Recently in Sport and fitness Category

Lynne Kiesling

I'm outta here for a couple of weeks of bicycling! Sunday night we will arrive in Pierre, South Dakota, from whence we bike east along the Missouri River to St. Charles, Missouri. We are biking the first one-third of the Lewis & Clark Trail in reverse, accompanied by their journals and other history-relevant readings. Should be fun!

If you would like to keep up with our journey, I've created a blog, L&C Bike Tour, as our online journal. We will post as often as Internet access permits.

I am also using this trip as an opportunity to raise awareness and funding for the Melanoma International Foundation. The Melanoma International Foundation funds patient assistance programs, providing reassurance and understanding on the journey of having the disease as well as providing free screening and awareness events. They provide education through their professionally moderated forum and helpline. Melanoma can be fatal, especially if not caught early. But there's also a lot of low-hanging fruit in melanoma prevention -- broad-brimmed hats, protective clothing, staying indoors or in the shade during the most intense midday hours.

I am using this bike ride to request pledges and donations to support the excellent and important work of the Melanoma International Foundation. In particular, your pledges here will support the Leroy Coolbreeze Fund at the Melanoma International Foundation.

The Leroy Coolbreeze Fund honors the memory of Ian Copeland, a legendary music agent and bon vivant who brought great joy to many people throughout his too-short life. Along with his brothers Stewart (best known as the drummer in The Police) and Miles (who, among other things, managed The Police and founded IRS Records), Ian brought music into being that changed my life and thrilled me starting in the late 1970s. Their work continues to thrill and excite me to this day. Ian died from melanoma in 2006. My request for your support is a testimony to the value the Copeland family has brought to my life, and the joy I experience daily through listening to and playing the music that they have created.

As my friends and I ride along the Lewis & Clark Trail, please give to this worthy cause. If you can specify the "Leroy Coolbreeze Fund" and "Lynne" in your donation, then the great MIF folks will take it from there, and will know that our Lewis & Clark Trail bike tour is raising your awareness of the importance of melanoma outreach and research, and enabling them to do even more of this important work.

Lynne Kiesling

A casual weekend post ... I know that some KP readers are fellow triathletes, and I appreciate your interest in my training and racing plans. Here's a summary, with more below the fold.

Race plans. I am doing two triathlons this summer: the Tri Shark sprint triathlon on 7 June and the Pleasant Prairie olympic distance triathlon on 17 August. It's a light race season, but that's because in late June I am doing a 987-mile bike ride over the first third of the Lewis & Clark trail. So the balance this summer is shifting a little to cycling and off of triathlon.

Training. Not surprisingly, given above, it's been cycling-centric. The weather this winter was pretty bad for outdoor cycling, so it's been rollers for me! Sadly, I still can't stand doing more than an hour on the rollers, even with the best DVD on the planet in the player. But what I'm finding this spring more than in past springs is that just getting in the saddle frequently is the most important thing for me, just to get the body habituated to being in the saddle. I think that's because I kept up a pretty decent level of base fitness over the winter. My swimming is as it always is -- I'm a strong swimmer, so I'm doing enough swimming to be fit, but I'm really focusing on the cycling this season.

More below the fold ...

Michael Giberson

There's been a lot written about game-fixing in basketball lately, but not much about an obvious game fixing episode in World Cup Quidditch.

That is to say, not much written about quidditch match fixing until now. Phil Birnbaum fills the gap at the Sabermetric Research blog.

And then there was the suspicious episode in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets during the big Gryffindor vs Slytherin match. As we only learn later, Dobby, the Malfoy's house elf, enchanted a bludger to chase after Harry and in trying to dodge the bludger Harry fell and broke an arm. I wouldn't be surprised if Lucius Malfoy himself had a little wager on the game.

Lynne Kiesling

Then on Sunday the KP Spouse and I did the McHenry County Bicycle Club's Udder Century Invitational with a friend of ours. We did the metric century, 62 miles, which was plenty after my triathlon exertions on the previous day.

McHenry County has lots of lovely, rolling countryside, and great biking roads. The weather was glorious until about mile 50, when the rain started. We had a deluge for about a mile or so, and rain for about 7 miles total, but it was OK. I think we are going to spend a lot more time riding out there!

