I haven't got time!

18th February 2016

You can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. Stephen King

I haven't got time!

That's my favourite 'get out of jail free card', it gives me an excuse to stray off track, because 'I'm a very busy person', that saying is my brothers catchphrase and mine is apparently 'I haven't got time', and the irony of this blog is when I got this far in my blog, my computer shut down and went to a blue screen saying something about 'your computer had to shut down ATTEMPTED_EXECUTE_OFNOEXECUTEMEMORY (bhdRVX64.sys)

Or something like that and I found myself smiling and thinking, 'I haven't got time for this!

So here I am 25 minutes later and back to my blog, half hour gone out of a day that I haven't got time!

Sometimes it's genuine and I am short of time like this morning, I have to leave here in 2 hours but before that, I have to shower and dress, make moms breakfast and do her drugs, sort stock, loads my car, and other bits and bobs, oh yeah including my breakfast.  Some days though I'm just using it as an excuse to go off track - are you guilty of that.

Example number 1, yesterday, I got back from working just before noon, then at 12 my phone binged to tell me I had an hairdressers appointment, I'd forgotten, so I called and made sure it was ok for me to go as I was already late and whilst I'm sat there having my haircut, I'm thinking, mmm I haven't got time to cook any lunch now, there's a chippy over the road, we could have chippy, I haven't had chips for ages and they do the yellow ones, she's just told me, mmm, no I haven't got time to cook!

WHATEVER yes I had got time to cook, lots of cooking these days you don't even have to be in the room!  Instead I went home, got a couple of boxes out of the freezer, filled potato skins and fish in butter sauce, I put the skins in the oven, the fish on the top with the peas in the same pan and left it for 20 minutes why I started on my paperwork, that took less time than I'd have queued in the chip shop! Twenty minutes later, it took me as long to put the meal out as it would've done to open the chip papers and put them out.  Haven't got time - yeah right!

I could give you plenty more examples but guess what, yeah you're right, I haven't got time!  Instead I'm going to ask you to start questioning yourself as I'm trying to about whether, it's a time thing or an excuse.  Delicious healthy meals can be knocked together just as unhealthy ones or high in Smart Point takeaways, it's always a choice, trust me, you might be justifying it and wrapping your decision up in a way that makes you feel better but ultimately you've just made a decision to not eat well and risk not getting a weight loss that week.  I'm not judging by the way because I'm as guilty, I do it, I'm just aware of the fact I'm doing it.

I'm going to start making a list of quick healthy meals I can have I think, that fish I put on the hob can be cooked in 4.5 minutes in the microwave, it would be perfect on a packet of microwave rice or grains, tinned veg cooks in the microwave in a minute or two.

Beans on toast, beans in microwave whilst the toast is cooking.  Scrambled eggs another quickly, omelette, especially if I put a pan liner in the frying pan because that saves on the hassle of washing up a egg stuck pan, nothing worse.  Tinned soup, my hot dogs the other day were so quick, I used tinned onions, warmed them up in the same pan as the dogs, then the onions end up tasty like the ones at a stand, they took under 5 minutes.  A sandwich takes minutes too.  So yeah, I need to stop using that "I haven't got time!" line when it comes to eating healthy, "I can't be bothered", "I don't want to", "I fancy rubbish", now they are honest reasons, time to stop pretending, no more pulling the wool over my own eyes.

I'm very aware its half-term, and I thought you might fancy baking with the kids, here's a recipe you can do and eat a few yourself, nothing worse than a kitchen full of cake you want to eat and the kids want you to try!  Remember it's okay to SHARE them, you don't have to keep them all in your house, the kids could take a few round the neighbours.

Mocha Muffins

Prep time:20 min  Cook time:12 min  Serves:20,  2 Smart Points each

100g White Self Raising Flour (if using plain flour then add 1 teaspoon baking powder)

15g Cocoa Powder

25g Semolina, Dried, or fine polenta

40g Light Brown Sugar, soft, or caster sugar

1medium egg, whole, raw

40ml Sunflower Oil

70ml Skimmed Milk

1teaspoons Ground Coffee, instant powder, dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water

Preheat the oven to 190°C, Gas 5. Prepare 2 x 12 hole mini muffin trays with 20 small paper cases. (If you only have 1 tray then bake in 2 batches).

Sift together into a large bowl the flour (and baking powder if using) and cocoa. Mix in the semolina and sugar.

Beat together the egg, oil, milk and coffee water then mix into the dry ingredients to a thick batter. Do not over beat.

Divide the batter between the cases and bake for about 12 minutes until risen. Cool on a wire rack and serve freshly baked, lightly dusted with pinches of icing sugar, if liked.

Okay I'm off, lots to do, I'm a very busy person ;) I have BeYOUtiful people to weigh today, here's to a great day, I'm make time for breakfast though, I always do, my mushrooms cook whilst I'm sorting mom, and I'll have an egg with it of course, it was pointed out to me yesterday, I have an egg with everything and it's true, I do love an egg for breakfast '-)

Enjoy your day xx