Slim by Design

Recent research co-ordinated by psychologist Brian Warsink has revealed that your kitchen may not be helping you to stay a healthy weight and that the way we perceive things may not help either.

The Kitchen

• What is in the kitchen makes a difference, not the size of the kitchen. Women are more susceptible to this than men (this may be because women spend longer in the kitchen).
• Don't leave food lying around on the counter. This does not just apply to crisps and biscuits - but also breakfast cereals. They may have 'healthy' messages on the packaging but are typically calorie heavy.

Serving food

• If you serve the main parts of a meal at the stove or counter, people will eat 19% less in total than if they serve themselves at the table. But to encorage salad and veg eating, put these in bowls on the table.
• If plate colour is similar to food colour, you'll serve yourself more (e.g. white starches - potatoes, pasta, rice on a white plate). Try to use contrasting plate colours.

Eating out

• People seem to order healthier food if sat by a window or in a well-lit part of a restaurant. If sat at a dark table or booth, then tended to order fattier, calorie laden food and more of it. Those sat farthest from the door ate the fewest salads and were 73% more likely to order dessert.
• Those at tables close to the bar drank more alcohol than those seated 3 or more tables away from the bar.
• The closer the TV screen, the more fried food was ordered.
• Those at high-top bar tables ordered more salads and fewer desserts.

Acohol

• People pour 12% more into a wide glass than a tall glass of the same capacity. Even bartenders do this with cocktails, etc.: The survey showed that bartenders poured 32% more into wide glasses, and continued to do so even when the experimenters explained why it happens. (The brain registers the height of the liquid and not the volume.)
• Pour standing up - people pour less into a glass when looking down into it, as it appears fuller.
• Red wine is easier to see, so we pour about 9% less than white.

Quick checklist

• Do you serve salad or vegetables before a main meal?
• Do you put the main course on plates at the stove or counter?
• Are your dinner plates no more than 22 to 25 cm across?
• Do you eat at the table with the TV off?
• Do you have a maximum of two cans of soft drinks in the fridge at any time?
• Are your kitchen counters clean and organised?
• Do you pre-prepare fruit and veg and keep on the middle shelf of the fridge where it is easily seen?
• Do you have a minimum of six servings of protein in the fridge (e.g. tofu, yoghurts, eggs)?
• Do you keep all snacks in one inconveniently placed cupbaord?
• Is fruit the only food on the kitchen counter?

From an article (on his new book Slim by Design) by Brian Warsink in New Scientist, 10 January 2015

Declutter Tips from Marie Kondo

Tidy once and you'll never need to do it again. If you put your house in order, all you'll need to do from now on is to put your things away at the end of the day. People think it's best to tackle one room at a time or to do a little every day. Marie believes the secret is to tidy in one shot, as quickly and completely as possible. Start by discarding and don't even think of putting things away until you've finished getting rid of things you no longer need. When you tidy your entire living space in one go, rather than little by little, you change not only your space but also your mindset. The same impact can never be achieved if the process is gradual. As soon as you start to think 'I wonder if this will fit in this drawer', the essential work of going through everything to decide whether to keep or chuck comes to a halt.

A proper clear out involves three actions.

• Take the time to examine every item you own.
• Then decide whether or not not you want to keep it.
• Finally choose where to put what you keep.

The storage myth

• Storage methods promise quick ways to remove visible clutter - but just create the illusion that the problem has been solved.
• You need to be ruthless, even for things you feel obliged to hold onto, like a present that you don't like. You may feel guilty, but think about it like this: the true purpose of a present is to be received.
• For the clothes you choose to keep, fold as many as possible - you can fit 20 to 40 pieces of folded clothing in the space required to hang 10. Fold each item into a neat rectangle and store standing up rather than laid flat. This way you can see everything at a glance.

Don't do the following:

• Don't keep anything you don't use.
• Don't keep things at your parents' home.
• Don't scatter your storage spaces around the house - store items of the same type in the same place.