Lynne Kiesling

We had a sporty weekend here in KP land ... on Saturday I participated in the Tri-Shark sprint triathlon outside of Bloomington, Illinois. Here's an action shot:

The race is well-organized and the course is beautiful; Dawson Lake in Moraine View State Park is great for swimming, the bike course has some lovely rolling hills, and the run is similarly lovely. What interested me compared to the other sprint tris I've done is that the participants here are more experienced and more competitive than I'm used to (although everyone was nice and friendly). This is a high-demand event, with registration usually closing within a few days.

More comments on the race below the cut ...

Michael Giberson

Today I did something new. Something I’ve never tried before. I walked into the local Barnes and Noble bookstore and bought a diet book.

I’ve never really though of myself as overweight. For most of my life I haven’t been overweight. For the last few years, however, I have thought of myself as needing to lose a few pounds -- unlike Lynne, I am no triathlete -- and over the past few years I have added pounds rather than losing a few.

I got naked earlier today and stepped on a scale: 198.4 pounds. A quick BMI calculation online produced a 27.3. The number puts me smack in the middle of the “Overweight” category.

Lots of people try lots of diets. Over the last few years I have heard people talk about their low fat, South Beach, low carb, Atkins, high fiber, unprocessed foods, more veggies, weight watchers, and how to take it off and how to keep it off diets.

Two things I’ve noticed about people on diets: they can’t seem not to talk about their diets; and, except for the people in TV commercials, none of them seemed to be having fun. And while I get that not everything in life has to be fun, the general tenor of the discussions tended to put me off the idea. Plus, many didn’t seem to work.

My feeling about the matter was, I’m happy for lots of people to try lots of different diets, and if something actually works, word will get out, and then I’ll give it a go. I’m a big fan of experiments, especially when other people are paying the costs and I can sit around and wait. I guess I’m ready to join the lab rats.

Wandering through the bookstore, I came across Seth Robert’s paperback edition of The Shangri-La Diet. (Previously mentioned on KP here and here.) I’ve been thinking about the “SLD” half-seriously since David Tufte’s one-year anniversary post at voluntaryXchange. Picked the book up, scanned through, read the Stephen Dubner quote on the back cover (and front cover, and again inside – apparently they really liked the Dubner quote.)

The second quote at the beginning of Chapter 4 caught my eye: “It appealed to my essential laziness.” (The quote was by-lined “A Blogger’s Reason for Trying the Shangri-La Diet.” Now you know that I stole my title.) I think for me the “laziness” aspect is part of the appeal for me – it looks astoundingly easy to do. But in addition to my essential laziness, the book also appeals to my essential curiosity. It is a little quirky. Roberts is interesting. I’d like to give it a shot.

So I’ve bought the book. I’ll probably start in a few days. If I’m lucky, I will drop 25 pounds or so and never have to buy another diet book again in my life.

Lynne Kiesling

Now I've gone and done it; I've registered for the Olympic distance Pleasant Prairie Triathlon on 19 August. In triathlon lingo, this race will be my A race for the summer.

Anxiety over this will surely get my butt on the bike rollers this winter, even when I'd like to stay in bed ...

Lynne Kiesling

I signed up for my first planned trathlon of 2007 today: Tri Shark Sprint Triathlon, 2 June 2007. Off-season training is going well, although I've been a bit lacking in motivation during the past two weeks.

One of the Christmas presents in the KP house was a "killer headwind" attachment to our bike rollers, and that's made for some more challenging trainer sessions! And one of the strangest things is that I've had a discrete jump to a different running plateau; I used to be happy if I could churn out a 3-mile run in 35 minutes, but now my median run is 5.5 miles in 55-60 minutes, just over a 10-minute mile and almost 6 of them in a row! It's been gratifying to see this improvement in the sport out of the three that's the most challenging for me.

Lynne Kiesling

Sunday was the Accenture Chicago Triathlon. I had been hesitating to do this event for years because of the sheer mass of humanity: this year there were 8,000 athletes and 500,000 spectators. Happily, my sprint-distance wave was not too congested, and I was more able to swim than I expected. I had more fun and did better than I expected. Here are some pics:

Results:

• Swim 750m: 20min 54 sec (3min of which were the 0.25 mile run to the transition area, ugh!)
  
• Transition 1: 2min 50sec
  
• Bike 22k: 44min 24sec
  
• Transition 2: 4min 4sec
  
• Run 5k: 30min 28sec
  

Total time: 1hr 42min 41sec. Rank 598 out of 1718 total sprint participants (65th percentile), swim rank 548, bike rank 462 (!), run rank 968, sex rank 191 (although I don't know how many women participated in the sprint). I had fun, of course the racecourse is the most beautiful city in the world, and even the sheer mass of humanity was fun, because the participants, volunteers and organizers were all great.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled economics content ...

