Are you fat because your house is fat?

This may seem like a ridiculous question to most of you out there but there could be logic to it.  Peter Walsh, author of "Does this clutter make my butt look fat?" maybe on to something.  According to him, and I tend to agree, overweight people tend to lead cluttered lives.  It appears that people who have untidy houses make it difficult to look after themselves.

We have often heard how our body is our temple, but how can you look after your body if your home is stressing you out?  For many people having a cluttered home means they don't want to spend time in it, so end up eating out more as their kitchen is too cluttered to cook in.  Or just feel so stressed when they come home that they don't know where to begin.

Peter Walsh started helping people to de clutter their homes.  Not even he could foresee the added health benefits from living in a cleaner, tidier house.  Many of his clients discovered that through purging their homes of vast amounts of stuff they didn't know what to do with, they were also cleaning themselves up from the inside.  A cleaner house leads to an unconscious desire to eat healthily and being busy at home meant less snacking on unhealthy foods.  They began to lose weight without even trying.

I have always said that there is a huge psychological problem when it comes to weight.  Lots of people say they hand't even noticed how much weight they had gained while dining on take aways every night until they couldn't fit in an airline seat, or they overheard other people talking at the school gates.  My question is, just why are you existing on take aways to start with?  What's so difficult about preparing a simple nutritious meal from scratch?

Maybe we need to look deeper than just the size of our bodies.  Maybe we should sit down and analyze our lifestyle - the way we live, work and play, how much exercise we are getting, what makes us happy or sad and what we can do to change it.

Many people eat for comfort, or emotional problems - how many times have we attacked a box of chocolates to fill an empty hole which is actually caused by something other than hunger?  You cannot fill an emotional hole with food.  You need to get to the root of the problem.

Start with your house.  The place where you live should be welcoming when you come home, a place you want to be, where you can relax and enjoy your spare time wither alone or with your family.

Peter Walsh advises people to look at their home, not for what it is, but what they want from it.  Each room should have a purpose, the kitchen for cooking, dining room for eating, sitting room for relaxing and spending time with family and friends.  The main bedroom should be the most important room in the house, where you and your partner can relax and enjoy each other's company.  It should not be littered with dirty laundry, children's toys, etc..  The kitchen should have clear, clean surfaces so you can cook without having to clear space first.  If you don't have enough room for a separate office, dedicate a corner of the sitting room to an office area where you can sit down and concentrate when paying bills and going through the post.

Organizing the space you live in means that you also put things in order mentally.  Your outlook on life will change and you will find yourself wanting to look after yourself as you look after your house.  When this change occurs, it is essential to clean out the kitchen - every utensil, dish, pan you haven't used in the past 6-12 months should go (these can be donated to charity), you should go through every cupboard and clean thoroughly and get rid of any out of date foods lurking at the back.

Humans have become hoarders - we tend to buy things "just in case" which inevitably end up going off.  It is essential to go through the fridge and throw away anything that's off BEFORE going shopping, this way you can see exactly what you have and exactly what you need.  Right up a meal plan for a week, make a shopping list and stick to it - no impulse buys!  You will eat healthier and you will also save money.

Lots of people use the excuse "I don't have time to cook", your average take away takes 10 minutes to order and 30 minutes to arrive = 40 minutes total!  There are hundreds of recipes you can knock up in 30 minutes - and most of them are for free on the internet.  There really aren't any excuses for not cooking a healthy meal.

My advice is to plan your week.  On a piece of paper draw a chart - or use a spreadsheet!  Monday to Sunday across the top and then breakfast, lunch and dinner with snacks midmorning and mid afternoon down the left hand side.  Decide which meals you are at home for.  you maybe at work every day for lunch, can you take lunch with you or do you have to eat in a staff canteen or restaurant?  What's your social life like?  Program in dinners out if necessary.  Decide what you are going to cook that week and make a shopping list - and stick to it.  Do not buy anything that isn't on the list.

The following week do the same, try to vary the recipes, remember that variety is the spice of life!  Also, if need be, you can make double the amount of a dish and freeze it.  You can then schedule in the leftovers so that nothing goes to waste and nothing gets forgotten in the freezer.  If you manage to build up 4 weeks of meals you can then rotate them as you wish.  Try to keep recipes simple so that they don't need hours of preparation and cooking.

After reorganizing your house and your temple, you might be surprised at how your life and body change without you even trying.