did you sneak down to the fridge late at night and indulge your cravings in shame?

Did you learn to celebrate with food?

Or that food equals love?

Or that food makes your discomfort go away?

All of these types of old memories can be a factor in your present-day weight. This week, part of the “clutter” you'll be sorting through is your attitude toward food. You're also going to examine the way you use your kitchen and dining room. This includes decluttering these spaces, but your mission goes far beyond that. You'll be making choices that will affect your diet, the way you think about eating, and the way the people in your household interact with each other.

Decluttering and reorganizing your kitchen and dining room will require 11 tasks. You can scatter these evenly across 7 days of the week. Or you can do them all throughout the week and rest on the weekend.

Or, and this might happen, you'll realize that you can't complete the tasks in just 1 week. That's fine, too. It took years for you to accumulate everything you have in your home, and for some people, completely finishing a particular area in a week is too ambitious.

If you're not finished by the end of the week, move on to the next room and come back and finish your kitchen later, either at the end of the program or on a slow day during the program.

Ready to dig down through your clutter to look for the happier home, body, and mind that are waiting under there?

Let's get started!

Task 1:

DEVELOP A VISION FOR WHAT YOU WANT FROM YOUR KITCHEN

This task simply requires you to sit down and do some thinking, ideally with the other people in your home.

I know you're probably excited to throw out some old appliances, and we'll get to that very soon. But please take ample time for Task 1, as it's crucial. Without this vision, you can certainly obtain a clean kitchen and dining room, but you won't make the deeper changes in your habits and behaviors that lead to the improvements in your health that you want.

Determining your vision simply requires asking “What do I want
from
this room?” You have a lot of options.