Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight (32 page)

LIQUID GRATIFICATION

Although it's best to avoid “liquid” calories, here's how to splurge smart:

Chapter 7

HOW TO MOVE TO LOSE THE WEIGHT

H
ere's an essential truth about clutter: It seems to gather on its own without any involvement from you. Thousands of pounds of it can fill the spaces and cover the surfaces within your home, yet you don't recall expending any effort to make it happen.

That's just how it is.

The same tends to be true with weight. A recent study told the story of how roughly 10,000 young men and women changed as they aged into midlife. On average, they gained more than a pound a year. Most expanded into a higher BMI category by middle age, such as moving from a healthy weight to becoming overweight, or advancing from overweight to obese.

It's typical for extra weight to slowly and silently settle upon you. Gaining just 1 pound a year for 20 years can dramatically change your appearance and your quality of life!

That's just how it is.

It's also normal for you to not notice that you've gained weight. Another recent enlightening study involved two large groups of people—each numbering more than 380,000—who were interviewed in back-to-back years. They all reported their height, their weight, and how much their weight had changed in the previous year. If the weight change they reported had been
true
, obesity would have fallen in the United States that year by 2 percent for men and just under 1 percent for women. But the nation's obesity rate actually went up by about one-half of a percentage point during that period. These folks simply weren't very mindful of their weight change.

There are many parallels between the clutter in your home and the clutter on your hips. Both types create a rift between the life you
want
to be living
and the life you're
actually
living. Both can interfere with the peace and calm that should fill your mind, and both can impede the way you live day to day.

Neither form of clutter will go away as easily as it was gathered. Getting rid of the excess stuff in your home requires physical effort, mental focus, and deliberate choices. Losing extra pounds demands the same commitment. To lose a meaningful amount of weight and then keep it off for years, you must make a deliberate choice to eat right and stay physically active.

Just doing a bit of exercise here and there isn't going to be enough. Experts now think that losing weight and staying fit require a substantial amount of physical activity—enough that it'll probably require a significant change in your daily schedule.

The American College of Sports Medicine says that doing 2½ hours of moderate-intensity activity each week may help you see
only modest
weight loss. In other words, if you want to lose a lot of weight, moving your body around for 30 minutes a day, Monday through Friday, likely won't be enough. While it'll probably be good for your overall health, it won't necessarily move the needle on your scales. Instead, you may need closer to 4 hours of physical activity per week. That's the equivalent of about 50 minutes of activity 5 days a week.

You can argue with this necessity, or ignore it, or feel like it doesn't apply to you. You can say that you don't have the time to exercise this much or that it's just not fair that you should have to do this.

But again, this is just how it is.

If you want to make major changes to your weight, you have to move around a
lot
more than our society is generally accustomed to doing.

But here's some good news: You can ease into a more physically active lifestyle over time, even if you're completely sedentary now. My program will help you gradually become more active by introducing effective, challenging, and simple activities into your schedule. By the end of 6 weeks, if you follow the physical activity portion of the program, you'll be well on your way to the hour a day that supports meaningful weight loss.

The exercise portion of
Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight
has three main components.

Walking.
This type of aerobic exercise is a good fit for this program. For starters, it's essentially free to do, and it requires minimal equipment aside from comfortable shoes and clothes, which you probably already have. You don't have to join a gym to do it. And you don't have to learn any new skills.

All you have to do during the first week of the program is walk for 5 min
utes 2 or 3 days a week. You'll slowly build up to where you're walking 30 minutes a day for 5 days during the final week.

Walk around your block. Walk on your treadmill. Walk in place in your home if it's raining or your neighborhood isn't safe for walking. You can use your walking time to practice being aware and mindful of what's happening in the present moment. Or you can plan out your next bout of decluttering.

Strength and flexibility training.
Doing movements to keep your muscles, bones, and joints strong is an important aspect of a fitness program.

You're especially going to need strength in this program. You'll be venturing deep into your closets, basement, attic, and shed, where you'll wrestle hundreds—or even thousands—of pounds of household items out of your home.

As a result, I'll ask you to do strength-training movements up to 3 days per week. I worked with Liz Davis, MS, who designed a program that you can do around your house without any special exercise equipment. Liz is a mom, a trainer, a competitive bodybuilder, and an exercise physiologist. She came up with simple movements that make use of items you probably already have. These exercises will strengthen your arms, legs, shoulders, abdomen, and back.

Liz also recommended some basic yoga moves to improve your flexibility. These won't force you to bend yourself into any unusual shapes. If you're having trouble just picking your socks up off the floor, these should help.

Decluttering.
Simply bagging up old clothes, pulling books off shelves and re-filing the keepers, and climbing up and down into your attic to bring out storage containers burns calories.

However, in general, you shouldn't count easy housekeeping chores toward your weekly quota of physical activity. A recent study from the UK of more than 4,500 people found evidence that housework may not be physically challenging enough to provide all the health benefits of exercise. Experts stress that your activity should be at least
moderate intensity
, which is the equivalent of walking briskly. The most recent physical activity guidelines put out by the federal government don't count housework as an option.

However, in most of the weeks of this program, the type of housework you'll be doing is harder than simply sweeping your entryway or loading the dishwasher. I suspect you'll find that completely decluttering your home in 6 weeks—or even doing a big chunk of it—is a physically challenging endeavor. Like the woman whose story I told in the introduction of this book, I've heard from plenty of people who lost weight after they just added decluttering activities to their normal routines.

Any time you're cleaning your house or carrying out clutter, you're going to be burning more calories than you would if you were sitting down. But I would still urge you to follow the walking plan and do the strength- and flexibility-improving exercises in addition to your daily decluttering tasks.

I want to make sure you're burning enough calories to make a significant improvement in your weight. I also want your body to be strong and limber enough to clear all of that extra stuff out of your home. These exercises will help ensure that happens.

I'd like to make two final points about the physical activity you'll do during the next 6 weeks:

1. Your mindset as you go into the program, especially the exercise component, is critical for success. Many of us have struggled with exercise our whole lives—myself included—but reframing the way you think about physical activity can help enormously.

This program is a gift that you're giving yourself. You are making an effort to improve your life, your home, and your family because you—and they—are worth it! Please don't consider this exercise program something that you're obliged to do or something that someone is forcing upon you. Instead, accept it like a key that can unlock better functioning and an improved sense of wellness.

2. If you're already following some type of deliberate, planned exercise program on most days of the week, I don't necessarily expect you to abandon it for this one. I simply ask that if you stick to what you're already doing, be sure that you're getting at least as much exercise that improves your aerobic fitness, strength, and flexibility as you would from the
Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight
plan.

If you're following an exercise program that your health care provider wants you to do, then please stick with it. If you're completely sedentary or you have any injuries or chronic health problems, check with your health care provider before starting this plan.

I'll now turn this chapter over to Liz Davis, who will show you how to do the strength-training and yoga movements.

The Moves That Will Help You Become a Lean, Clean, Clutter-Busting Machine

This program is designed to give you a challenge that improves your strength— but you should
not
end each day feeling like you're too worn out to move.

Please perform each exercise either:

Between 8 and 12 times (also known as repetitions or “reps”) or