Warm-up: Want to Lose Weight? Clean Your Kitchen

If weight loss is your goal, washing the dishes is a good idea — but not because the scrubbing action will melt the pounds away. A study by Cornell Food and Brand Lab suggested that having an untidy kitchen leads to eating higher-calorie foods. More than 100 women were asked to wait for 10 minutes in a messy kitchen with stacks of dirty plates and papers scattered around, or to wait in a clean, orderly kitchen. Both kitchens were stocked with bowls of cookies, crackers and carrots. After 10 minutes, the women in the cluttered kitchen had snacked on an average of 65 more calories than those in the tidy environment.