Rita Black: Have you ever wished you could snap your fingers and magically have your life organized? Well today's guest, Dr. Katherine Macey and her team do just that for her Los Angelean and celebrity clientele. Organization is a huge key to weight mastery and yet, so many of us find it hard to get it set up for success. Join me today as I get the down low on how to get not only your kitchen, but your refrigerator and your meals organized so that you can go into the new year feeling excited and focused for health instead of feeling overwhelmed. And if that don't spark joy, I don't know what the heck will.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn't start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That's right, the key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I'm Rita Black. I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best-selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict, and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I'll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need. Not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long-term and live your best life. Sound good. Let's get started.

Rita Black: Hello, and come in. January. Oh, such an interesting month. Isn't it? Things are dormant. And we go into that hibernation mode. I talked a little bit about that if you got my ranting about the bears hibernating last time. I think I was in a trance state when I was talking about that mother bear and her cub. So, if you didn't hear last week's episode, go listen to it. But, yeah, we're definitely all in hibernation mode. And this is when a lot of us focus on our homes and our household projects, right? Because we're in the cave hibernating, we're spending a lot of time here. So today's episode is perfectly timed.

New Speaker: My conversation with my guest, Dr. Katherine Macey, really highlighted the need to think about our kitchen when it comes to getting healthy. I know for me, planning meals ahead and having my kitchen, including my fridge set up for success has been very important in my long term, 25-year long weight mastery of keeping 40 pounds off. And those of you who have gone through the shift weight mastery process also know that one major skillset of weight mastery is, bad-dum-bumb our environment. That is why I am so excited to introduce my guest, Dr. Katherine Macey. She has been helping people get rid of the stress of the mess with practical solutions for everyday issues for over 15 years. Mom, business owner, volunteer, friend, spouse. She knows all the hats we juggle in the struggle to balance career, family and care for ourselves. Katherine is all about making the annoying things in life so much easier, so you can get on with your life. So please welcome my wonderful guest, Dr. Katherine Macey.

Rita Black: Hello, Katherine. It is so great to see you. Everybody welcome Katherine Macey, Dr. Katherine Macey, who is here today to give us some really great organizing tools so that we can go into our 2022 feeling like we're taking care of ourselves and especially our kitchen. So welcome to the show.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Thank you so much Rita. It Is just an absolute pleasure being here .

Rita Black: And Katherine tell everybody about where well originally, where you are from, because I, I know where you're from, but I, some people I don't think are gonna place your accent. They'll maybe think you're British. They maybe will think you're Australian.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Well, maybe South African. Those are right.

Rita Black: How many people think those things? How many people think you're British?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Oh, percentage-wise, probably maybe 30% British, 50% probably Australian and about 20% percent South African.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Now, five or 10% people get it right.

Rita Black: Okay. Yes. And, and please tell them where you are from.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Absolutely. I grew up in New Zealand.

Rita Black: Okay. But you've been here in Los Angeles for many years now, right?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Over 22 now.

Rita Black: Wow. So you, you raised all your children here and you have your business here and Katherine has, does many things, but she is a powerful queen of organizing. Is that what you would say your forte is?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Rita Black: How did you get, what, like, what intrigued you about being organized? Did your parent, were your parents really organized and that's why you ended up being organized or how, what got you into the world of, of organizing other people?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, that's a really great question. So, my like journey came through academia. And when I had my kids, I stepped away from that world and thought, great, I'm gonna be a mom. I'm just going to, I'm just gonna not do that whole academia thing. And I'm gonna like, hang out up with my, hang out with my kids. And I got to about two years into that and I was like, okay.

Rita Black: I'm bored outta my mind.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Oh, how did you read my mind? Yeah, exactly. And, I was like, I, I have to start doing something else as well. Cause I can't, I can't do just this. Wow. So I actually spent about six months contemplating what it was I was gonna do, because I didn't see myself going back into academia because it's such a full-time job.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Macey: I did not wanna do it part-time I did not see myself going into engineering, which is what my PhD's in. Pretty much for the same reason. Like, it really felt like it needed to be a full-time job rather.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: I do like really small projects, you know. So I spent quite, you know, like I said, like about six months researching and trying to figure out what it was I was gonna do. And I ended up being in a seminar with somebody I just, you know, was speaking to the person next to me. And I just occasionally asked them what they did. And they said that they were a professional organizer and I was like, what?

Rita Black: People do that.

Dr. Katherine Macey: You get paid to organize? And she's like, yeah. I was like, oh, okay. I know what I'm doing.

Rita Black: Have, so you have already always been, I mean, obviously you're, you got your PhD in engineering. You, your mind is probably incredibly organized.

Dr. Katherine Macey: My, I do think logically very, very much so. And I'm, I'm actually really good at like identifying patterns. I've got good spatial awareness. So, you know, for me, it's really easy to see, like, whether something is gonna fit into a shelf or not.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: You know, and a lot of people don't have that, that 3D visualization volumetric plate is really hard for a lot of people.

Rita Black: My husband does not. Like there, anytime that well, of course, and I haven't had your team, I wanna hire your team to come and look at my husband's attic, which looks well, it's like in the movies, you know, when you open up the trap door and all the things come flying. He doesn't have any spatial awareness at all. I mean he'll tell you that himself. He's not ashamed of it, but you know, as a couple, because we've rearranged rooms, it's always been me who said like, okay, let I have a vision. Let's fulfill it. He's just as like, cannot even figure it out like it.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Right.

