How a Clean and Functional Kitchen Can Improve Your Diet

Even though a diet is essentially about what you eat, a major part of any successful diet also has to do with what you think. Just like any training effort, dieting should be partly a physical effort and also partly a mental or psychological effort. If you have all the physical basics down but you can’t seem to control your mind, you may only be part of the way toward a successful dieting plan.

Just as having healthy foods on hand is a major part of the physical side of dieting, having a kitchen that is clean and functional can play a large part of the mental dieting arena. If your kitchen is a mess and difficult to use, it can make sticking to your dieting commitments just that much harder and going out for some fast food just that much more tempting.

Here are a few tips to help you keep your kitchen clean and functional in order to keep your diet a breeze:

• Try to keep all your counters clean and your sink free of dishes. If you wash anything you use immediately after you finish with it, it will make maintaining a clean kitchen much easier for you. Allowing your pots and pans to pile up in the sink can put a damper on your healthy cooking goals.
• Keep a garbage bin that is large enough for your needs and that comes with a well-fitting lid. You don’t want to have to be constantly taking out the garbage, but neither do you want rotting food to sit in your kitchen for days.
• Make sure your fridge is large enough to fit plenty of healthy food choices, including vegetables and fruits, so that you always have something healthy on hand to grab. Your freezer should also be big enough to store healthy frozen supplies in bulk.
• Your kitchen should suit the healthy meals you plan to be cooking and eating. All kitchen appliances should be designed to rocket you forward toward your goal instead of tempting you to stray. Special time-saving equipment to help you make your healthy meals more quickly can be a great investment of time and kitchen counter space.
• Each of your kitchen cupboards should be properly organized and kept tidy. If everything has its own place, your utensils and kitchenware will be easier to find and eating properly will be a joy instead of a hassle.
• Your sink should be large enough to suit your needs. A double sink usually comes in handy to allow you to both wash and rinse your dishes. A dishwasher might be a good idea if you don’t have a lot of extra time.
• Keep track of any perishable food items you buy to make sure that you use them in time before they go bad. Always try to have a general idea of your available food supplies in order to avoid running out of healthy stock and having to settle for something less nourishing in a pinch.

[box]Hopefully at least some of the tips above will be useful to you, and perhaps even inspire other changes you could make in your kitchen to make sticking to your diet that bit easier.[/box]