In praise of lazy

The Clarins counter in John Lewis was recently “on gift”– with travel sizes of some of my favourite products if I bought two full size items. If I bought a third, I qualified for a free 40 minute facial. Being a sucker for that kind of thing, I quickly picked out an extra shower gel and counted down the days to my appointment. I was imagining falling asleep during a relaxing facial massage – more fool me. It was, of course, just another marketing ploy to lure the unsuspecting Clarins customer into buying new skincare products that were not so far on their radar.  That said, it proved a very useful exercise.  After I’d confessed that I am a bit forgetful about exfoliating, and therapist/saleswoman Elaine introduced me to what she called a ‘lazy exfoliator’ – the Gentle Exfoliator Brightening Toner, a lotion that you only have to apply to your face and leave on all night, once a week at bedtime -- I started thinking about other opportunities for a bit of healthy laziness.

Here are some of my favourites:

1.   Floss – only once a week.

A top dentist recently told me that instead of guilting out when we forget to floss twice a day, we should be proud to do it once a week. ‘It’s just about enough to keep the plaque at bay,’ she said. And another periodontologist pointed out that we may even be doing ourselves a favour when we forget to do it more often. ‘Many people get the technique wrong, leading to more damage from plaque than if they didn’t floss at all,’ he explained.

2.   Use spray vitamins.

I like BetterYou DLux 3000, providing 3000iu of D3 in each minty squirt, and carrying a Jan de Vries recommendation.

3.   Make a lazy smoothie.

Naturopath Enid Taylor says that when she’s too tight for time to juice apples for a base, she uses 300ml Innocent Smoothie to which she adds a massive handful of fresh spinach leaves, a chopped mango or banana, and 250mls water to make enough for two to three servings. Thoroughly blitzed, it is bright green and not too spinachy-tasting for breakfast.

4.   Wear clothes that do the work for you.

I like Fit Flop and MBT shoes, and Zaggora Hotwear capris – said to raise core body temperature to increase energy expenditure, with testers burning 9% more calories than the control group wearing normal fitness clothing.

5.   Sleep.

A good night’s sleep helps dieters shift more fat (56% of their weight loss), while sleep deprivation leads to more muscle loss, although the overall weight loss is the same, according to research at the University of Chicago. Other studies have shown that getting at least six and half hours a night adds years to your life, with more deaths in women aged 50-79 who have less than five hours sleep. Sleep also curbs inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, arthritis and premature ageing according to a 2010 study.