Rita Black: So some brains are wired for that. And some brains are not, I get your brain is really wired for that.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, not all organizers brains are wired like that either.

Rita Black: Oh, interesting.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. So they don't necessarily have the spatial aspect of the, the visual aspect of it. But there are definitely many different skills within organizing. And you don't have to have that skill to be able to organize,

Rita Black: Right? Yeah. Cause I get what, when we started talking about organizing just for you, at home or listening, I never realized, you know, Kathrine was walking me through all these steps and we're that you're gonna be going through today. And it's, it's almost like therapy. There's such a, an emotion, an emotional element to your stuff. Like we have a relationship with our stuff and for those of us who are attached to it, it is such an emotional thing to let go. And it and you start peeling away the layers of the onion, it has to come do with self worth. It has to do with so many things that you can't even begin to. So, it's fascinating. And I could imagine that some people might be really good with that, that emotional side, that vulnerable side to it versus the spatial side, or they might be skilled at both like yourself.

Dr. Katherine Macey: I think that any good organizer has to be skilled in that emotional side of things. I mean the only exception I might see is if somebody's organizing for like perhaps a celebrity or something like that, and they say, just go at it and just make my stuff look pretty, you know, and, and organize what it is that I have. And there's not a, not necessarily a process of letting go. And that type of, in that space that you're organizing. But for most, most people that we organize were is they have stuff that they need to let go. Yes. And is definitely an emotional attachment to things. And interestingly enough, my series that I have going on right now is all about letting go, oh, how and how to let go of, of things that you no longer need in your life. So,

Rita Black: I love it. So Katherine does this series, she, and you are gonna get a chance to get access to an organizational, some organizational tools, resources in the show notes. So if you want, and, and by signing up for that, then you'll be able to get access to all of these wonderful things that Katherine is talking about. And she is gonna have a course coming up this year on how to get organized. So, speaking of the year and getting into it, I thought why I wanted to have you on now here in January was I really felt like our community could use some help organizing their kitchens because, you know, we're all about being healthy and getting, and I know, I think about my kitchen when you start to think about like being attached to stuff. And you're absolutely right. It's not just emotional relationships with food, which we do talk about a lot on this show. But, I look at around my kitchen, there's so much of my mom, cause I inherited so much of her stuff and she's passed now. And I feel almost like I'm betraying her by letting stuff go. I'm sure you have people who that's right. It's like, it's a betrayal to let things go. But I've been looking, going, God, I really don't need that. And it's just taking up that and it, you know, it doesn't look good on that shelf. So yeah, I'm gonna, so I'm obviously here, Katherine, I'm your, your client. I'm like, oh okay, I need to help. But you have a system and it's called I Care, which I love because we are so much about self-care and loving ourselves down the scale. So, so tell us a little bit about I Care. So, and so Kathrine, just before I ask you to do that, she's going to work us through three things. We're gonna get into the kitchen. We're gonna get into our refrigerators, which I think for a lot of us will be an emotional experience in and of itself. And then, meal planning, which I know for a lot of us, some people are very resistant to meal planning, so maybe we'll work through some of that stuff too. So, tell us about I Care, Katherine.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. I really like the way that you talked about that Rita, because it, the reason why I chose I Care is for cause it's a really good reminder to ourselves saying I care about my environment that I'm living in. And so it's,

Rita Black: So appropriate.

New Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And it, and it, it is such a good reminder to remind ourselves that I care about myself. I care about the people and the, in my world. And I care about my space that I'm living in. That's either supports me or doesn't support me. Right. What it is that I wanna accomplish in life.

Rita Black: Right. Yeah. And yeah, in the shift and in, we talk a lot about self identity and the, when we struggle with our weight, we see ourselves as a weight struggler. And a lot of times our environment reflects that kind of chaos, that inner chaos that we feel m So this is such a powerful step forward. And what you're talking about is like sort, sort of organizing the external chaos that we often live in.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. And it's really interesting Rita. A lot of people discover that as they take care of the external chaos, the internal chaos goes away as well.

Rita Black: It's yeah. That is amazing. I love that.

New Speaker: You know, when we feel working with people they're leave with this peace and this calm and this like quiet place to like really be themselves and express who they are and what it is that they're up to in the world that it's not, not held back by all the stuff that they have around them. Yeah. It's, it's very, very freeing and, you know, lightning and just F fabulous space to be in.

Rita Black: Yeah. I, I, I could totally, and I know what a piece of mind it is to know where something is, because that's,y biggest is like, where did I, where, so I could imagine after somebody's come in and organized, and I know, I know exactly where that is. Even my kitchen. I'm like, where the heck did I put that thing? Oh, my husband. And let's not even talk about my husband. I mean, I'm so organized compared to him, so,

Dr. Katherine Macey: And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rita Black: Have you found that with people, as one spouse is way more organized than the other or?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. I, and it's, it's, it's just different people, right? I mean, sometimes you get two very organized people together. Sometimes you get two very disorganized people together. Okay. And sometimes it's, you know, it's a mix it's like life

Rita Black: And yes. Okay. I get it. So it's not necessarily opposites attract as far as organizing.

New Speaker: Not necessarily like anything else, so yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rita Black: Well, tell us about iCare. So this is, this is a, um, a acronym, acronym. And, um, so let's dive into,

Dr. Katherine Macey: I'll dive into what, what the acronym stands for. So the, I stands for identify and it's really, the first step is really identifying what will organized as for you. Because some people are minimalist and they want like nothing on their countertops or anything like that. Some people, what I call coziest .

