After eating whole wheat bread for well over 10 years, I may have finally switched to white bread. I was recently introduced to Whitewheat and have been very impressed with the taste and nutritional qualities. It is lower in calories and higher in fiber than the fancy whole wheat bread I was eating before the switch. In fact, it’s good enough to make grilled cheese sandwiches that taste normal. The good news is Whitewheat can be purchased at HEB and other regular grocery stores. If you like white bread but don’t like the sugar and lack of anything healthy, I highly recommend it.

Apparently, nutritionists (including my neighbor, who is a nutritionist) are now strongly recommending fish oil for healthy living. Eating fish over red meat has been highly preferred for many years due to the lower fat content and the benefits of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. Unfortunately, much of the fish I prefer is also high in mercury, so taking fish oil supplements looks like a good alternative, and after researching this, there appears to be very little to contradict the health benefits, such as often the case with other supplements. As a skeptic on vitamins in general, the only other two vitamins/minerals that I recommend and take regularly are the following:

Vitamin C
Glucosamine

The trick to buying fish oil is to make sure it’s coated so that it is absorbed in the intestines and not the stomach, so that there is no taste in the mouth. After trying fish oil for a while (~6 months), I’ll write a follow-up to this post with any noticeable benefits or side effects.

Someone recently told me that you can tell whether you are eating too much salt if your sweat burns your eyes. I found this interesting because I thought every person’s sweat burned his/her eyes, but after asking around, this apparently is not so.

Because of this and a documentary I saw about the risks of salt intake, I recently started loosely tracking how much sodium I was consuming. Thus far, I’ve been kind of surprised in the high amount of sodium in some innocent things like salsa, which I love.

While I was clicking around, I found this link from the Salt Institute. According to them, you can eat as much salt as you want. Talk about checking your sources!

As an avid runner, one of the things I often think about is when I see other runners in the street when there is a sidewalk next to the road.  Granted, everyone has a personal preference and may feel better in the street for various reasons; however, I would offer two contrarian reasons to consider switching to the sidewalk.  First, the sidewalk is further from the cars; therefore, it’s just safer in most respects.  Second, running in the street may be placing extra stress on your body.  This is because most streets have a slope as the street stretches to the curb, while most sidewalks are relatively flat.  Running on an angled surface puts the body in an awkward position for an already jarring form of exercise.  If you’re still not convinced, please drop me a comment explaining why, just to satisfy my curiosity. 🙂