I have been fascinated with Feng Shui for a long time. Feng Shui comes from China, and it deals with how your environment affects you. If you are oblivious to your environment, you may not notice this consciously, but just try to notice how you feel when your house is nice and welcoming versus when it is cluttered and depressing.

Through Feng Shui, I have learned that how I arrange and care for my home has a great effect on my well-being. I try to keep clutter away, and try not to have anything blocking the flow of energy (energy is called “chi” in Feng Shui) - for example, no piles of stuff blocking doorways and no furniture that I have to squeeze around to get anywhere.

I read somewhere that a cluttered home can contribute to weight gain, and I believe that is true. If your home is healthy, you are a lot more likely to be healthy too.

In addition to general things like removing clutter and obstacles, there are specific cures in Feng Shui for specific problems that you may be having. If you always enter your house through the kitchen (as you might if you always use your back door or garage entrance), then you can have weight issues due to the kitchen being the first room that you see. It right away primes your mind to think about food. One cure for this is to hang a mirror on the kitchen door, so that you see the mirror before you enter the kitchen, distracting you from the food.

This is the case in my house. I always enter through the back door, and the first room I go through is the kitchen. So I hung a mirror on the door into the kitchen. I was amazed at what happened to me. (By the way, if you try this - remember that your intention is very important in Feng Shui, so be sure to think of your intention of having a more healthy relationship to food, as you hang your mirror.)

I had gotten in the habit of having a Lean Cuisine for dinner every night for the past 5 years (ever since my son left for college). After I hung the mirror, I could not eat the Lean Cuisines anymore. I just had no taste for them. So I had to start cooking dinner, and I am trying to cook healthy things.

While Lean Cuisines are relatively healthy, I don’t think it can be healthy to have one every single night and never eat a home cooked meal. I was probably missing out on some important nutrients there. Not to mention the more healthy relationship you have to food when you cook it yourself.

The next thing that happened was that my friend told me about the book, Potatoes Not Prozac, as I mentioned in a previous post, which started my journey to find a good diet for me.

Speaking of clutter and Feng Shui, I recently moved my office into a different room, and made the old office into a guest bedroom. But all my old papers and books were still in there, practically covering the floor. This weekend, I finally got done cleaning it all up. Now the guest room looks great, and I can finally get at the elliptical exercise machine that is in there. So I have been exercising on the elliptical machine every day. (Today is my 3rd day.) I can only do 5 minutes so far, but it’s a start.

So, try a little Feng Shui in your house, and see what interesting changes come about. There are many books on the subject. One that deals specifically with clutter is Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston. Another excellent book is Wind and Water, by Carole Hyder.

Posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006. Filed under Healthy Living, Feng Shui, Exercise. Tags: Weight Loss, Dieting, Diets. Trackback URL.