Lynne Kiesling

One of the ways to talk about using experimental economics to test-bed policy changes is to use the metaphor of the wind tunnel. Either as a metaphor or as an actual engineering tool, the wind tunnel can be extremely valuable.

It's also true for cycling, as seen in this article from Bicycling magazine about MIT's cycling team. They use the school wind tunnel to work on their performance, tweaking the margins between power and efficiency, depending on what type of race it is (time trials are a different beast from road races, for example).

A very cool article. My favorite sentence:

It's not as much about proving that we're strong cyclists as it is about proving that it's not just being strong that makes you a good cyclist.

I also didn't realize that having my bottle on the down bar was so much less aerodynamic than having it on the seat bar. Have to change that!

Hat tip to Steve Antler at EconoPundit. I hate to burst Steve's preconception that the MIT crowd isn't athletic, but in cycling, the intersection between geekiness and prowess is large. Whether it's obsessing about your bike, your gear, your cyclocomputer, your body position, your cadence, technology is one of the cyclist's best friends. So it doesn't surprise me that Team MIT would win their regionals! Although Cornell's got a lot of engineers too (and gorgeous cycling terrain), so what gives there?

Lynne Kiesling

Ooooh, this is enticing. Blenheim Triathlon, 2-3 June 2007. Feeds my sports lust and my Anglophilia, all in one go. Boy, the KP Spouse is going to roll his eyes when he hears about this one ... and then of course there's the London Triathlon, 4-5 August 2007.

Lynne Kiesling

Finally, a moment's rest to provide a triathlon update (thanks for asking, Susan!)! The Subaru Women's Triathlon in Naperville, Illinois was Sunday. An action shot from my favorite part of the race, the bike:

My time was 1:36:59; the splits are

• Swim 500m 12:58
  
• Trans1 4:06
  
• Bike 22k 45:50
  
• Trans2 3:52
  
• Run 5k 30:14
  

This constitutes an 8.5 minute improvement over my 1:45:35 last year! I placed 529th overall (out of 1604) instead of 972nd, a heartening improvement! I placed 80th out of 262 in the 40-44 age category, which is in the 69th percentile.

Qualitatively I can say that my ability to train by running made a huge difference in my overall fitness and preparedness. Last year my plantar fasciitis meant running on the elliptical, which enabled me to finish but was detrimental for my time. I found that 3-4 workouts per week, plus yoga once a week, and that put me in good enough shape to do well. Areas where I can improve without too much stress are a minute off of the swim, a quicker second transition, and some time off of the bike. Improving the run may be more than my biomechanically-challenged feet are up for, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Most importantly, I had more fun than last year! And many thanks to the KP Spouse, the KP Dad, and the KP Buddy Sharon for coming to cheer me on!

Lynne Kiesling

I just got in from the best run I've had in four years. Yes, seriously. 60 minutes, strong to the end, probably about six miles total. I'm totally jazzed.

Some folks have very kindly asked how my triathlon training is going. Punch line: much better than last year. I credit one thing above all else: gear. A sensible year-round training regime is also deserving of much credit, and that regime is a function of gear changes I've made in the past year.

In sympathy with those of you who don't give a rat's patootie about triathlon, I'll elaborate below the fold.

Lynne Kiesling

Here's an amusing cultural amalgamation: I am getting ready for triathlon season, and so am thumbing through the Tri Zone catalog that just appeared in my mailbox. When you do tris that are Olympic or longer, you want energy and hydration close to hand while you're on the bike. Here's a solution: the Bento Box! Gu and energy bars instead of sushi.

I just had to laugh at the economic anthropology inherent in that marketing choice. Grant McCracken, call your office!

Given that I am doing two sprints this summer (Reebok Women's in Naperville, 25 June, and Accenture Chicago in Chicago, 27 August), I don't need a Bento Box to get me through the race. But I'll keep it in mind for maybe doing a full Olympic in Chicago in 2007 ...

Lynne Kiesling

Guess what? There's a women's football (that's American football) league, and it's got a Chicago team called the Force.

Even better: my fellow triathlete and bike/run spinning class instructor Mandy is a rookie wide receiver on the team!

