Laziness can be a very dangerous habit. It allows you to devolve into slothful living. Nowhere is this more apparent than meal laziness. You can’t be bothered to cook so choose unwise takeaway options. A lot. Or, if you use your own kitchen but suffer from can’t-be-bothered syndrome, your freezer may have meat pies, pizza and breaded fish, as I admit mine does.

In fact, I was at the supermarket the other night at dinnertime and I found myself looking at all the frozen foods that seemed to only need heating. What an easy way to have dinner sorted, I thought, and grabbed two packets.

When I got them home and I read the cooking instructions, one of the items was going to take longer to heat in the oven  than I usually take to prepare dinner anyway. So back into the freezer it went to be used some other time when the dreaded lazybones sickness hits me but I have the time to twiddle my thumbs while it cooks in the oven.

In contrast, a couple of days later I cooked up a heap of vegetables (cut large, so I didn’t do much preparation) in some stock then whizzed them into a deliciously thick, smooth soup. The next night I cooked a big dish of diced vegetables then stirred them into some leftover soup for a chunky style soup that tasted totally different even though it was made from the same ingredients. I really didn’t feel like making dinner, but having leftovers and a loose plan stopped me from making a poor decision.

The point is, the actual work of dicing the vegetables probably took less than five minutes. No one is too lazy to do a five-minute chore. (Are they?) So the lesson is to prepare some part of the meal in advance so you have a go-to option for the days when you’re feeling lazy. I know I’ve said it before, but I really must put a heap of simple, fast recipe ideas into a folder for the days when I’m feeling particularly uninspired. I also need to spend some time in the kitchen to restock my freezer with precooked meat-centric dishes. My family’s health is too important to squander it through laziness.

Today is a new day.

It is mine. Yes, I have obligations, but still the day is mine to choose my mood, my attitude and my level of attention to whatever I do.

This is empowering. I can choose to strengthen what I call my ‘verbing muscle’—the action of doing something at the exact time that a task presents itself, thus keeping as close together as possible the thought and the corresponding action—or I can procrastinate and be generally unproductive.

Today I choose to be attentive and aware, to enjoy even the smallest chore and to work, if only for an hour, towards something that is important to me.

That’s a good start to the day.

With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan for this post title, I’ve been thinking about one of the reasons you backslide. It usually happens when you’re tired or overwhelmed and doing the right thing just seems like too much trouble.

So I am writing a little list that incorporate two things—one is to have the world’s easiest recipes for getting a good meal on the table in next to no time; the other is to have a list of my favourite ‘fail’ foods and to find a way to replicate them in a healthier way.

For example, there is always store-bought pizza in our freezer for the occasional nights when I just don’t have any ideas for dinner and nothing healthy seems to appeal. I have realised, though, that I have an easy cheat recipe for the pizza base. I make this when I feel like having pizza and have the time to do a little preparation. What I need to do is make better choices in the flour I use and see if this homemade version will freeze. Then at least I am improving over the store-bought product which has who knows what in its ingredient list.

In this way I would have a fall-back position for the nights when I’m just not in the mood to cook. So my list will contain all the possible ‘fast’ foods that I can prepare in advance and freeze.

We have been eating pre-breadcrumbed fish of late. I need to find a way to buy just fish and put a little coating on it myself, so that I know what goes into it. I’m going to try an egg dredge followed by a coconut flour dredge and see how that cooks up in a bit of coconut oil. And maybe do a bit of homework on coatings. It’s so good when you can do all this yourself when you have the time and inclination for food preparation.

Another idea is the preparation of all the ingredients for a whole dish and then freezing or putting in the fridge to cook up the following night. I already precook meat-centric dishes and freeze in portions, but this other style of preparation is worth looking into. Anything that gives you power over the quality of food you are eating is worth a little study. And having something available for those times when you feel tired and uninspired is just common sense.

Right and wrong. We live our lives by this. The vast majority of us try to do the right thing. We obey the laws of gravity and most of us obey the laws of the land. Indeed, some of us crusade for what we believe is right, while those on the other side of the world may be crusading for the exact opposite. They’re also crusading for what they believe is right.

What if all these opposites are in fact part of one big picture? What if you can’t have right without wrong? Well, of course you can’t. (Even if you use semantics as your slave and start creating words like ‘unright’, the end result is the same; you still have polarity.) Because unless there is a wrong, there can be no right. In that case, what we would have would be ‘is’. It isn’t right or wrong. It just is.

