Reclaim Your Kitchen And Your Health

IT’S TIME TO REV UP THE HEARTBEAT OF YOUR HOME

- Gina Roberts-grey

Here’s your soup-to-nuts recipe for making 2019 your best year yet, with a little help from the busiest room in your house.

1 TAKE INVENTORY. Start with one area of your kitchen, such as the pantry, the fridge, a cabinet or the junk drawer, and pull out every spice, snack, box or utensil. Think of this as a mindfulness activity. “Seeing and touching these things brings awareness and makes you more likely to use them,” says Jenny Friedman, a Philadelphia based registered dietitian. This exercise can also shed light on your culinary habits. Are you a freezer meal girl or do you cook from scratch every night? Do you lack basic cooking tools, and is that why you order takeout so often? “You’ll see if you have a system that isn’t working for you and have an opportunity to create one that will,” says Friedman. Just make sure to eat a healthy meal before you begin. “That way you’re less tempted to eat that bag of chips in the pantry,” says Luiza Petre, M.D., a cardiologist in New York and an owner of four weight-loss clinics in New York and Connecticut.