Rita Black: That's my husband.

Dr. Katherine Macey: They like to feel cozy. They like to have stuff around them.

Rita Black: Right. I love that.

Dr. Katherine Macey: And, and they're kind of like two extremes. Right. Right. And both of those can be organized. So it doesn't really the, the amount of stuff doesn't necessarily dictate whether or not you are organized. How you have arranged does. And what a lot of people, it kind of, if I could say wrong, what a lot of people struggle with is that they, they still have stuff that doesn't belong there anymore. Doesn't really belong in their lives anymore.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Because they've, they haven't let go of it. So some of the, some of the identifying things here are gonna be, you know, like if we're talking about kitchens, what kind of gadgets you have in your kitchen that you haven't used in six months or a year or three years, or five years right. Gathering dust and, you know, could be used by somebody else. What sort of things do you want in your kitchen to support the type of lifestyle you want to have? The person that you want to be. So be very clear on those things. Super, super helpful when it comes to doing the whole organizing process. Okay. Cause if you, if you can get to a place where you can go well, okay. So, let's take, uh, let's take a waffle iron. I'm just gonna take a waffle lion.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Right. So a lot of people aren't doing gluten, they're not doing, you know, carbs, or they're not doing whatever, but they've still got the waffle iron sitting in the back of their.

New Speaker: So true. Get rid of the waffle iron. It's not you anymore.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Exactly. So when you can like, recognize those things and it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna get rid of anything that I haven't used in six months. Or you can say, I'm gonna get rid of anything that doesn't support the lifestyle that I wanna have right now.

Rita Black: The me I wanna be.

Dr. Katherine Macey: For me, that I wanna be. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Rita Black: I love that. Okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, so that's identifying, it's being really clear about what it is that you want to, how you want your kitchen to be, how you want your environment to be. So it, it really helps you with the rest of the process.

Rita Black: Okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah.

Rita Black: So what's the next process that...

New Speaker: Categorize, so C is for categorize? So iCare, so see for categorize and categorizing is kind of a two step process because there's that whole process of letting go of the stuff that you don't sorry. No longer need. So we have a whole, a whole like sorting system that use that helps people like, decide what they're gonna be doing with things. And I, you know, basically you're either gonna be keeping it or you are gonna be letting it go. Those that's kind of basic basic, but we have a couple of other categories that kind of help with that process too. And then, and then you want to categorize things. So the they're together so if you do still bake, you're gonna have a baking section.

New Speaker: Okay. I love it. If you do,

New Speaker: if you prepare your own lunches, then you're gonna have a place where you have all of your, like lunch preparing things like, perhaps you have like, if you're going to work or whatever, you have your, your lunch bags, but yeah. Tupperware lunch bags. That kind of stuff is kind of all together and organized.

Rita Black: Running around the kitchen in the morning, getting your baggy from one place and getting your other paper towel or your, your paper bag from somewhere else. I get it. Right,

Dr. Katherine Macey: Right, right, right, right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's all about putting these things together. So when you're doing that activity, it's really quick and easy. you know, all your pans are right next to your stove. Right. It's like, it is, it's this kind of common sense. And sometimes with the way kitchens are configured, it can be more challenging based on what space you have and things like that.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: And it can be very, very challenging if you have too many things and you, any of those categories.

Rita Black: Right. Okay. Yes. I'm learning so much right now. I'm thinking of all the things I wanna get rid of now. I have a, I have an ice cream maker that we haven't used in years that has a broken lid, you know, like that kind of stuff. I'm gonna fix that lid and we're gonna make that ice cream again. And I'm like, really? We don't even eat ice cream. Like we don't, you know, it's crazy. Right. Well, we hold onto you're right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's the perfect example, Rachel, that's the perfect example.

Rita Black: Yeah. And so what are we like if I wanna get rid of a bunch of stuff, which I'm thinking of, like, what are a few things that I could do? I know we don't wanna do it too, a deep of a dive into this, but what, what, yeah.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Well, I mean, you can sell them if they're worth anything. Like I said, they don't have that broken lid. Probably

Rita Black: That's, that's like a donate item, right? Like you put tape on the lid and you're like here, good will

Dr. Katherine Macey: Help that. Yeah. There's, there's also some really great organizations that have sprung up through, Facebook, like buy nothing groups, but they're hyperlocal groups that, and I don't know if they're in all the countries that your listeners are in, but I know they're in a lot of different places. And it's basically just a place, a group of people that like, what stuff between each other.

Rita Black: Oh, I love it.

Dr. Katherine Macey: They posts and they say, Hey, I've got a, you know, I've got a waffle iron and I I'm no longer using, does anybody want it? And then, you know, somebody else will post and they'll say, Hey, I've got a lid for this ice cream ice cream.

Rita Black: Oh my gosh. Okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. So, so that sort of thing, you know, there's lots of different places and, and resources and community options that you have to like, have that item be reused so that it doesn't just go to landfill. Cause I hate things going to landfill.

Rita Black: Yes. Me too. That's why I've held onto things.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. And you can recycle things and you know, that sort of thing, if you, if you, if it's broken, like completely broken, you know, but it still has recyclable parts.

Rita Black: What would you do with those more, um, things. And we don't have to get too deep into it, but like if I have something that like of my moms that I'm like, Ugh, I'm never going to use this. We have like, she has these they're so cute. I really feel like I wanna give them to somebody, maybe somebody in this community wants them, but there are these cast iron, you know, my mom grew up in the forties and the fifties. So she has cast iron, back in the day. You know, like when you make cornbread they're little ears of corn thing that you put the cornbread thing and so you flip it out and it looks like an ear of corn. So cute. But I never use it and it's completely impractical. So what kind of, what would you do? You would just give that away or, and, but you'd have to do an, a little emotional cleansing of like I'm.

