Are you lazy? Aren’t you lucky.

Do you think you have stubborn laziness? Congratulations. I am proud of you and consider yourself lucky because this laziness can make you healthier and fitter. These are experiments conducted over a period of 7 years in my personal life and have tweaked them over the years efficiently to work in my favour. You can pick and choose the ones that might be easy to begin and then do your own tweaking. The only established rule we will need is physical purchase of products.

1. Buying favourite items in limited quantity – Cheese, chips, cookies, cakes, Indian desserts, sugar, bread, bhujiya, namkeen, sauce, jam, coffee powder. This list is as per my observation of majority shopping carts in supermarkets. First you have to make sure that you physically shop for these items whether once in a week or a month. You decide as per your laziness quotient and no judgement involved.
2. When you pick up these things, buy the smallest packs possible or quantities sufficient for max 2-3 usages. Let’s take a real life example of this event. I decided to shop once in a month for grocery and other house stuff. I bought 10 cheese slices to last for 2 weeks and informed the interested consumers (kids) about it. It obviously finished within a week. When requested again , my determined laziness came into action and I refused to go to the market. The kids volunteered and went and bought. In the next couple of days small bottle of jam got over and kids went again. The cheese slices got over again in the consecutive days and till then the laziness virus had spread in the house and they also refused to go. Behaviourally laziness spreads faster than activeness. When the lazy behaviour is consistently repeated it effectively prevents you from buying junk food when physical purchase is necessary.
3. Buying smallest packs of junk , sugar, coffee and other stupidities. If you feel sad when you don’t buy things you want to, opt for the smallest packs. You get to feel happy with the purchase yet you are reducing the consumption quantity overall. At the same instance increase the quantity of healthy stuff and its visibility in the house. Keep the junk a bit far away and the healthier stuff on the dining table. Trust your laziness to take you to the shortest distance of munching food.
4. Don’t stock all the possible combinations , for eg if there is enough cheese, either don’t buy bread or buy the smallest pack available. If the cheese outruns the bread, there is a chance that you might use that cheese in a parantha, on an omelette or a dosa instead of bread . If you have enough coffee at home , order for limited milk. Again laziness will prevent you from having that additional cup of coffee.
5. Stock more fruits and veggies and eggs in the fridge , when hungry and nothing is else in there in your cupboard (read noodles, pasta variants), your chances of eating healthy staple meal increases.
6. Delete swiggy , zomato and other food ordering apps during the week. Download them on the weekend, order and delete again. Trust me , good consistent type of laziness like mine will make you feel lazy enough to not even download the app again and again. It’s just too much to do.
7. Obviously in the quest for perfect laziness with health, a cook with limited imagination and limited resources at home tremendously helps. You don’t have the raw material, she doesn’t have the imagination, result is basic subzi roti, daal and rice.
8. Don’t stock readymade tetrapacks of any juices, drinks etc, Buy a few things required to make them for eg whole fruits, chocolate powder, etc. If you are a lazy person with strong will , you will end up never making them and hence never consuming them. Do the same with other favourite things like cakes n cookies. Buy the ingredients, watch the videos and trust your laziness.
9. If you ever do get up to cook them , please indulge freely. If you did get up and made it, its definitely worth the pleasure .
10. Deleting delivery apps – Don’t be scared of taking this first action. It’s not a permanent action. Everytime you need to use it because its very essential you can download it again. But you have to delete it soon after that particular order is done.

Laziness drove us to the point of becoming diabetic, unhealthy, obese and sick. Effective use of this lovely trait can make us healthier, fitter and more patient. To throw more light on the patience aspect, let me give you some examples. When you are hungry and the cook is about to come, yet you can’t wait and there’s no maggi or bread at home, you will either sit patiently or will pick up a fruit in frustration but you won’t go to the market or cook anything that takes effort, thanks to your laziness.

If the kids are insisting on eating a particular junk food which isn’t available at home, they will throw a tantrum. Given your location, your kids might or might not be able to go to the market themselves. Your laziness won’t let you go thereby making you a firmer, stronger, consistent parent who doesn’t give in to kids’ pressure tactics. My persistent laziness has made my kids more independent, resilient and responsible. When I refuse to get up, they complete their own tasks, find their stuff, cook for themselves, and basically manage to stay alive all by their own will and wish. My constant exchange of lazy virus also keeps them away from too much junk, media and other bothersome stuff. They feel lazy enough to just pick up a banana or apple at home rather than going to the market , they just pick up a book to read, instead of setting up the desktop to watch something because the keyboard , mouse and screen are kept in three different places and I never keep enough batteries at home for the keyboard or mouse to run. Sometimes they are active enough to go to buy those , other times they just give up and stare at the ceiling.

Similarly I have my lazy bones to lessen distraction during work. I leave my phone in the other room and then it easily takes an hour or more to get up to retrieve it back.

If laziness is making your life difficult rather than easing it or disabling you from your happy place within , you need to find out the actual cause behind it. What you perceive as laziness, might be some thing else altogether. Check if any of the below fits the bill for your behaviour.

1. Sluggish metabolism, slow digestion  – if you are constipated or have a weak digestion then lethargy feeling will prevent you from completing the most basic functions of life. Pay attention to your digestion and rectify it.
2. Nutritional deficiency – if your daily food is lacking in nutrition and is just making you feel full, this will prevent you from feeling enthusiastic or happy
3. Vitamin deficiency – Vit D and Vit b12 deficiency will make you feel tired, lethargic, sad and full of aches and pains
4. Rest deficiency – If you don’t take adequate rest, work because you have to, stress out continuously, then you will find yourself always drudging yourself to every task you need to do including visiting the loo.
5. Fun deficiency- If you aren’t including any fun in your life , every single moment of your life might seem like mired in misery.
6. Love deficiency – If you feel unloved, uncared and unsupported, you might not want to get up from the bed, eat , or do anything at all. This is not laziness, this is sadness.

If you are blessed with health yet feel lazy, you are in for a win. If you are unhealthy and feel lazy , it’s time to check the cause first and then work on it one way or the other.