I’m a right versus wrong type of person. There is a way that something should be done. Then I gradually (or sometimes uncomfortably quickly) realise that there are a number of ways that task can be done, and who am I to decide that my way is right? But this takes me time. I start from the ‘this is the right way to do this thing’ perspective and gradually morph to ‘there are a number of ways to do this thing’. and finally to ‘there may be a better way than mine’. That doesn’t mean I’m an overly confident person or am arrogant. I think it means I have a blinkered view to start with then expand slowly, in my own time, when I do not feel threatened.

That’s why, for me at least, I am now aiming to steer clear of the thinking that there are right foods and wrong foods. I’ve done all that, I have a propensity for it, but in the long run it didn’t help all that much. So what if, instead, I could see each food in a place (a relatively fluid place) on a sliding scale? There would be foods I would eat more often (those nearer the top of the scale) and foods I would decide to consume less often (those at the other end). I use the term fluid because as I learn more I can then easily change a certain food’s place on the scale. Nothing is written in stone. There is no right and wrong.

Perhaps stepping around this right-versus-wrong mentality will make everything, not just eating, easier. I’ll keep you posted.

Sometimes I look back and see how far I have come. At other times, I look back and see how far I have slipped. I go along well for ages then something happens and I slide back into old habits.

Blaming myself and feeling bad about it doesn’t work. How can that be a positive experience? Giving in, or giving up, also isn’t the wisest course.

There are probably many ways to deal with this backsliding, but at the moment only a couple come to mind. One is to simply add in nutrient-rich foods to the dishes that are the flavour of the month in my kitchen. Another is to pick one meal—say, breakfast—and commit to eating only health-giving foods at that time, then gradually work up to the other meals and snack times.

This way it’s not a blame game, with all the negative connotations that creates. It’s simply  a chance to improve all over again.

To err is human. To blame it on someone else is even more human. But it’s time we took the blame squarely upon our own shoulders for the state of our health.

We’re the ones buying rubbish and putting it in our mouths, our bodies. We are treating our most precious resource with absolute disdain when we don’t honour it with the nutrients it needs.

There’s so much noise out there about nutrition, and each new bit of advice seems to be a loggerheads with another scientifically reported view. I say, pick something and go with it. If the food is what your body needs it will thrive. If it isn’t, your body will let you know.

But start with lots of green leafy vegetables and the less starchy vegies then add a smaller amount of starchy vegetables, low GI fruit and just a smattering of the higher GI fruit. Eat nuts and seeds. Consume good quality fat as close to nature as possible. Avocadoes spring to mind. For the rest—the meat, the eggs, the dairy, the grains and legumes, do some study (or a lot) and make up your own mind. But when you make your decision, don’t label yourself a paleo eater or a vegan. Your body might love the diet you choose for a year or two then start to rebel. If you’re vegan, it might start requiring meat protein. If you’ve been paleo for some time, your body might start protesting because you’ve been eating far too much meat.

Somebody should do something. That’s right. Each of us should do it for ourselves. What we put into our bodies is our personal responsibiity, and no one else’s. Make a decision, do something … and keep learning how to make better informed decisions into the future. 

I bought some  dried goji berries the other day and tonight I thought I’d break out the packet. I’d never had them before, but because they cost half a paypacket (well, not quite), I thought they’d be something special. Somehow I’d always resisted them in the past thinking they were just another con.

Hmmm. I wasn’t expecting this very ordinary, almost soapy taste. Berries are usually tarty, tangy. They’d better pack a better punch nutritionally than they do to my tastebuds!

Processed food often hides salt, sugar, MSG and a host of other nasties. I want to know how much salt I am eating. I want control over the kind of salt it is. The same goes for sugar. Less is better. And the rest of the chemical pool? I want to stay as far away as possible.

And it is possible. Without having to dress in crinkly clothes like a sixties hippie. Without boring people to tears about the changes I’m making. Just making them in a way that is sustainable. I owe it to myself to fuel my body the best way I can.

Of course, some weeks that’s easier said than done. But it’s worth remembering that if Rome wasn’t built in a day, it probably wasn’t unbuilt in a day either. Lasting changes can take time. It can sometimes be a two-steps-forward-one-step-back process. That’s not excusitis. It’s simply a realistic acceptance that sometimes life gets in the way of our best intentions. (Well, of our good intentions, anyway.) The trick is to keep heading in the right direction—sans hippie clothing and sans fuss.

It’s not a race. You don’t have to crouch and wait for the starter’s gun then go like hell. Life is a much more placid and wonderful gift when you’re not racing around trying to do dozens of things at the same time.

