Newbie workout tip: avoid blisters by avoiding anklet socks

Especially when you're first starting out, after about 15 minutes of decent acitivity, you're probably going to be pretty sweaty. You've already seen my tip on how quickly changing a sweaty shirt can help you avoid stiffness/soreness post-workout. Here's another sweat-hack:

Avoid anklet socks. You know those socks that barely creep up your ankle? When you get sweaty and on a roll while you're walking or running without interruption, a couple things can happen:

• the sock can slightly creep down below the back of your ankle, making it so your shoe rubs against the back of your ankle/heel.
  
• the sock can creep down and bunch up in your shoe, creating a sock ridge, that when rubbed enough, creates a blister

Anyway your mileage may vary. I actually like anklet socks, and when not working out, wear them a bit, so no need to throw out your anklets. Also, the alternative isn't giant long knee-highs. Even just an inch or two above the end of the heel will protect you.

Post work-out stiffness hack: Change your shirt ASAP if you can't take a shower right after a sweat.

Ideally after a workout, you take a warm shower. But there are a few situations when it doesn't always work out. (For me, I do cardio (usually treadmill) before I do strength training (usually light weights), and I'm sweaty and cooling down from the cardio while I do weights... at least 20 minutes in between treadmill time and shower time.)
So here's what you absolutely have to do: if you're not taking a shower right afterwards, change your shirt. Possibly even your undies and shorts, basically anything that gets a little damp.
Aside from smelling nicer (not my main point, I swear!), this prevents your damp clothes from cooling on your body and making you stiff. Having damp cool clothes on your post-workout body can make you sore in areas you weren't even working out (neck, lower back, etc). I find that if I have any delay at all between workout and shower (chatting with friends, chilling out with water, etc), I at least make a beeline for a quick shirt change. This has drastically reduced my post-workout soreness.
While a fresh tshirt isn't quite as nice as a hot shower, it can hold you over for when a shower is 20 minutes + away. Pack that extra shirt!

60 Minutes' missed opportunity to focus on ALL chains publishing caloric info, instead of just fast food ones

As pointed out by Skinny Jeans in a tweet, 60 minutes had a story this evening about restaurants and calorie info. Unfortunately, it was the wrong story. They chose a rather specific angle about a well-meaning, but perhaps misguided New York activist health commissioner, Thomas Friedan (...Has outlawed trans fat in NYC, and most public smoking), who wants NYC fast food restaurants to visually display caloric information on their menu. Not make it available on websites (they already do that) not have it on a giant poster (they already do that) not have it in brochures on-site (they already do that.) No. Add it to a fourth place; the menu, when other chains don't have calorie data anywhere.

This guy is starting to seem forced and political. I really depend on calorie info, and would kill for places I actually want to eat at to have even half of the same data available that fast food chains do.

Fast food restaurants easily have the most information about their food and caloric content compared to any other kind of chain restaurant (I'm letting non-chains off the hook here.) Tried looking up caloric info for PF Chang's? Macaroni Grill? Red Robin? Denny's? Chili's? Ruby Tuesday's? (Covered in this episode as a restaurant that tried and then abandoned publishing caloric info.) Some of these places have selected info available on their website, for some of their items, but they're far behind fast food places in terms of having good data. Keep in mind I'm not confusing fast food (horrible) with fast food data (the best I've seen of restaurants). But if the issue is having good info available so citizens can make healthy decisions, please go after other chains for a first layer of data, before grilling fast food chains for a fourth. "Upscale" chains often use equally scary ingredients and portions.

When all is right with the world, I cook at home, but when I know I'm going to be away for extended period of times, I actually do check websites and online menu's and try to plan ahead for what I can order. I'm often frustrated trying to look up info for chains. Their menus are just as regimented as fast food places, so it should be quite easy for them to make this info available.

I'd also like to add something regarding this episode. In the name of "balanced" coverage, they went to a Subway to show an example of one of the few chains that wanted to participate in displaying calorie info right on the menu. The menu displayed a calorie number for a particular size with a particular set of condiments. Leslie Stahl feigned total confusion at how to keep track of how the changes in her sandwich size and additional condiments changed the calorie count displayed on the menu (!!!!?!). As pointed out by commenters on both the Yahoo 60 minutes site, and official CBS one, this wasn't really believable.

• Related: A feature about Thomas Friedan, a well meaning but kind of over-controlling seeming politician.

So that's the difference between steel-cut and rolled oats

Though you wouldn't know it from my food diary this week, oatmeal is kind of a staple for me. It's cheap, it's healthy, and it's easy to measure!
Because I eat whole rolled oats, I've generally felt pretty good about my oat habit. However, part of me has been wondering lately what "steel cut" oats were all about. They're always staring back at me when I grab the old school rolled oats. Their uneven appearance suggests they might be healthier, right? And especially given how bad I've been with fruits and vegetables lately, any way to get more fiber is of interest.
But tonight I read a post that suggests there is no nutritional difference between rolled and steel cut oats. The author readily admits to not being the definitive last word on the subject, but I still feel I have a way better idea what the heck steel cut oats are all about.