Dr. Katherine Macey: you put do a little emotional cleansing. I mean, one of the things you can do when you've got sentimental items like that, and you have quite a few sentimental items is go, okay, so I've got all these things that I'm remembering my mom by. Now, which are the ones that are most special and like choose one or two or three or four or five, you know, and then be like, they'll let the rest of them go however many, you know.

Rita Black: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. And you, and you do a little like, I'm sorry, mom, these were awesome. But now somebody else is gonna love them.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Well, you don't even need to say, sorry mom. Cause you can say thank you. You can say thank you for gifting these to me and thank you for allowing them to be in my life. And for reminding me of all the great memories I had with you with these cornbread little iron cast and be really thankful for having them in your life for so long.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: And they, you know, thank you for being here and now it's time to say goodbye.

Rita Black: Right. And somebody who's very kitchy and into cast iron stuff. They'll love it.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Absolutely. Absolutely. And then they'll actually probably get used again.

Rita Black: Yes. I know. Which would be lovely. Okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Yeah.

Rita Black: So now what is A, what is A stand for?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Like a stands for Assign homes.

Rita Black: Oh, okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. So like I said, we're gonna have a baking area. Right. So you're gonna assign your, assign the space for the baking area. You're gonna assign the space for the snacks. Okay. For the lunch preparation area, each of the different kind of like categories that you have in your kitchen then you're gonna assign a space for them.

Rita Black: Okay. I love that. So I get it assign homes. I, little thick there for a second, but I get it. You're give, give everything a home. Okay. And you, I see in this, cuz I've got Catherine's resource in front of me, which is a beautiful resource by the way, it's got pictures and it's very well, well she's organized, so it's very well organized. But I'm seeing assigned homes. Oh. And then, and then, uh, so you've kind of covered that, but the next thing, which I really love tell us about that. The R

Dr. Katherine Macey: The R is the relationships.

Rita Black: This is so amazing. I love that.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is really about how you use each item and how it occurs for you and your life.

Rita Black: Okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: And you are looking to see, well, do I use this every day? Is this one of my, like go-to items that I, I, you don't wanna be putting that in the back shelf because that's too hard to get to. Right. Right. So you wanna make sure that everything that you're using on a frequent basis is very easy to get to very easy to put away. And it's just that that process is seamless. Now. I I'll tell you a little, little trick that we have in our household. So you know, in the, dishwasher, you have the, the little compartments for the cutlery. Yes. Most people just like drop cutlery in random wall over the place.

Rita Black: Yes. Like me.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. That drives me nuts. When you go to take it out, the dishwasher, it takes you forever see it right ,

Rita Black: Oh, you're absolutely right. And I be, we all, nobody in our family likes undoing the dish. The colory we're all like, no, you do it. No, you do it.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Exactly. So if you take, cause it, it takes the same amount. It basically takes the same amount of time. It, when you're putting the thing into the dishwasher, it doesn't really matter which compartment you put it in. So if you choose one of them to put the spoons and one of them for the forks, one of them for the knives, then when you go to take the dishwasher, when you're emptying it, you just grab the knives and you put them straight in the knife drawer,

Rita Black: I have been living on this earth 50 plus years. Why have I never done that before?

Dr. Katherine Macey: The only thing you have to be careful about is so you have to be careful at the spoons don't spoon.

Rita Black: Oh, true.

Dr. Katherine Macey: But then if you put them opposite, they clean, sorry.

Rita Black: Oh my God. I love this. I'm learning so much. Okay. And I see and keep something okay. And the highest and the lowest shelf as well. Yeah. Like, so which shelf things go on.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So if you're using something less frequently, you can put it on a higher shelf or a lower shelf where it's harder to get to. Okay. But you might as well make life easy. Right. I mean.

Rita Black: Yeah. Yeah. You know, can I ask you while we're talking about this, how many people, I mean, you know, obviously people hire you and your team to come in and help them with this and you know, in your experience, how many people take on a, like, like sit there and go, I'm gonna get organized this year and actually do it for themselves. Like how would you recommend somebody, you know, take what you are saying or take this resource of yours and, you know, would you say set aside a weekend, would you say, you know, put three hours aside every Monday night, like how would you, being an organized person, have people like tackle a problem, a challenge like this.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, absolutely. So if you're just talking about a kitchen, you can probably do your kitchen in a four to five hour stretch.

Rita Black: Really?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Probably. Probably. If you are talking about your whole house, that's a different story.

Rita Black: yeah.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Right. But it does depend on how much stuff you have in your kitchen and how much extra stuff you have in your kitchen. Right. If you have a, one of the things that takes a long time with organizing is that whole purging stage, because people have to make decisions. If you can make decisions really, really quickly, it goes pretty fast. But if you are like, oh, my mom gave me. Right. Remember when. And then there's a whole storytelling process and all that of stuff. If you go through that process and then the decision making process it takes,

Rita Black: Do you ever are like assign different categories? Like, okay, this is absolutely must stay. These are like not sure. And then these are like, absolutely haven't used in five years.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, yeah, Teah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Rita Black: Is it easier to start that way? Like, okay, I know I want this, but these are kind of, I don't know. And then this is,

Dr. Katherine Macey: That's absolutely fine to do it that way. Absolutely. And you can also with those things that you're not sure about, if you want to like really drastically, you know, like really deal with your kitchen and take a lot of blow the stuff out that you, you know, think you don't need anymore, but you're like, they'll a little bit attached to these things, put them in a box, but then somewhere else where not gonna see them for three months and then go back and go, do I need any of these things? Cause then it's there. You can grab it if you need it, but if you don't need it, then you know, you don't need it.

