The Lazy Genius Podcast - #15: The Lazy Genius Fixes Breakfast

Episode Date: March 27, 2017

1. Read a few Lazy Genius breakfast posts. How to Have a Sit-Down Breakfast with On-the-Go Ease The Best Granola EVER Three Essential Breakfast Recipes (pancakes, waffles, dairy-free mocha walnut muffins) Blueberry Corn Muffins Make-Ahead Parfait Jars Smoothie Booster Cubes 2. Check out the Pinterest board. A great place to start with ideas for sweet and savory items, toast toppings, and more. Use these to start your own board of ideas! 3. Never miss another Lazy Genius moment. Every Sunday afternoon, I send you an email so we can stay friends, and occasionally those emails include sneak peeks, early access, and any other perk friends get. I would absolutely love for you to join this community. I'm honored by every single one of you. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Defender. With a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a waiting depth of 900 millimeters, the Defender 110 pushes what's possible. Learn more at landrover.ca. Every Olympic dream starts somewhere. At first, it's just potential. But over time, with the right support and a few breakthroughs, it becomes something more. Make RBC Training Ground your breakthrough moment.

Start your journey to Team Canada today at RBC Training Ground. See ya. Hi, lazy geniuses. This is Kendra Adachi, and you're listening to the lazy genius podcast. Here, I'm going to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today's episode, The Lazy Genius, fixes breakfast. If you're not from the South, you might not actually say fixes breakfast.

You might say eats or cooks, but in the South, we say fixes. Here is the pitch for today. Breakfast is worth eating every day. sitting down, maybe even with hot food. I know. Don't turn it off. Don't turn it off. Get your finger away from that delete button. That trash can is not your friend. Just trust me. Okay. So let's get into the playbook. We're going to talk about the spiritual discipline of breakfast. We're going to talk about having a breakfast rhythm, finding yours, and I'm going to share with you mine, and how to to have a sit down breakfast with on the go ease. It's possible. Okay, so let's get into it.

before I say anything about the spiritual discipline of breakfast, I want you to stop rolling your eyes at me because I can feel it. I can feel it. And I also want to say that this is not prescriptive. I really am not trying to tell you what to do. That's not how I wouldn't want anyone to tell me what to do. And that's not how I'm going to move into a conversation with you. However, I have seen the benefits of eating breakfast every day.

I don't mean just for health reasons. Actually, we're not even going to talk about that. Sesame Street did a good enough job for that. You know you're supposed to eat breakfast in the morning. I think Ernie and Bert even sang a song about it. Breakfast is the best meal of the day. Yeah. But we're going to talk about the spiritual discipline of breakfast. And I really believe that if you give it a try, if you consider breakfast and give it a try, you won't regret it. You won't regret adding this into your life. when you're a lazy genius, that doesn't mean that you're lazy about everything. It means that you're lazy about some things so that you can be a genius about the things that matter to you. Breakfast right now might not matter to you, and that is fine.

My job is to try to convince you that it does. And if you still decide at the end of this that it doesn't matter, that's okay too. That doesn't make you any less of a good person. That doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. It just means that perhaps you don't find the value in it. And that's okay. We're all really different. but I just want to encourage you that if you're thinking, oh, this is not going to work for me already,

then you're not going to really get anything out of this. And you may surprise yourself at how breakfast could be worth taking the extra five minutes every day. So just hang with me. Some of you are like, yes, I love breakfast. I want to have more breakfast in my life. And you're on board. And that's great. Welcome.

Climb aboard. I took your ticket. But for everybody else, I would like for you to just hang with me and trust me. You might be surprised. Okay, so let's talk about the spiritual discipline of breakfast. Life, to me, is lived in the details. Now, I don't always do a great job of that.