Does it bring me joy?

• Tackle your belongings by category, rather than one room at a time, so you can compare like with like.
• Start by going through your clothes, then books, papers, miscellaneous items and, lastly, sentimental keepsakes, as they're often the hardest to throw out. By the time you reach them, you should be in the swing of it.
• Starting with clothes, take everything out of your cupboards and drawers and pile them up together on the floor, then go through them one at a time. For each one ask 'does this bring me joy?'. If it does, keep it. If not, throw it out.
• In the end the things that remain are the things that you really treasure.

Say thank you and let it go

• It's human nature to resist throwing things away. It's easy of an item is broken, but harder if it can still be used, contains useful information or has sentimentalism ties.
• When you come across something that is hard to discard, ask yourself why you have it in the first place. Why did you buy certain clothes if you never wear them? If you bought something because you thought it looked great but never wore it as it didn't suit you, it's fulfilled two functions:  it gave you joy when you bought it and it taught you what doesn't suit you. Say thank you and recycle it.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo

The Power of Three Rule

Here is a tip for keeping your wardrobe to manageable proportions - the Power of Three from Lisa on the Shopping Brake blog.

How many of each item of clothing do you ideally need for in your wardrobe? Lisa noted that when she had four pairs of skinny jeans, she wore three regularly and the fourth was always passed over for a bootcut pair. The same with long sleeve t-shirts - the fourth one was always passed over for a button down shirt.

Worth thinking about next time you do a wardrobe overhaul or clearout.

Happy Brain

In order to survive, our brains developed a negativity bias, which makes us alert to danger, loss and conflict, and good at storing those experiences for future reference. While this was successful to the survival of our species in the past, we still store bad experiences and easily forget good ones.

However, we can change the way we think.

• Identify a positive experience, focus on pleasant moments that make you feel good. 
• Hold on to it and stay with it for 5 to 10 seconds. Open yourself up to the feelings and let them fill your mind, noticing how the experience affects each of your five senses.
• Absorb it. Imagine those feelings becoming a part of you. Feel the sensation of stroking a cat, or the warmth on your skin as you sit in the sun.

Make it a habit. Like a muscle your brain gets stronger with exercise, so try focusing on happiness several times a day. Your mind is more receptive just before sleep, so think of what went well in the day as you drift off.

• Find a souvenir of calm. Go somewhere you feel at peace. Imagine that feeling of calm as a protective bubble and pick up a small object, like a stone, to keep in yourpocket and hold when feeling stressed or anxious.
• It's not information that changes the way people think, but behaviour.
• It's easy to be frustrated by your partner's domestic failings, so it's important to focus on the good bits.
• Encourage your partner to be positive. Ask what good things happened that day, not simply what happened, which gives them the chance to be negative.
• While we think the support of a partner or friend in tough times is what counts, it's even more crucial to share the good times.

Good Housekeeping, April 2014

Gap Year Money

If your children are heading off on their own abroad during a gap year, a pre-paid currency card is safer and gives a better exchange rate than concealing cash or wiring expensive emergency money abroad. It is also cheaper than using a debit or credit card. Here's how to be smart in setting it up.

Register the card in your name and request a secondary card in your child's name. Depending on the company, you'll have to pay a nominal charge for this - about £5. You can then load funds onto the currency card in the UK (online, by phone or even text message) that your child will be able to access overseas. You'll be able to check the card balance in the same way too. Registering online for a currency card takes just minutes and you set your own PIN and password.

European only travel? You'll get better exchange rates with a euro currency card. Only going to America? A dollar only card is best.

The online foreign exchange services - ICE, Travelex, FairFX and Caxton FX and mytravelcash.com - offer the best rates on prepaid cards (July 2014). To compare cards, go to moneysupermarket.com/prepaid-currency-cards.

For more information on currency cards, go to goodhousekeeping.co.uk/money/guide-to-prepaid-currency-cards.

Good Housekeeping, July 2014