Rita Black: Yeah. You know...

Dr. Katherine Macey: To miss something, you know, grab it back out, but you know, it, it's not necessary most of the time.

Rita Black: It's so funny. That reminds me of a quick story. When my husband and I moved from London to Los Angeles, we were living in a, the attic of a big house in north London and the guy who owned the house, we said, you know, we're gonna probably move back to London, maybe at some point. So we're gonna put all this stuff, like a, you know, like we literally moved to LA with two suitcases. And so we put in boxes and he said, well, you can start them in my, this place, in the house for a while. We never went back. And at eventually we, you know, connected with them and said, oh, we're gonna come on our trip and come and get at that stuff. And he said, oh, I'm sorry. It had been so long. I just like gave it away. Or I got rid of it. And I couldn't even remember what was it like, you know, completely. And that stuff I was so attached to, I was like, oh, you know, but can't even remember what we left. So it's, it's interesting. Isn't it? How you put, you put that stuff aside and then you don't remember it really. You don't, you think you will.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You kind of move on. So yeah.

Rita Black: Yeah. So tell us about ease E

Dr. Katherine Macey: So E is for ease of maintenance. So I'm always, it's really important to me that I don't waste time in my life because life is so precious that why we waste time? Get the stuff that I need. Right. You know, why would I waste time with like trying to put something away? That's really is too hard, you know? It doesn't make, it just doesn't make any sense to me. So, so always with our clients, we are looking for ways for them, what's gonna be easy for them in a way that, you know, that's gonna be easy for them to maintain cause different people have different styles of living and, you know, different things work for different people. So finding, finding those things for yourself is really, really important. But things like, you know, using labels and being really consistent with where you put things. So they always go to the same home. So like when you're assigning those homes, it's important to assign those homes and that everybody in the family knows where all of those things are so that they always go back to the same place, right. The scissors belong and this draw here and this compartment, and then you always know if you need a pair of scissors, you go right there, you know, that kind of thing. Okay.

Rita Black: That's awesome. So now, if, we were going to now, like that sounds really great. I see that you have a whole section on like, organization products. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if we have time to get into that. I mean, do you have any like a quick tip on that

Dr. Katherine Macey: About that, a lot of people buy organizing products before they've done the sorting process. Don't do that.

Rita Black: Oh, okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Wait till you've gone through the sorting process and see what you have left and see, see when you're gonna put things away. Do you need any thing to support. That being in a space that's gonna be contained and, and everybody's gonna know where it is and you know, I'm talking about things like, you know, the shelf dividers potentially where, you know, you can stack plates or something like that. And maybe that makes sense once you've gotten rid of the extra stuff, but don't do that to start with just a fit more stuff in, right.

Rita Black: Cause then you're just gonna end up with extra.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. It's just one more piece of clutter that you probably don't need. So yeah. Yeah. It's gotta, it's gotta make things easier for you. You've really gotta use it. And you, you wanna a solve a persistent problem

Rita Black: If you had like, well, so tell us what is one organizational tool for the kitchen that you love?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Slide out drawers,

Rita Black: Slide out drawers. You mean the kind that, that you, that are on a roller? A Glider?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Glider. Yeah. The out drawers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because often in kitchens you have really deep cabinets. Like I'm thinking of the lower ones, they're deep and they're, and they're low. So if you've got something that you can slide out, it makes it much, much easier to get to the stuff that's at the back of that drawer.

Rita Black: And is that an accessory that you can put onto a drawer that exists or do you have to have new ones.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Into a cabinet that exists.

Rita Black: Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh

Dr. Katherine Macey: No. It's, it's been a cabinet for, you know, years and then the, the shelf normally would just be static, but you put a slide out drawer there on a stick.

Rita Black: Got it. Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Macey: That is, that's probably my favorite thing. Yeah. Cause like I say, those deep shelves and kitchens. Yeah. They can hide a lot of stuff in the back.

Rita Black: Yeah. And you never know what you have. Yeah. I could see that would be life changing. Well, let's talk about the refrigerator.

New Speaker: Yeah, sure.

New Speaker: How do we, how do we organize our fridge?

Dr. Katherine Macey: So, you know, it's, we can apply the same iCare acronym to our fridge. Okay. So it doesn't just apply. The acronym doesn't apply to just to the fridge applies to everything mm-hmm um, so it can apply to your fridge as well. Okay. Yeah. You're gonna, you know, what do you want on your fridge? First of all right. What do you wanna sell your fridge with? Right. And do you have, is it, does it have like expired stuff hiding in the shelves in the back? Or what

Rita Black: Do you see in people's fridges? Like do people, I, I can think condiments are like, people don't get rid of condiments that they should have gotten rid of. Right? Yeah,

Dr. Katherine Macey: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Rita Black: Like a whole top shelf full of condiments that, well, maybe I'll use that. So what do you say other than next

Dr. Katherine Macey: Well for a recipe and it's like, they use this like little tiny part of it and then they've never used it again. You know, that sort of thing.