None of us really do. But I think when you look back at what makes your life memorable, what makes it feel purposeful, what makes it feel full of love, it's the details. It's not big, sweet, sleeping things. It's the liturgy of it. It's the everyday, regular, tiny details of life. And for me, breakfast is one of those things. Breakfast is very liturgical for me. Doing something that is nourishing

to my body, but even more my soul and my family is something that I put a really high value on. I choose to be a genius about breakfast instead of completely lazy about it. I'm lazy about a lot of other things. But breakfast is something that I'm going to spend time on at least to eat. And I'm going to sit down and do it. And we're going to get into that where we have these expectations of what I mean, what maybe you think, what you think you want it to be, or expectations are such an enemy sometimes if we've got them too lofty or we assume too many things. So we're going to keep this super real, very, very lazy genius. But I do choose to be a genius about breakfast and kind of kick a few other things to the side so that breakfast can happen. Here's the reason I think that it is such a

beautiful spiritual discipline in your home. And that is, it is a connection point with your, it can be with yourself if it's just you. It can be with your spouse or your roommate or your kids. But starting the day, taking the time to be slow for just literally, literally five minutes. Like five minutes is such a short time, but it also is a really, really long time. when you're sitting still and you're looking at the person across from you, or you're looking down at your plate, or you're reading your magazine, or you're listening to some really pretty music or something, doing something slowly, on purpose, every single morning that you're already going to do.

See, that's why I really am excited about talking about breakfast today, because most of us eat it already. And if we don't, we probably wish we kind of did. But most of us already have some sort of breakfast built into our routine. it's just really fast and kind of a throwaway. But if you can make it so that it is a bit more purposeful, it's not like you're trying to add something else to the start of your day, like 15 minutes of meditation or you're going to do yoga or whatever.

Like those are things I do not get out of bed for. But if you spend those minutes on breakfast, you get the same kind of benefit of a regular soul-filling exercise in the vehicle of something you already do. And more than likely, if you live with kids, your kids haven't done enough to make you crazy yet. So you might actually really enjoy having this connection point with them in the morning before everybody has kind of moved on with their days

or you feel frazzled or that four o'clock crazy comes around. Breakfast is a really, really beautiful connection point before things go nuts. And just in case, some of you may be thinking like deep down that you really, really want to make this happen. You actually would love to sit down every morning with your family and have breakfast. You would love that. You desire that. But there's this big layer above that that says, no, it's not going to happen.

Let it go. And also, you're a fraud if you think that you and your family can make this happen. Like, don't try and be like everybody else. Just eat your granola bar on the car and let it go. but you are allowed to do something like this. You are allowed to take the time to do something that you see Instagram families doing and you kind of give side eye to. Like, of course, they eat vegetables every day.

Of course, they eat breakfast every morning together. Of course, they go out and they pick their dinner out of their garden. I would never be able to do that. And who would want to? Like, sometimes what happens when we feel, when we throw, we're throwing side eye, especially on the internet, it's because deep down we really, really want what we're seeing. And I just want to tell you that if your side eye to breakfast is because deep down you really want this, but you're afraid of something, of some kind of comparison, of that you're

not going to be able to do it right, of no one in your family caring the same way that you do, that people outside of you knowing that you have breakfast every day with your family are going to feel judged because they don't, like all of the things that we assume people are thinking that we assume will happen and they don't ever happen. They get in the way of us actually finding details in our lives that make our lives more full. And so if you're feeling that way, I want to help you to not feel that way because that is not a fun way to live. I do that too in other areas of my life. I understand that feeling. So if that is you, you are not alone, but it is also okay for you to make this happen. It's okay for you to do it and to not feel guilty about it.

Okay. One last thing about the spiritual discipline of breakfast. If every food is on the good, then the people will be too. I think this is why we have a hard time sitting down, because most of the time, the foods that we choose to eat for breakfast are convenience foods that are easy to eat on the way out the door. You don't have to eat breakfast on the way out the door. I feel like commercials have told us for so long

that that's the, like that's a high value quality of a breakfast food, is you can eat it on the run. Maybe we should just stop running. I think we should sit down. I do. I just. think that we should sit down. So to recap when it comes to the spiritual discipline of breakfast,

this is something that you can choose to be a genius about. And we're going to talk about some ways to do breakfast quickly. Like this isn't about cooking some crazy elaborate thing. It's really just about the sitting down. That's all it is. It's about the sitting down on purpose. So this is something that we can choose to be a genius about. This is a connection point that you can have with yourself, with your family before things get crazy. This is a place to start your day at the table. I mean, the table really is the anchor of our home. And if it's not, a lot of times we want it to be, or it's at least one of them, right? The table is an important place. And so starting your day there is a really, really beautiful gift to give yourself and even to your people.