If you're in town and want to spectate, they play at Lane Tech HS field, and have a game this weekend, this Saturday at 3 PM against Detroit. Go Force!

UPDATE: My hometown of Pittsburgh has a team too, called the Passion.

Michael Giberson

An update on my "Markets vs. Wisdom of Crowds" NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament brackets. See the earlier discussion here. The Market bracket (based on Ticket Reserve fan forward prices) beat the Wisdom bracket (based on ESPN's "national bracket" aggregation of 3 million plus entries submitted), with final scores in the ESPN tournament challenge of 660 to 580 (at the 80th percentile and 56th percentile, respectively).

On the other hand, my personal entry came back from its early-round failures to attain a respectable 810 points (at the 97th percentile), only about 82,600 spots out of the money. My bounce back resulted solely from guessing correctly that UCLA would prevail over Gonzaga and Memphis, and eventually reach the championship game. Lest you think me smart or wise about such things, Memphis and UCLA were the only 2 teams I correctly picked for the Elite Eight round.

So there you have it: it is better to be lucky than smart. Remember, you saw it here first.

Michael Giberson

Once again this year, like millions of folks around the country, I filled out a NCAA basketball tournament bracket. Once again, my bracket is far from perfect. Once again, this year, I have been searching for an edge. (Preferably, the kind of edge that will enable me to out-pick my sports-minded, math-teacher wife.)

By the way, I take no comfort from Carl Bialik�s column in the WSJ which suggests that the odds of picking a perfect bracket are 1 in 150 million, or 1 in 124 billion, or maybe 1 in 36 million billion, depending on how you set up your model. (Hat tip to Skip Sauer.)

Having followed the Ticket Reserve market for NCAA basketball tournament "fan forwards," (see here and here) I wondered whether fan forward prices were a reliable indicator of likely winners in the tournament. A fan forward for the regional games pays off in the ability to purchase tickets to the game at face value if the selected team wins in the first two rounds. If the value of a ticket to a regional game is independent of the teams that reach the regional games, then the fan forward price reflects the probability of the team�s success.

After entering my own bracket into the ESPN.com Tournament Challenge, at 9 AM last Thursday I checked Ticket Reserve prices and filled out a "Market Signal" bracket, in each case selecting as winner the team with the higher priced fan forward. For comparison, I entered a third bracket based upon the favorites shown in ESPN�s national bracket, which tabulates all submissions to the site. I called this third bracket "Wisdom of Crowds" (with apologies to James Surowiecki). I thought that picks based on Ticket Reserve prices in a real money market for ticket options would be superior to picks based on the aggregation of entries into the no-cost-to-enter ESPN Tournament Challenge. By the way, the brackets were very similar, only differing in 8 of 63 picks.

With two rounds played, Market is beating Wisdom of Crowds. Using ESPN�s scoring the results are: Market-460, Wisdom-420. These scores put Market surpassing 95 percent of all entries submitted to ESPN, while Wisdom is down at 67 percent.

Market has won out so far by picking Kentucky over UAB, Wichita State over Seton Hall; and Arizona over Wisconsin in the first round, and picking West Virginia to win in the second round. On the other hand, Market had Arkansas while Wisdom picked first-round winner Bucknell. Notice that in each of these cases Market took the favorite and Wisdom picked the slight upset; Wisdom was right once.

For the regional games beginning tonight, Market has UCLA beating Gonzaga and losing to Memphis in Oakland, while Wisdom has Gonzaga prevailing over both teams and reaching the final four. The remaining picks are identical until the championship, where Market says Duke and Wisdom says UConn.

My own bracket scores a 410 -- 57 percent -- thank you for asking. Next year I think I�ll play the "Market."

UPDATE: After the 3rd Round, Market hit the 97th percentile on the ESPN Tournament Challenge, while Wisdom sank lower. But Saturday's game were no help to either bracket, with Market listing Duke and Memphis as winners while Wisdom had Duke and Gonzaga. (At 660 pts, 88th percentile; and 580 points, 61st percentile).

On the other hand, my own bracket had UCLA beating Memphis and has come to 690 pts in the ESPN scoring system, at the 94th percentile.

Michael Giberson

The 65-team field selections had barely finished being announced on Sunday when CBS commentators began complaining about the selections and the seedings. One ESPN story on the subject is online here. Sports commentators are paid for maintaining audience, and controversy probably keeps an audience tuned in, but what does the market data say about the seedings?