Rita Black: Right. I think for us in the weight, struggle in community too, that like, not that we're weight strugglers anymore, but I, I know when I struggled with my weight, I bought so many diet products that I would use a little bit and they were gross and then they would just end up on the back shelf of my, either my shelves or in the fridge. And then I'd be like, well, maybe I'll go on that diet again. And then it just ends up staying in the, and I just wonder how many buddy can like connect with me on that, out in the audience, like how we have this fridge of kind of stuff that mock and humiliates us saying, you kno2, that was from that failed diet or that plan that you went on that crazy, like Jenny Craig products shoved in the back of your, freezer or you, you know, like that kind of stuff. Yeah,

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rita Black: Drinks and all that nonsense. So you you're, you are, you would say to kind of identify like kind of the food that you wanna have. Right. The kinda person you wanna have.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Right. So if you imagine like, okay, so I'm somebody who loves avocados and loves green, fresh things. Right. So, um, I'm like, okay, so where are my avocados gonna live?] Spot ripe. Going in front of the fridge once they're rip. Cause they're not rip, they go on the, on the fruit bowl, but you know, it's like they, they have a process and then it's like, it's, it's great. I know where my avocados are. And, and I love filling my fridge with the things that I know are gonna be nutritious and healthy for me. Like, and it's like, it makes it such a joy to go to my fridge. Like I open my fridge and I go, oh, what do I wanna eat? As opposed to oh, oh God. Yeah. You know,

Rita Black: Well, I think that is so true. And something that we talk about in the shift is, and it's a huge thing for weight management is stimulus control. And what we talk about, cuz it's such a huge part of weight management is the, you know, why would we have something that would be tempting right in the front also when, you know, like, let's say you come home and you're hungry having pizza, like last night's pizza in the front versus having a fresh, bowl of cucumbers or you know, something that you could just reach for. That's gonna make you feel healthy and satisfy your appetite rather than something that you're going to eat. And like a, a what I would call a, a trigger food. Something that.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Rita Black: Yeah. So that's what you're talking about is like really having a refrigerator represent where you're at, but also having things positioned in a way where your eye is really touching the, the thing that you want to dive into.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Absolutely. Absolutely. And grouping all those things together, you know? So like if you, if you have a, like a snack drawer, have it be filled with all those yummy, healthy things that you wanted that you wanna grab when you need a snack. Right. So it's, it's all about having the snacks available and you go, oh, am I gonna choose celery with, with, you know. almond Butter in it? Or am I gonna choose, cucumber, or am I gonna choose half an avocado or whatever it is, you know? So having those like labeling a snack drawer, those things in there, four snacks. Yeah. You know, it's like kind of a no brainer at that point. You've, you've got all your snacks in there. It's like all that go for my snacks. And

Rita Black: I think the thing is, so I think we think that's hard to keep that up. But when we think of what's really hard, which is eating snacks that don't serve us, then feeling bad about it and beating ourselves up about it, keeping something up like that. And really like you're saying, and you know, this is why it's it there's, it's so layered at this organization thing because it isn't just about being organized. It's about, like you said, like, who am I and how do I take care of myself? You know, maybe for you guys out there, you are committing to making 2022 really about setting a new precedent, like having a snack drawer that is, is always filled, you know, having that be a basis of a new behavioral change that you're making for yourself. It's a mindset change.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah

Rita Black: Now you say something about appropriate containers here. Um, what kind of containers do you find work the best in the fridge?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Uh, so anything that's gonna stack so that you can put things on top of each other. And if you have, if you have mismatched containers, it's gonna be harder if you have a whole, you know, if you have sets of containers that will stack on each other, that's gonna be easier. I, we struggle. We're struggling with this a little bit in our, in our household right now, actually, because I don't like plastic. I think it's really bad for the planet and all that sort of stuff. And, the glass containers that I've been able to find, uh, they're kind of heavy. And they still have plastic lids and I'm like, you know, so I'm still struggling with, with that myself. But, it definitely helps to like have a range of sizes that you can use that will still stack on each other so that you can not waste space in your fridge because the fridge is such a, it does have limited base. So you wanna use it judiciously. Yeah. If you do have leftovers, if you are, you know, using leftovers for lunch the next day or whatever, you wanna have a contain, you want containers that are gonna be able to fit a portion size and, and be appropriately sized for that and not waste a lot of space in your, in your fridge too.

Rita Black: Yeah. My mom used to have, I wish I had an, I think they, but, you know, you're talking about glass and you know, prior to, again, these are like items from the fifties and sixties, they used to be like a, almost like a porcelain Tupperware container that had a glass top that was flat. It wasn't like Corning wear that had the round thing it was a flat and it, it actually was concave like so that it could stack on top of they. Awesome.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Those are really good. Yeah. I just don't see Lipsy anything. So like if you're gonna take fridge and, and

Rita Black: That's why you say, so they probably exist, but they're just not, good for like, if you wanna take it for lunch or something like that.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Yeah.

Rita Black: Got it. Well, and then, oh, go ahead.

Dr. Katherine Macey: I was gonna say then I think the, really the most important thing like maintaining a really healthy fridge is reviewing your fridge before you do your weekly shop.

Rita Black: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So how would you do that? Like what would you say would be the best way to do that?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Well, hopefully by the, if you're, if you're really shopping to your menu plan that we're gonna talk about in a little bit, then are you not wasting money? And B you are shopping the right amount for what it is that you need for the week. So by the time you get to the end of the week, you should have a pretty empty fridge before you go shopping again. Right. And then it's, it's actually come easy to, at that point when it's mostly empty is actually a really great time to go into your fridge and review anything that's left in there.