So remember, if you want to live life in the details and see a life well lived in those details, breakfast is such a beautiful way and an easy way, really, to do that. So let's talk about that part. Let's talk about finding a breakfast rhythm. Okay, here's what we're thinking. Like, the morning is crazy, Kendra. Please don't make me cook. I posted on Instagram, and if you go, yeah, if you go to my Instagram at The Lazy Genius,

if you're listening to this when this is really, there's a picture of breakfast. It's an egg and some juice, you know. And I ask you guys what your biggest frustration about breakfast is and what your biggest tip is. And a lot of your frustrations were, I don't want to do anything in the morning. Like I haven't had coffee yet. I haven't done it. I don't feel like a person yet. Please don't make me pull out seven skillets. Okay. We're not who that is terrible. That is a terrible idea. Too many skillets are always a bad idea. That is not what we're talking about here. you don't have to cook in the morning, okay? Really, it's about being smart with your rhythm of breakfast, okay?

And I believe it starts with me. It starts with you. Here are a few of the tips. If I am, if I'm still trying to get ready, if I'm kind of running around and, oh, I still need to take a shower or I still need to do this when I'm trying to get everyone else kind of moving and making their breakfast on all those things, breakfast isn't going to happen. or it's going to be extremely busy because I am not ready yet. So one of the ways, the biggest way that I start to having a breakfast rhythm is to be ready before my kids are up. And I love to sleep.

I'm not a morning person. Like, this is not an easy thing for me. However, I have seen the benefits of it for a really long time now. And I also don't take a long time to get ready. I don't take showers every day. So, I mean, I, like, that's gross. I mean, I'm a clean person. I just don't shower every single morning.

And so I'm able to save some time. I'm able to, easy to be label. I'm able to be lazy in other places so that I can be a genius about breakfast. I don't have to get up crazy, crazy early. I just get up half an hour before my kids are allowed to get out of bed so that I can go into the kitchen. I'm dressed. My teeth are brushed.

all the things so that I can be present and make breakfast. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero, more. Or like Habinier, yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast.

Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to. your podcasts. Practically, in terms of actually making the breakfast, starting off the rhythm once you move into the kitchen of knowing what you're going to eat or cook for breakfast really helps because then you can start something that might take a few extra minutes. Now, you're not going to do that every single morning, but there may be a morning where you're going to make oatmeal.

And so you're going to go ahead and start a pot of oatmeal first thing and just let a bubble away for 20 minutes while everyone's kind of doing their thing. So if you know what it is you're going to have, you're able to start something that might need to be started. I am a huge believer of breakfast that require very, very little time in the morning, if anything at all. So like on the weekends, you know, a lot of you have make pancakes on Saturday. And a lot of you do what I do as well, where I make a lot of them and then I freeze them. so that over the week, if a kid wants pancakes, I can pull a couple out and they're done in a minute in the microwave. But it's still a hot breakfast. It's still fun. It's, you know, that kind of thing. I do the same thing with

muffins. I do like parfay jars in the refrigerator and make oatmeal that I don't, it takes two seconds to get on the stove and I don't have to do anything to it. The thing that takes the longest, if I ever do it, is making eggs. And I have a tip for you at the end. The lazy genius tip of the week might just change your life on that, on that front. So, so starting with what you're going to have and then starting the thing that might take the longest is really helpful in the beginning to find your morning rhythm. Now, everybody's life, life is different. I can't possibly tell you how you can find your own breakfast rhythm specifically because everybody is so different. But let me share with you mine just so you can kind of get an idea of what I mean. So I get up, well, sadly, I'm all. I'm

often up in the fives because Annie usually wakes up. My baby usually wakes up around 5 o'clock, which is the worst. Because by the time I'm finished nursing her, it's sort of like it's too late to go back to sleep. So it's a bummer. So sometimes I just lie in bed for another half hour, but sometimes I get up. But I'm always up by 6. And I get ready for the day between 6 and 6.30.