Ticket Reserve price data from before and after the selection reveals a market response to the tournament seeds. (I described Ticket Reserve in a prior post, here.) I collected data from the Ticket Reserve website just before Sunday�s selection show, and then again on Tuesday morning. Since little new information on the expected tournament performance of teams has entered the market except for the announcement of the tournament selections and seedings, I�m asserting that the market response is due to the informational surprises contained in the selections/seedings.

Sure, the analysis is a bit loosey-goosey here -- I�m not doing serious econometrics, just looking at simple changes in bids and asks, and drawing inferences. If you want more careful analysis, email me and I�ll send you the data.

The data is in the form of bids and asks for Ticket Reserve �fan forwards� for the NCAA men�s basketball regional and final four games. They are offering two levels of fan forwards for the final four games, so each team has three sets of bids/asks. If, since the seedings were announced, bids and asks for a team have tended to go up, it suggests that they were given a better seeding than expected. Alternately, if the bids and asks have fallen, it suggests that the team was given a worse-than-expected position in the field.

Simple enough? Okay, lets look at the data.

In short, the clear �winner� in the seedings was UCLA. For UCLA, all bids and asks were up after the Sunday announcements, and it was the only team with all six data points higher. Boston College and Tennessee also did well relative to the rest, with bids and asks either higher or unchanged.

Losers, relative to market expectations, were Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Memphis, and, less dramatically, Illinois and George Washington. All of the Memphis bids and asks fell after the announcement (and it was the only team with all six data points lower), and 5 of the six bids/asks fell for Pittsburgh and Ohio State. Illinois and GW bids and asks either fell or were unchanged.

The fall in the Memphis bids and asks is hard to explain, especially for the regional fan forward, given that they are the #1 seed in the Oakland Region. Memphis contract holders can�t be worried about #16 Oral Roberts, can they? Perhaps #8 Arkansas is more of a threat then Memphis fans hoped for. The market suggests no: both the #9 Bucknell and Arkansas best asks for the regional fan forward also dropped slightly after the announcement. By the way, UCLA is #2 seed in the Oakland Region.

Michael Giberson

The 65 teams for the NCAA men�s basketball tournament have been selected. Maybe your team has been seeded well and suddenly you think there is a chance they will make it through to the Regional finals (aka the �Sweet 16�). Can you still get tickets?

Sure, from some casual searching, I found online ticket vendors offering tickets at prices for as low as $150 for the Minneapolis Region to no lower than $370 for the Washington, D.C. Region. (Prices for the regional three-game weekend.)

Of course, had you known that your team had a good chance to make the regionals, you might have bought tickets earlier, perhaps finding tickets at the face value of $130 for upper deck seating. Except that until the seedings are announced, you have no idea which of the four regions you team has a chance to play in.

TicketReserve.Com offers a way around this logistical problem. In the continuation I explain what TicketReserve offers, why I think it is cool, why I think their �game-within-the-game� is not ready for prime time, and how much it will cost you to bypass the ticket brokers using TicketReserve.

Lynne Kiesling

Feeling sporty here at KP ... I am happy that the Olympics have begun with women's hockey, and have been watching as much of it as possible. I have not seen either USA game, although I have seen both Italy games. Italy lost to Canada 16-0 and just this morning lost to Sweden 11-0. Italy was definitely outplayed, but they sure stuck with it. Their starting goalie was incredibly impressive, especially against Canada. Since I haven't seen USA play, I can't compare, but Canada is looking really good.

Actually, I was tickled by something that only my father and other long-time Pittsburgh Penguins fans will appreciate. One of the best forwards for Canada is #10, Gillian Apps. She is the daughter of Syl Apps, long-time Penguin who I remember fondly from my youth.

I am impressed with how NBC is using technology to provide information about schedules, results, etc. They are providing lots of stats for all of the women. You can also sign up for alerts.

Yay women's hockey!

Lynne Kiesling

There are few better ways to start a sunny summer Friday than an early morning bike ride on Chicago's lakefront. Breathtakingly, stunningly gorgeous, and a great way to clear the mind for a day of thinking about complexity, dynamics, and electricity policy.

This will be a biking weekend, too, so running across this quote earlier today was apt:

"Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I'm on my bike... six hours a day. What are you on?"

Lance Armstrong

Have a great weekend!

