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Spring started March 20. Ahhh, the glorious colors and delightful smells of spring flowers. This time of year, thoughts turn to warm-weather activities, which then may turn to extra pounds gained over the winter. Maybe it’s because we’re indoors without enough exercise, bored or wearing clothes that mask weight gain.

Another reason that isn’t given much, if any, thought? A cluttered kitchen.

From Shape.com, “While testing the idea that cluttered and chaotic environments stress us out, prompting us to reach for the junk food, researchers from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab recently found that clutter in the kitchen led people to consume more calories—and, conversely, a clean kitchen environment cut calories.” (http://bit.ly/2miW53J)

Another busy day. You come home tired and hungry. Dinner needs preparing. But trying to find a pot, pasta and sauce in jam-packed cabinets is too hard. Take-out is easy. While waiting for delivery, you munch from a bag of chips on the counter.

Rooms, especially kitchens, should be simple to navigate. Begin by eliminating clutter.

An easy place to start is with food storage containers. Take out all pieces, match lids and bottoms, recycle or toss any with missing parts, keep a reasonable number and donate, recycle or toss the rest.

Another easy one to conquer is coffee mugs. We tend to have many, probably due to giveaways. Take them all out, keep what you need and eliminate the rest.

Clear counter space, leaving only what you regularly use and store the rest. Clear counters provide meal-preparation space and have a calming effect too.

Follow this process until the kitchen is clutter-free.

This is de-cluttering, not organizing. You organize what’s left, in a way that makes sense to you. Put Italian food items like pasta, tomato sauce and tomato paste together? Or put pasta with rice and noodles?

Keep a pretty bowl of fresh fruit on the table. Keep carrots and other veggies in the fridge for healthy snacks. Fattening snacks go in hard-to-reach spaces. You know they’re there but you have to work to get them.

Make health a top priority. Getting your kitchen – and you — healthy is something you may want to do yourself or with a professional organizer by your side.

 

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