Indeed, when I try to do everything at once I usually end up doing much less than I would have if I had been attentive to a single task and had seen it through to its natural conclusion before moving to the next.

I’ve been busy and neglected some of the important parts of life lately. I want to do it all, but it all takes a great deal of time. Something has to give and usually it’s something important. That seems to be the paradox of living in today’s fast-moving world.

Slowing down seems impossible, but there is a way. Once the big deadlines are over, take a little time and decide on what’s important in life. How do I want to feel as I go about my day-to-day life?

I have allowed myself so many times to feel that I am trapped and yet many of the bars around me were of my own making. One of the happiest weeks of my life was when I decided to do something every single day that nourished the inner me so I could experience feelings of liberation, abundance and wonderful self expression. I chose ways to get those feelings while doing tasks I had to do. I walked instead of taking the car so I could spend a little time thinking about how lucky I was to have the liberation of owning my hours and not being enslaved to a strict schedule like those who have to catch the 7.15 train to be at work at a specific time. I blessed my washing up time because I had an abundance of water caught off our roof then heated by the sun. I blessed making my lunch salad because I had an abundance of vegetables and salad fruit to use. And whether I took a photograph, wrote some prose or sang a little, I made a little window of time where I could savour the great enjoyment and fulfilment of self expression.

Sometimes in this life it’s the things you don’t do that are just as important as the things you do. So when it seems like a race, it can be a good idea to be a non-starter and think about where you’re going rather than the speed you might accomplish. It doesn’t really matter if you’re the fastest or the slowest. You have to be travelling in the right direction.

I become overwhelmed very easily. It doesn’t help that I often start from a place where I feel that I won’t be able to do something. It can be a fairly simple thing—trying to find my way to somewhere while driving in a strange city or getting my work done on a tight deadline. It might be the book I’ve always wanted to write. I know I could write the book but could I find a publisher or would I have to publish it myself? Oh, don’t know how to do that so I won’t even start writing it. Or I’ll start and the worries will intervene and I’ll leave the project half finished.

It might be going for a job that I have the qualifications for but wonder if I really would be able to do it. How is it other people much less skilled than I can find such confidence to exude, to the point of actually lying about their abilities? I always have at least a low grade anxiety and am often quite paralysed by the thought that there is something I can’t do. If I plan to start a project, I always feel I need to know how to do everything that it will entail before I actually begin. This is not only stupid, it’s dangerous. It uses up that first wonderful flush of enthusiasm, it stymies momentum before it gets even started and it drains confidence.

I start from an I-can’t-do-this position instead of looking forward to learning new skills and overcoming difficulties. And yet, here I am with this website—albeit a simple one—that I knew I would never be able to accomplish. I’ve got a degree I knew I wasn’t smart enough to get. But my life is littered with so many missed opportunities because I let this attitude get in my way. As I get older I realise I have limited myself my entire life. The time that has gone, I will never get back. So I need to address this anxiety, this feeling that I’m never quite good enough, before too much more lifetime goes by. One way is to be prepared to ask for help, something I’ve never been comfortable doing. The other is to analyse what is actually paralysing me and to work, as a little project in itself, on the skills that I need for that particular thing. Instead of sitting worrying about it, I can catapult myself through that obstacle when I come to it because I have been chawing away at it in the background. A bit like what anxiety does to me.

I’ve had some wonderful successes and am quite happy to do things that other people fear, but I can’t transfer the confidence and I have never, ever ridden on the back of any accomplishment to give me a headstart to the next one. I always start again in the same dreary place.

How does this relate to good health? When we’re coming from a place that’s way behind, we need momentum. We need little successes that can urge us on. We have to start even without all the information we might think we require, to be pragmatic that there will be obstacles and to have a simple attitude that we use to work through challenges.

What if I absolutely refused to let that anxiety eat away under the surface, unnamed and the more powerful because of it? I’m not talking about therapy here. What if I had a couple of questions that I could ask to winkle that anxiety out from under its rock into the bright light of day so I could really look hard at it and see if it is the monster I fear? How much power would it have over me then?

I think the secret is in the ‘now’—and only considering the obstacles when (or even if) they present themselves. We can plan all we like, but in the last analysis if our plans don’t inspire action they are worth nothing to us anyway.

So, here’s an idea on making it so simple that it’s almost impossible to fail. Acknowledge the obstacle or the possibility that there might be an obstacle. Put it in its place. Do the next thing at hand. I could word it something like this: Yes, that could be a challenge, but it’s for my future self. What is the one action I can do to progress this right now? I’ll do that.