Lynne Kiesling

The last time I did a triathlon was about 18 years ago; I can't even recall the exact date. In college I did a few, and I was in shape enough from soccer that I could do a sprint triathlon (0.5 mi swim, 14 mi bike, 3.1 mi run) without even training.

Not so any more; work, other interests, and an aging body have distracted me from triathlons. In 1997 I intended to do one, but injured my knee playing squash and couldn't train. Then I got distracted by yucky life stuff. Then I started playing hockey, which I found wonderful and all-consuming (but too time-consuming, which is why I've had to stop). Then last year I signed up for a triathlon, but got plantar fascitiis while training.

This year I trained sensibly and in a disciplined way, with only as much running as I had to do, and finished the Reebok Naperville/Chicago Women's Triathlon (results will be posted at this link soon after the event).

According to my unofficial watch, I even finished in 1:45:35, 5 minutes faster than my target time. And that's even though I lost two minutes in the swim, which was more of a scrum than I anticipated. I am a good swimmer, but it's hard to train for the adaptation to the kicking and water swallowing that inevitably occurs in a competitive event.

Even better than the feeling of accomplishment is the fact that I had fun, and the KP Spouse was a great cheering section, as were all of the spectators. I hope I don't wait another 18 years for my next one!

Lynne Kiesling

Congratulations to the Northwestern women's lacrosse team, which won this year's NCAA championship with a perfect 21-0 record! See local news coverage from NU Sports, the Sun-Times and the Tribune.

This is the first NCAA title for Northwestern since 1941. Yes, that's before the last time the Cubs went to the World Series ...

I would like to send a special shout out to awesome econ major scholar-athlete Courtney Koester, who "dominated faceoffs as she has all year" (from the Trib article).

Congratulations!

Lynne Kiesling

Ooooooh! If only I were better organized. I am going to visit dear friends in Hamburg this weekend, but if I had paid a lick of attention I would have chosen to be in Paris on Sunday for the kickoff of the 103rd Paris-Roubaix, one of the classic bicycle races in all the world, Paris-Roubaix is famous for the spine-tingling and kidney-jangling variety of terrain, including a famous amount of cobblestones.

In bad condition for the past few years, the Wallers-Arenberg forest stretch cannot be taken this year. Therefore the itinerary will be directed towards the South of Valenciennes, where the riders will discover a brand new cobblestone section, in Aulnoy-lez-Valenciennes, with an uphill climb of 1600 m. The total length of the cobbled sections this year is 54,7 km (51,1 km in 2004).

That's 54.7 km out of a total race length of 259 km; i.e., over 20% of the race will be this nasty stretch of cobblestones.

Now, as someone who until recently was riding a 19-year-old triathlon bike (with first generation index shifting), and has bought an aluminum frame bike, the thought of cobblestones continues to make my sitz bones hurt at the thought. But what fun to watch these great cyclists navigate such difficult terrrain! Dork that I am, I have followed the Paris-Roubaix since I started riding seriously in college, but in with all of the other excitements of this trip it completely escaped my notice.

UPDATE: The American George Hincapie comes in 2nd! A very good showing. I'm off to look for highlights on the sports channels ...

Lynne Kiesling

While browsing last evening after dinner I found this interesting discussion at The Morning News about "the French paradox", largely sparked by the recent publication of Mireille Guiliano's book French Women Don't Get Fat.

It's essentially a panel discussion about differences between French and American eating, fitness, and social habits as they involve food. One of the participants in the discussion is the wonderful Clotilde from Chocolate & Zucchini, a wonderful food blog.

The interesting this is I've been in France a week now, and while I eat pretty well and am very active at home, for some reason I find that I am eating smaller meals here. And I've been mostly cooking for myself, so I can't claim restaurant portions are smaller or any such thing.

Norah Vincent asks about protein intake and mood. My experience as a recovering carbohydrate fanatic is that increased protein intake has improve my body's ability to burn fat for fuel, has increased my alertness and productivity, and has had an effect on my mood (although mood has never been a real issue for me). For me it's sufficient to eat eggs, cheese and fruit for breakfast, and eschew refined starches and sugars, juice, and other carbohydrate foods with little fiber. I find Atkins to be a little over the top, YMMV. But gee whiz, do I miss good french bread, risotto, polenta ... I've been on the "protein for breakfast and high-fiber the rest of the day" approach for two years, and as long as the exercise level stays up there, my attention and sleep are good. BTW, I've heard that the vivid dreams are a function of vitamin B12, of which you get more in spinach and meats.