It's Not
About
the Scale

By Karen Preston

Karen lives, plays, and works
in Portland. A member of TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), she also founded Pounders, a weight-loss support group focusing on being fit through exercise and healthly lifestyle changes. Her story
was recently featured in Self magazine (September 2003).

I still find each
day too short for
all the thoughts
I want to think,
all the walks I want
to take, all the books
I want to read and
all the friends
I want to see. 

— John Burroughs

Clutter Connection

I was intrigued a few weeks ago when one of the ministers at church did a two-week series on clutter. His point was that our junk costs much more than just the original purchase price. Owning possessions that no longer have importance in our lives weighs down our environment, overwhelming us with a negative feeling that pulls down our spirits.

Each of us found a garbage bag under our chairs that we were instructed to fill up with useless junk. Barry suggested some excellent questions to ask when considering what to purge from our homes.

Do I really love it? Is it useful? Is it worth my precious storage space?

His sermon started me down a mental path during the last few weeks considering the clutter in my own home. Most people when walking in my home for the first time remark on how neat and tidy everything is, but I must confess that I have a dirty little secret. You see I have a rather large pile of boxes stacked in my office that don’t belong there! I can’t even precisely tell you what’s in them. I can see some wrapping paper and magazines peeking out. Plus I know I have a considerable number of old toys and books that I’m saving for a future grandchild, although my daughter is only 19 and still in college. I still fondly remember snuggling her on my lap during our daily reading time. Such good memories are attached to those books, but they haven’t been useful in years and I certainly don’t have the room to store them at the moment.

About a year ago I downsized to a home with less than half the square footage of the old one and now I’m left with my extra pile of boxes that I dutifully move to the garage every time I host a party. I also feel compelled to keep the office door closed whenever my extra junk is stored inside. A certain amount of guilt and shame is connected to having such a messy room no matter how neatly the boxes are stacked and as a result I don’t want anyone to see it.

So what does all this have to do with weight loss? At first I wasn’t sure there was a connection. It just seemed that many of my overweight friends had a more difficult time keeping their cars and homes neat and tidy. I also admit that my kitchen cupboards are jam-packed with extra food bought for a rainy day. I started polling acquaintances that I knew belonged to weight-loss support groups and was surprised to learn that almost all struggle with collecting too much clutter in their lives. It should be pointed out that I’m hardly a professional pollster and so I must admit that hoarding unneeded possessions may be a common problem for most Americans, not just the overweight among us.

Still there do seem to be some common links between fat and clutter especially for those of us who feel like we need a fix to manage our emotions. Eating extra food can be a way of self-medicating or managing our emotions. Similarly, buying extra possessions may serve the same purpose. Shopping can be used as a temporary fix to make us feel better, but just like overeating will likely make us feel even worse about ourselves later. We stuff our bodies with food we don’t need and stuff our homes with unneeded possessions until they both reach the bursting point.

Some good questions to ask yourself are: Why am I eating this food or buying this object? Am I trying to stuff down emotions and if so, WHAT emotions? Am I lonely, feeling rejected, or just plain afraid? Will extra food or new clothes help me feel better in the long run? Is my clutter serving as protection in the same way carrying extra body weight can be?

My personal goal for this weekend is to start sorting through those extra boxes and keep only those possessions that are loved and useful. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be surrounded by things that I loved? Obviously I need to keep in mind that purging my extra possessions may take a little time. I didn’t acquire all my boxes overnight and it’s unlikely that I’ll clear them all out in one weekend. I may need to invite over a friend to keep me on track, much like I invite friends to go walking with me. But eventually sometime soon I’ll reclaim my office and be able to invite friends in to sit on the couch again. Now that’s freedom!