Rita Black: No. And get rid of it.

Dr. Katherine Macey: and get rid of it. Exactly.

Rita Black: That's, that's very good.

Dr. Katherine Macey: So those condiments that are like, I don't know how old they're now. Great time. And the other thing too about organizing is that some people feel like you have to do it all once and then you're done. It's not true. It's like having a personal trainer. Like if you go and work out with your personal trainer, then you don't just exercise with them once. And then you're done for life. It's not like that. You have to keep doing it.

Rita Black: Yeah. It's a mindset.

Dr. Katherine Macey: It's a mindset and it's a lifestyle. So you have to like continually go, oh, what I, what don't I need in here anymore? Okay, bye. Bye.

Rita Black: Oh, I, I know. And how many times have I mentioned my husband? I always do this for him. Like, I'm like, no, no, no, we, we, aren't gonna keep that in our house. We're in a, you know, we're, he's, he turned 60 this year. I'm in my fifties. I said, we're in a subtraction, not an addition mindset in our life.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Very smart. Very smart.

Rita Black: But, so everything goes through that lens of like, do we really need this? We're in subtraction. Remember we're subtracting.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah.

Rita Black: He's somebody who will go to, you know, yard sales and just be like, oh, but are he even like, he loves finding stuff that people have left out, you know, on the street. And he's like, oh, that looks amazing. I was like, no! Subtraction. So I'm reminding him of the lifestyle that we're having. Okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: You could also do the one in one out rule as well.

Rita Black: Oh, I like this one in one out. Okay.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Say to him, you know, if you really wanna bring that home, what else are you gonna put out?

Rita Black: That's a good one. I will use that on the, those items that, where he really is convinced he needs them.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah.

Rita Black: So what about meal planning? Tell us about this. This is looks good. And you guys, if you could see these pictures in her resources, it's amazing. They look like amazing little it's like, I wanna live in this universe. You live in Katherine. It's so great.

Dr. Katherine Macey: So the, the meal planning thing, like I, you know, a lot of people, I know a lot of people who try to, you know, who are managing their weight and that sort of thing, do a lot of meal planning. And they think a lot about their food often. Right. But for me, I was very fortunate in my younger years to not have to worry about that at all. I guess, metabolism. I was very active. I didn't have an issue with it at all. So I never really like, had to think about it.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: But when I had kids, oh my gosh. The time when their twos, which sometimes get called terrible twos for a reason and you know, they get to that time in the evening when they're, when they're hungry and I would get to that time and be like, they're tired. I'd be exhausted from the day. And I'd be like, what are we having for dinner? I'm like, I've got no idea. I can't even think. I don't know.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: I'm standing in the kitchen, my kid's hungry. And I'm like, I don't know what we're having for dinner. You're like, OK, clearly this time of night is a really bad time to be making decisions about what I'm eating.

Rita Black: Yes.

Dr. Katherine Macey: And that was really the key, key catalyst for me really to start to start meal planning and okay. And to make sure that I had something in mind for the, for the evening.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Macey: And, you know, as the, as the kids grow older and that sort of stuff, they went through a phase where they, all they wanted to eat was pasta. And you know, macaroni cheese, and you know, what, what pasta, and then another past dish and another pasta dish.

Rita Black: Let me just be clear when you have children, it's pizza, pasta, chicken tenders.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Right.

Rita Black: Or vegan chicken tenders. And, uh, you know, what is the other one? But like, we'd always have that like joke running, you know. Chicken pasta or chicken tenders. It was like, right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: I know exactly, exactly.

Rita Black: Their palate is very minimal.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah. Now it's very, very minimal and it is certain point, we were like, okay, we're really sick of eating pasta now. I don't wanna eat anymore pasta. Yeah. So, and, but the kids weren't quite old enough to be like, you can't eat pasta. Yeah. So at that age, and I think they were around six or seven or eight, some kind of that kind of age, still pretty young. I forget, my son must have probably hit about four, but we started doing okay, everybody's gonna choose a meal. Right. So we're a family of four. So we would go, we would take turns, choosing, choosing the meals. And we just would do it ahead of time. And, but honestly, we still do it. Like it's gone to college now. We still do it. You know, so it, it really works for us. And it cuts down on any family arguments.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Because everybody's getting a choice at some point in the week. And even if you don't like tonight's meal necessarily it's okay. Cause the next time is your choice. You'll get your favorite meal.

Rita Black: So, when do you guys choose that? Like where in the week do you, is it when the refrigerator is empty and you're gonna go shopping? You say, okay, what's your meal that you're gonna have this week?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Actually, we do it about a month in advance.

Rita Black: Oh, wow. So you choose four meals each.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Well, well now there's three of us, so, okay. So, you know, dad, mom, child, dad, mom, child, dad, mom, child, dad, mom, child, all the way through the whole four, four weeks. Okay. Yeah. And I mean, we don't always do the thing that's on the list. Something comes up, you know, like maybe we'll go out to dinner or something, or maybe we'll, you know, have friends over and we'll do something different, whatever, you know, it's not like set in stone, but it gives us a default to go to.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Right. And it also helps with your, with your weekly shops. You don't have, you're not trying to plan the menu at the same time, as you're trying to figure out what it is you need to buy. Cause that pro, that that process gets is sometimes somehow harder when you haven't decided what you're having already.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Macey: So, if you're not gonna do it on a monthly basis, then do it at a time when you are A - not hungry and, uh, B - not trying to go out the door to go and do your grocery shopping.