And then my kids are allowed to get out of bed at 6.30. They are often up far earlier than that. But they have those alarm clocks that don't alarm them because that would be a terrible idea. I don't want to wake up my kids while they're still sleeping. But a light comes on to say, hey, you can get out of bed now. So their light comes on at 630 for both of my boys. My boys are in, I've got a first grader at the time of this recording. I have a first grader and a son in preschool.

So they both leave the house at different times. But they both are allowed to get up at 630. and at 630, I go into their rooms. They're getting dressed, which is blessings. I did not know the beauty of having kids who could dress themselves. It is magical. Now, sometimes they come out in clothes that are way too short. Like my preschool son, then he will go into his closet where he's got all of his clothes

are in his dresser. But in his closet, he has clothes that are either too small that I've thrown in there because they don't fit him anymore, or they're too big. They're waiting to go into his dresser. dresser once we kind of like shift her own clothes and he'll go in and he'll pull something out of there so it's like gigantic or it's so incredibly short like he's wearing high waters I'm like bug this is not a good idea so of course there's sometimes some oversight on the clothing but for the most part my kids get up and they dress themselves and I go into their bedrooms and say hey good

morning what you want for breakfast this morning yes I let them choose and they don't get to choose anything else in their lives. No. They, I make their lunch. I choose dinner. Um, so I let them choose breakfast. I just think that breakfast is such a fun meal. They both enjoy it and they both enjoy different things. And so I don't really mind that much. So I ask them what they want for breakfast. And I start the morning rhythm that way. And then I move into the kitchen. I unload the dishwasher. if breakfast is something that needs to take a few extra minutes, like a pot of oatmeal, I'll start that first. Then I'll unload the dishwasher.

If I didn't make lunches the night before, which is usual, I will make lunches really quickly that morning. And while I'm cutting fruit for lunches, I'll cut some fruit for breakfast. And while I have out similar ingredients for lunches, I might be able to throw something together for breakfast. But I kind of do all of that at once. Sometimes I'll make my own lunch during that time. just because lunch is a tricky time for me during the day, and I like to eat real food.

I don't want to eat like leftover, like sandwich edges, which, you know, often happens when you have little kids around the house. And so I kind of just do like a big old, let's make all the food for the next six hours kind of thing, which honestly, I get in the kitchen at 630, unload the dishwasher, everybody's sitting down to eat breakfast by 7. It's not like it's a really long, long deal. So we all sit down to eat around seven. That is usually when Annie wakes up.

And so while I sit with my boys and eat breakfast, my husband will go and get Annie. Because my husband doesn't really enjoy eating breakfast. He will eat like a granola bar on the car sometimes. So see, again, it's not like we're all sitting around the table gazing into each other's eyes. Like my husband doesn't even do it. But he doesn't really like breakfast. But what he will do is he'll go get Annie and he'll change your diaper and change your clothes. and he'll come in and they will kind of come and sit at the table for a few minutes with us

while the three of us are eating. So it's still a point of connection, even if not everybody is eating. And then everybody's done by like 715. They go brush their teeth. They play for a couple minutes. They get, you know, all the things. And then my first grader and my husband are out the door, usually around between 730 and 745. And that's it. So it's not, again, I know some of you have kids who have to go to the bus stop at like five in the morning. It's so ridiculous. So there are some early there are some early mornings out there. I totally understand that. But I also want you to know that I have three little kids at home. And this is not like, I can do it. So can you. I'm just wanted to show you that it is possible if you make it a priority and get in our lazy about some other

things, which I totally am. But I have three little kids and we are together in the morning for an hour. That's it, the five of us. And we still eat breakfast together and because it's important. And I love, I just, I love that my boys know that that is part of our lives. And we can sit and, you know, like, what are you, what's your special today at school and what, you know, just asking a couple of different questions or just usually just ends up being a bunch of poop jokes. Let's be real. But it's still important. And I love it. I absolutely love it. There is such a, it's such a gift that I'm given myself. It's really selfish, actually. But I turn into a crazy person as the day goes on. Like, the later in the day, the more likely it is that I have thrown a child off the window.

