Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight (24 page)
Read Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight Online
Authors: Peter Walsh
Talk in terms of limits.
No one likes to think about giving up
everything
they treasure. Instead, focus on the amount of space you're both prepared to allocate to specific items. By decluttering according to the limit that each space will holdâ150 books in the bookcase or three bins of holiday decorations in the attic, for exampleâyou're letting your home determine how much you should keep. This takes a lot of the emotion out of the discussion.
Bring in a neutral third party.
Ask a trusted mutual friend (avoid other family members!) to referee for you on touchy decisions or to help solve an impasse.
Pitfall #4:
ISOLATION
It's normal to be overweight today. It's fairly customary to live in a chaotic, cluttered home, too. As a result, you're going to be taking steps that get you out of rhythm with the way the people around you are marching.
It's a little weird to be hauling out truckloads of stuff from your home when all your neighbors are bringing in new stuff. (It's very likely that someone will ask if you're moving!) It's odd to be thinking about what you want your home to do for
you
rather than working to meet the demands of your home.
If possible, get people around you who agree with the new way you're living your life. Your choices will seem more like the normal, expected behaviors that everyone should do.
The test panel could lean on several sources of support as they went through the program, to remind them that they weren't going it alone. For starters, I gave them a copy of my DVD
It's All Too Much
that I produced a
few years ago with tips on decluttering. Secondly, we set up a Facebook group for them to share their breakthroughs and frustrations. They said they enjoyed the camaraderie and the ability to share photos of their decluttered rooms. I'd suggest that you look for this kind of support, as well.
Do you know of a family member, co-worker, or friend who's living in an overstuffed home? Know anyone who'd like to lose weight? I'll bet you do. If so, share this book and go through the program together. You'll have someone eager to hear your triumphs and interested in sharing ideas that can get you through tough moments.
Look me up on Facebook, whether on my own page
(www.facebook.com/PeterWalsh)
or the page for this book. I regularly provide quick videos with how-to advice and links to recent appearances on TV shows, where I get to have fun with audiences and homeowners while we discuss new tips I've discovered and share strategies that work. You'll find a community of people just like yourself who are enthused about living a simpler, fitter, more streamlined life. (You'll also learn a thing or two about Australians, as they make up a big portion of my audience.)
In today's connected world, there's no reason for you to feel like you're alone, especially when you're tackling big concerns like your weight and your home.
The Clutter Chronicles
Brenda Hanna, 58
POUNDS LOST: 12.8
AMOUNT OF CLUTTER REMOVED: Lost count
Normally, Brenda might have felt too busy to start a 6-week decluttering and weight loss project. After all, it was a hectic time of year at work, and she was making regular trips across the state to help plan her daughter's wedding. But two dresses hanging in her closet convinced her to make time for the program.
“I'd bought my mother-of-the-bride dress and a rehearsal dinner dress about 5 months earlier. They were really nice, expensive dresses,” she says. “However, I'd gained some weight since then, and when I tried on my dresses I couldn't zip them up . . .
at all!
”
Her daughter heard about the
Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight
test program and remembered that
Brenda had set a goal to get control over the chaotic areas of her home.
When Brenda met with me, she was feeling emotional. “Being unable to wear those dresses for the wedding, that's the worst thing for a mom,” she explains. “I also had tears in my eyes over the clutter in my home. My basement was especially out of control, and it had just been weighing on me. But there were tears of hope, too, to know that maybe I could conquer this clutter and weight.”
The clock was ticking, since her daughter's wedding day was just 2 weeks after the program ended. So the 58-year-old owner of a pre-school/kindergarten committed herself fully to the plan.
“I felt that all four parts of the program were important to do together. I addressed the decluttering, the exercise, the eating, and the way I was thinking,” she says. “One fed into another. Exercising gave me more energy. I was eating better and I felt encouraged, so I decluttered. I felt that you couldn't ignore any component of this program.”
Progressing through her house room by room, task by task, kept her from feeling outmatched by the pockets of clutter throughout her home, especially in the basement. “I had been feeling overwhelmed about all the stuff in the house, but the concepts of mindfulness, having a vision, and recognizing benign and malignant clutter helped take the emotion out of the process, which made it easier to face all the stuff.”
While she was clearing out the clutter, her pounds were disappearing, too. She lost nearly 4 inches from her waist and 4½ inches from her hips. On Week 6 of the program, she pulled on each dress again. Both times, she grasped the zipper between her fingertips and smoothly pulled it all the way up.
“At the wedding, I got lots of compliments, which was very niceâbut it wasn't my primary motivating factor. I just wanted to wear the dress that my daughter and I chose together,” she says. “I felt more than happy. I felt joyful.”
Looking Ahead
In this program, there's also no reason to have to do extra work to figure out what to eat. In the next chapter, you'll find the easy-to-use lists that will guide your meal and snack choices for the next 6 weeks.
Chapter 6
HOW TO EAT TO LOSE THE WEIGHT
M
any elements you'll find in the typical “diet” don't fit well in the
Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight
program
.
So I stuffed them into a bag and hauled them out to the curb (an activity that will soon become quite familiar to you). The food-related clutter that I refused to include in this program includes:
Counting.
Whether it's calories, carbs, or grams of fat, counting takes time and mental focus. That may be okay if your life is otherwise uneventful. But during the next 6 weeks, you'll have other outlets for your energy and attention. That's why the eating portion of this program is very simple. All you have to do is look at the charts on the following pages and pick items for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Anything you see in the charts is fair gameâthe calorie-counting work has been done for you already.
Rules.
A central aim of this book is to make your life simpler and more streamlined. I don't want you to have to buy into any special diet-related belief system or memorize a bunch of directions. All you have to do is hold yourself to a few limits when putting together your meals and snacks from these charts, and you can expect to lose weight.
Temporary weirdness.
I don't want you to take a detour into a land of unappealing or unfamiliar foods you can only tolerate for 6 weeks. I don't want you to haul a bunch of strange items into your kitchen that you'll throw out half-eaten after the program. Instead, I hope you'll use this book to gain control over your home and your weight for years to come. As a result, you should learn what it's like to feel satisfied eating the typical foods that you see in the supermarket. In the following food charts, I'm confident that you'll find plenty of items that you'll be happy to eat mindfully.
You can mix and match your options into enough combinations that you
may want to keep following this plan long after the program is over and you're focused on maintaining your weight loss.
Dieting.
The word
dieting
implies all the rules, deprivation, and temporary changes that I tossed out. In this program, you're simply eating in a smart, mindful way. You're beginning new habits that will keep you fit and hopefully will permanently replace the old habits that added those extra pounds to your frame.
The Meal Plan
The plan is pretty simple. With the input of registered dietitians, the program contains an appealing array of foods and drinks arranged in a format that will naturally and easily guide you toward weight loss. You'll find separate lists of:
Breakfast items. Each of these contains 350 to 400 calories.
Smoothies. These 350- to 375-calorie drinks make a nice breakfast.