Rita Black: That is such a good coaching. I mean, first of all, what you were saying about not deciding what you're going to eat at five o'clock at night, because all of your impulse control is also gone. So it's much easier to order takeout or go through a drive through. Absolutely. I, something that,

Dr. Katherine Macey: The crazy thing about that Rita is that often going through a drive through, or, you know, going to getting takeout by the time you've ordered by the time you've da-da-da by the time you've picked it up, which time you've got it home, whatever it is it's as long or longer than it would take you to like whip up something at home.

Rita Black: Oh, absolutely. Nowadays, if you don't, aren't a cook. If you don't even wanna cook, I, you know, I call it food assembly. You can go to Trader Joe's and buy chicken that's pre-prepared and you can get, you know, you're just assembling a meal versus cooking, you know, I think they're some, some people are cooking averse but they don't recognize, like, if you're organized, then it's, you don't ever have to cook. You can assemble really beautiful meals.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, absolutely.

Rita Black: Something we do, we don't do the month in advance. That's something that, okay. That's blown my mind. And I might have to try that. And have definitely my son, because we are now three, cause my daughter's off at college as well at the same college as zero. But my son has learned to cook, so he's liked, he likes to do that. So we let him choose his night to do that. And we have like Monday night at sort of chicken night, you know, so we have a theme sort of planned theme too, which helps us then, you know, and we usually have something, we all like Mexican food. So something like Mexican-themed, you know, healthy, but

Dr. Katherine Macey: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's a great idea too. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the idea with doing these menu planning things, whichever way you do it is to have something so that food's not boring.

Rita Black: Right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: You know, it's like food should never be boring. Food should always be tasty. It should always be something that you look forward to and really cherish and love having and love being able to provide nutrition to yourself. Right.

Rita Black: Nourish yourself as a self-care act. For sure. How many of your clients are like, need to have that organized for them like to need to learn how to plan meals and stuff. I was just curious,

Dr. Katherine Macey: Let me see how many of our clients need that. You know, it depends cause we have a wide range of clients, you know, some of our clients just come to us for paperwork and some of our clients just come to us, all organize their garage and things like that. So, but we have a good number of people who have us organized in their kitchen. And one of my main organizer actually loves to bake. So she's in the kitchen all the time. So she is an absolute was, and she's amazing at helping people

Rita Black: Organize their baking.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Well, not just their baking, like the whole, the whole kitchen.

Rita Black: Oh, okay. Gotcha.

Dr. Katherine Macey: All really good at it. And she's just, I get, I get comments from our clients all the time about. I never would've thought to do X, Y, Z. You know, and Nicole's just like being incredible with them and done that. And that whole, like we were talking about in the beginning in terms of like setting out the environment for healthy living and setting up in the environment for really taking care of ourselves nutritionally is something that a lot of, a lot of our clients that we help in the kitchen really, really appreciate.

Rita Black: Yeah. I do see that that would be life changing really, when you get it set up for yourself and you feel like your kitchen is your friend rather than your enemy

Dr. Katherine Macey: And oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Rita Black: Well, this has been so incredible and I cannot wait for your course to come out at this year. So if you want, uh, to grab Katherine's. I'm telling you thing is beautiful. You guys go get this resource and it's not just a PDF, but there is a video, right? Catherine, that they have access to,

Dr. Katherine Macey: I have a mind map. So whichever way you like to learn best, like if you just wanna listen to it, just turn on the video. If you wanna, if you really wanna read it, go read the, read the, you know, the PDF, if you just want the cliff notes go to the, go to the mind map.

Rita Black: She's still organized. She gives you three different ways to consume it. I love that. And, Yeah. And, and so if you, or if you wanna just touch base on, reach out to Katherine, go to the show notes, you can just sign up and then get in touch with Katherine that way, right? Absolutely. I will leave. I'm gonna leave Catherine's contact details as well. So you can get in touch with her if, if you want. Now Katherine is LA-based, but, you can definitely coach people online as well. Right?

Dr. Katherine Macey: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We have a good organizing out as well.

Rita Black: Okay. Fantastic. Well, great. Well, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to have you on and thank you for all of your time. I've learned so much. I'm really actually very inspired to go organize my kitchen this weekend.

Dr. Katherine Macey: That happens to ...

Rita Black: The next step is organizing my time wel enough to have time to do that, but yeah, that's amazing. Like you peel away one layer and then, oh my gosh. Then you're like, oh my gosh. Now I need Katherine for everything. Okay. All right.

Dr. Katherine Macey: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here. I've been, it's been such a pleasure. I've really, really enjoyed speaking with you and, and sharing this journey with you.

Rita Black: Well, have an amazing new year Katherine. Thank you. So pleasure you too.

Rita Black: Yeah. Wow. That was so inspiring. And if you're ready to take action, like I am, go over to the show notes and sign up to receive free tools from Katherine on kitchen organizing and getting your kitchen set up for success this new year, I'm telling you I've got that thing that you're gonna get. It's awesome. And of course, it's so organized. While you're there, please subscribe to the podcast. I have lots of amazing episodes in store for you this coming year. So make sure you get alerted when they come out by getting on that email list. Have an amazing week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you.

Rita Black: Thanks for listening to the thin thinking podcast. Did that episode go by way too fast for you? If so, and Do you want to dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release? Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com where you'll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release, tips, strategies, and more, and be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking: Unlock Your Mind For Permanent Weight Loss. and to learn how to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.