And so I really love those few minutes in the morning where I remember, I really like these kids. I really enjoy being with them before I don't anymore. So it's really a gift to myself, as much as it is, a gift to them. So maybe I've convinced you about the spiritual discipline of breakfast. Maybe you have some ideas of how to find your own breakfast rhythm. The final thing that we're going to talk about is how to have a sit-down breakfast with on-the-go ease. And frankly, there's just kind of a lot to say about this. And so I wrote a blog post about it that you can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash blog slash breakfast. The show notes for this episode are the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash breakfast. And the link to that post is also in the show

not. So you could just go there if you'd like. But I share with you how to have a sit down breakfast with on the go ease. And really, the key to this is not the food. It's the sitting. It's simply the sitting. A way that you can have on the go ease and sit down is just eat on the go foods with your butt in a chair. I mean, really, if you want to eat granola bars and like protein bars and things that you would normally eat kind of on the way, but sit at a table and eat them, the value is still there. I mean, it's wonderful. But I have some ideas on there about how to find the extra time in the morning, as well as just some ways that you can kind of stock your kitchen a little bit to have breakfast ready super, super fast. So you can read that post and get some ideas

from that. But ultimately, it is possible to have a sit-down breakfast just by sitting in a chair. That's all it takes is for all of you to sit in a chair kind of around the same time. and say, good morning, you're nice. I like having you and my family. Go have a nice day. It is such a gift, and it's why I choose to fix breakfast. So what is our payoff in breakfast being worth it to sit down every single day, sometimes with hot food even? I mean, can you believe it? The payoff is you are nourishing this small moment living, this life in the details of you. Life in the details. living to start off your day on a regular basis. And I just want you to know that it is so, so worth it. Give it a try for a few days. Give it a try for a couple weeks. Maybe over spring

break is coming for a lot of you. If you're listening to this, like when this goes out, maybe that's a good time if you're not going anywhere, especially, or even just to think about like when you do go on vacation and how usually breakfast happens, right? Everybody comes in and sits down and it's glorious. We make pancakes. We do all these special things on the weekends for breakfast because we have the time. But really, it's about the being together. You can still do it without all of that excess time. So just give it a try. I really, really think that you will not regret it at all. There won't be any regret at all. You will be a little upset at the extra or 10 minutes that you wish you could stay in bed. But really, once you get into a habit of waking up

at a certain time, you know, like it's really not a big deal. You start, I mean, I'm saying this as a person who would stay in bed all day if I could. I love a zolibing. So if I can do it, you can do it. Okay. Now let me tell you something. Let me tell you our lazy genius tip of the week, because it's magical. Tori Harder on Instagram. I think it's at Victoria, something harder. I should have looked before. But she had this tip that some of you already do, and I just did it because I didn't want to tell you about it unless it worked. And it did. And it was amazing.

Put an egg, a tablespoon of milk. She didn't say salt, but I like salt. So add a pinch of salt and a little bit of grated cheese. I did goat cheese this morning. You could do cheddar or whatever you want to do. Put it in the microwave. Mix it together in a ramekin and microwave it for a minute. It cooks the egg and it's not that rubbery.

Like I like it better in a pan but only marginally. So if one person wants eggs, like you can teach your kids can do this. It's like hitting buttons on a microwave and mixing some stuff up with a fork. And it worked. It was a good tasting egg. I couldn't believe it. So high five, lazy genius tip of the week. Okay, that is it for today.

Why don't you head to the show notes now, the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash breakfast. I share some of my favorite breakfast recipes. There's a Pinterest board with a lot of other kind of quick. and easy freezer-friendly breakfast for things that you can pull out in the morning to still have that on-the-go ease even though you're sitting down and there is also a link to the Instagram photo with all of that i mean there's like up to 50 comments i think of people sharing different ideas and they're all really really great and you might find some really good ideas to find your own breakfast rhythm to experience the spiritual discipline of breakfast and to realize that it

actually could be a great lazy genius thing to do in your life Thanks for listening, you guys. I'll see you on Instagram at The Lazy Genius and next week on this podcast. Thank you for listening. It means the world to me. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that.

More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves.

Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.