Cutting More Than Clutter

Lifestyle Change Can Lead to Weight Loss, TV Guru Says

Which came first, the clutter or the fat?

TLC's "Clean Sweep" expert Peter Walsh has the answer -- but don't expect him to mince words in the new book, "Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?" (Free Press).

The organizational consultant, satellite radio host and regular on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" asks readers to take a long, hard look at their messy kitchens and emotions to get their homes and lives in order.

In this follow-up to his best-seller, "It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life With Less Stuff," Walsh contends that a cluttered home can lead to, essentially, flabbier thighs.

Walsh splits time between Los Angeles and his native Australia, often crisscrossing continents to help people get their homes and lives in order. He sat recently to discuss the food-clutter connection.

Q Did you expect "It's All Too Much" to resonate with so many people?

AWhen we talk about clutter -- and I think that's what people are really struggling with here -- we use really specific language. "I went into that room and I felt suffocated." "I go into that space, I feel buried." We use those words because part of us understands that's what clutter does to us. It robs us literally and metaphorically of life. And I think that's why the book has struck such a nerve. People really are struggling with what they own and struggling for meaning and clarity.

Why a book on food and clutter?

We've come through a period of kind of prosperous times. Many, many people have filled their homes with stuff, have acquired stuff, and are now looking at the stuff they own and realizing it's not delivering on the happiness they had expected it would. There's an interconnectedness that even I don't fully understand, but here's what I've seen: Once I helped people de-clutter, people were phoning me, contacting me and saying, "Oh, my God, a side effect is that I suddenly find I'm losing weight."

What happens is that once you physically open someone's space, it really removes a lot of distractions. When you help them focus on what's important in their lives . . . what flows back into that space is a sense of calm and peace and harmony and focus and motivation. They're able to focus far more clearly on their relationships, their spiritual lives, their work. And what I think generally happens is people are able to make much healthier choices in the very broader sense.