Here’s how I manage to create a column every week while teaching or preparing for it about 45 hours a week, working out about another 15, and preparing every single meal I eat. (A cringeworthy culinary confession: Besides eating two baked potatoes and steamed broccoli a la carte at a banquet for my cycling team in 2004, the last time I ate a real restaurant meal the East and West were still separated by the Berlin Wall.)

I read two newspapers daily, five periodicals monthly, and have about 30 health-and-fitness related articles emailed to me automatically each day. I read each emailed article immediately and make a judgment about it. If I feel the article has merit, I translate it into a PDF file and place it on my desktop to read again later.

When my desktop has no more space for new articles, the rereading has to start. During the last round, I found a number of odds and ends worthy of sharing. They follow.

More reasons to eat yogurt regularly

Previously, researchers determined that a diet high in low-fat dairy products like yogurt can help prevent heart problems and related conditions like type 2 diabetes. An Irish study published in Nutrition & Diabetes last August found that people who eat more dairy products than normal — even full-fat versions — have a lower body mass index, less body fat, higher insulin sensitivity, and lower blood pressure than those who eat less; moreover, milk and yogurt were linked to a lower body fat percentage and lower inflammatory markers.

Additionally, analysis published this February in the American Journal of Hypertension found that eating yogurt can lower cardiovascular disease risk in men and women with high blood pressure.

In short, eating low-fat or non-fat yogurt — especially Greek — should be something you regularly do. If you’re not a big fan of the food, do what I so often encourage you to do: experiment.

To give Greek yogurt an almost ice cream cake-like consistency, add a high-fiber cereal, such as Fiber One, a day or two before you plan to eat it. The fiber leeches much of the liquid from the yogurt during this time.

If you enjoy the yogurt that way, you may like it even better after 30 minutes or so in your freezer. Add the right amount of natural, calorie-free sweeteners — stevia and erythritol — and you might just think that you’re eating ice cream cake.

Maybe.

More reasons to eat breakfast — and a big one — regularly

Regular readers know I advocate eating small, frequent meals of mostly protein and complex carbohydrates every two to three hours throughout the day. While I still believe that’s the most effective eating strategy if you’re in shape and want to maintain a healthy body weight, there may be a more effective way to eat if you’re really overweight and also need to better control your blood sugar levels.

Research presented at ENDO 2018, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, held in Chicago this year found that adults who were obese and had type 2 diabetes lost more weight and had better blood glucose levels after 3 months when they had a high-energy breakfast every day as opposed to the sort of eating schedule I suggest.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel discovered that how your body handles food changes based on the time of the day. Lead author of the study, Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz, told Medical News Today that “a slice of bread consumed at breakfast leads to a lower glucose response and is less fattening than an identical slice of bread consumed in the evening.”

Partially because of this, when Jakubowicz’s team had obese adults with type 2 diabetes eat what they considered a high-energy breakfast followed by a medium-sized lunch and a small evening meal, they lost a significant amount of weight, an average of 11 pounds, in three months. A control group that ate in the manner I usually prescribe — six small meals spaced throughout the day, plus three snacks — gained weight, an average of 3.08 pounds.

More reasons to eat well — all the time

When researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University gave 10 young men — all clearly in good health — a single high-fat, high-calorie milkshake similar to the ones purchased at fast food restaurants, ice cream shops, and convenience stores, their bodies immediately produced a substance linked to the sorts of blood vessel problems that lead to heart attacks. The shape and size of their red blood vessels changed, and detectable changes in white blood cells and plasma also occurred.

Though the researchers theorized that all those negative consequences quickly abate with time, they also believe that’s why fatal heart attacks sometimes occur immediately after high-fat meals.