Steel-cut oats are the less processed version of the oats we’re more familiar with, rolled oats... While rolled oats are just as much a whole grain as steel-cut, they have been steamed, flattened, steamed again and then toasted dry. A steel-cut oat is simply cut into three or four pieces and then dried. Some people say the rolled oat, being more processed, has less nutrition and less flavor than the steel-cut variety, but I haven’t found any conclusive proof of that (in three minutes of googling)...steel-cut oats take much, much longer to cook than rolled oats. It can take steel cut oats up to 40 minutes to cook, compared to rolled oats which finish up in a mere 5 minutes. Steel-cut retain their texture better after cooking, resulting in a chewier breakfast than standard rolled oats provide. Some people who are really into their oats insist that the steel-cut version has a nuttier, fuller flavor.

Check out the rest of the post here. It's a great recipe blog, that though vegan is of interest to anybody looking for inspiration. I'm a lousy cook, and barely ever make things from scratch. But I look at sites like that just to remind me of a wider spectrum of foods. Diets can put you in a rut, remember to look around every once in a while!

Late-night snack hack #2: Don't go to bed too late. Your body will eventually want another meal. 11PM brain is not a health nut.

(In this post I will talk about "11PM brain." We all have different schedules and energy cycles. Please adjust any specifics I mention here to your own situation.)

I'm a night owl. Though my job is pretty 9-5 (more on that later), I get a certain kind of "second wind" many nights, and will dig into a big idea or project (work-related/domestic/artistic) at a ridiculous hour and rev up when I really should be revving down.

On the one hand, I love this, I like owning personal time and not totally vegging out and being "useless after work." But the downside is that I lose track of time and energy, and before I know it, it can be many hours since the last time I ate, and I get totally hungry out of nowhere. Now in theory, this really shouldn't be a problem, we should eat every few hours, and if you're awake long enough, you do need more food eventually, right?

Err, kind of.

The problem with the 11PM meal for me is that: at that time of night, I never feel like all the healthy food that sounds good in the middle of the day. A big salad? A stir fry? It just sounds too hard to digest and prepare (Notice I say sounds hard, not really is hard, late-night brain is dumb :D ). A crunchy Gala apple? No. 11PM-brain wants mac and cheese. Or crackers. Or a quesadilla. 11PM brain is dumb and picky.

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't be awake at 11pm! I'm just saying you shouldn't be revving up at 11PM.

I can't pretend I've really conquered this one, or even totally understand it, but I've experienced it enough times for it to be more than a theory.

Some things I do to settle down:

• I at least tuck myself in early, even if I plan on staying awake for a bit. I have a laptop with wireless, so I can work/ watch movies in bed. If you don't have a laptop: a novel, or notepad and pen would work, too.
  
• I do hygiene stuff (wash face/brush teeth) early, even if I won't be sleeping for a bit. (People always advise teeth-brushing to prevent snacking, I know, but I'm doing it with a different perspective!)
• I'll write in my journal, just because it settles my brain down.

Basically if I'm within a couple hours of when I want to go to bed, or a few hours away from when I last ate, I try to be very mindful of putting my head in a place that won't get caught up in brand new worries/projects/ideas at a time of day when it really should be about tidying up and winding down.

This is something I really struggle with, as I'm a little OCD and very high-energy. I'd love to hear how you guys conquer this.

Late-night snack hack #1: Hang out with somebody. Even virtually.

It's happened to all of us. We're on a diet, motivated and breezing through the day eating right, busy living life, and then nighttime falls, and strange mental and physical pangs threaten to undo all the progress we've made during the day.

I have lots of pretty decent theories about why this happens and what I do to get around it (or at least understand it). I'll be covering it over four posts.

Late-night Snack Hack #1:

Be social, even if it's only in your mind.
The first "hack" or strategy to fight nighttime snacking is based on an observation I made about myself:

When I'm out with friends/at an event/a catered meeting/gathering, I eat less, and just find food less interesting than when I'm by myself. Now the armchair psychologist would say that that's because I'm self-conscious about eating in front of people. They'd be wrong, at least with me. I actually love talking about food with people and trying stuff with them, just like it's a new song. I got no issues with food + people, and think many others fall into this category.

I eat less around other people because my mind is totally busy and stimulated by stuff other than food. I'm not fixating on looking forward to the "what's for dinner" question, or disapointed when "Dinner's already over, now what?!?" when there's so much other stuff to think about.

The hard part of this is, when dieting, it's way easier for me NOT to go out, because I have more control of food at home. So when I suggest that you be social at night, I don't necessarily mean go out to eat with others. What I do is plan phone calls with friends who are on the hyper-ambitious side. For some reason getting fired up about career stuff, or creative projects, or anything even slightly ambitious gets me physically anxious and anti-hungry (and in a good mood.).

Your triggers and enthusiams may vary, so season to taste. Plan a phone call, meet somebody for tea, talk on IM, or just sit down by yourself and write a letter/email. Read others' emails/blogs in a non ADD compulsive way (daytime communication can be frantic and half-hearted, this nighttime stuff is different.) Sit back, enjoy the moment, concentrate, and connect!

The idea is to stimulate your brain with socializing so that the only reason you're thinking of food isn't compulsion or passive stimulation, but just real hunger.

Feed your brain with people, and you won't want to feed your mouth.*