Look at infinity. Now back to me. I'm on a spaceship.

We tend to maintain a fairly chipper tone around here, with the occasional good-natured admonishment to engage in healthier behavior. We think it’s good to have fun when you’re doing healthy stuff, because it’s a heck of a lot easier to do something because you enjoy it first, and enjoy the benefits of it second. Mike loves doing stuff in his kitchen, which is why he’s got the fun recipes and his hand-made healthy lunches, which frequently make the office smell really freaking good. I get my fun from picking up and throwing around heavy things for its own sake, and seeing the numbers go up or down on my spreadsheets of doom.

However, this is not a particularly perky post, perhaps peppered and pockmarked perilously by pernicious pedagoguery.  (I may be cranky, but I can still enjoy consonance and alliteration.)

So what is it that has my manties in a bunch?

Gen Con. The Best Four Days In Gaming. This weekend long gathering of geeks in downtown Indianapolis is one of the few times in your life where the large majority of people who you meet on the street will have a set of polyhedral dice on their person. Call it a bad stereotype if you like, but chances are a lot of the people you meet are (or should be) trying to shed some of their natural encumbrance. Unfortunately for them it’s difficult to eat wisely when you’re at a convention, but it isn’t impossible. All it takes is a little homework and self-control.

We here at ShrinkGeek are going to do some of the homework for you.

Underneath the cut you’ll find a list of some of the restaurants in the downtown Indianapolis area that Gen Con attendees tend to frequent. We’ll give a brief overview of the restaurant itself and try to point you toward some of the less calorie blasting choices off of the menu. Check back often as we’ll be updating this list as we gather additional information and take suggestions from some of the attendees themselves!

See you in Indianapolis!

Do you feel like you’ve sacrificed a few HP in the gym? Consider adding coconut oil to your diet. This natural superfood has been an integral part of athletes’ diets for decades and is considered “the healthiest oil on earth”.

Coconut oil has a long list of health benefits. Research suggests that it can boost your energy and endurance, thereby enhancing physical and athletic performance. Also? It’s freaking delicious. Obviously, it’s not the kind of thing you want to chow down on if you’re allergic, but otherwise? Knock yourself out.

We can hear your unspoken thoughts (yes, despite the tin foil) “But… coconut oil is a saturated fat, right? Isn’t that bad for you? How can one possibly get quick energy from a fat?”

After the cut, this is answered with some tasty and delicious biochemistry. OM NOM NOM.

Image courtesy of Scott Smith via Flickr

Fitness gaming has come a long way in a very short time. We’ve advanced from games that were, for all intents and purposes, glorified exercise videos to fully interactive workouts with virtual personal trainers. With the upcoming release of the Kinect for the XBox 360 the bar is being raised even higher, and companies like EA SPORTS are fully poised to rise up to the challenge with the addition of gadgets that will actually monitor your heart rate while you’re working out and evaluate your form at the same time. Despite these advances, though, there still seems to be a somewhat unspoken belief out there that these games, while keen, are…well…

For girls.

Many guys just don’t feel that fitness games are “intense” enough for them. Mind you, if they actually tried the games in question they would probably be surprised to find out just how intense they can be, but the incentive just doesn’t seem to be there for them.

That may very well be changing soon.

This piece spun out of a conversation in the comments on our most recent guest column over at WoW.com, and it seems to be addressing a concern that many people of the geeky persuasion, fairly or unfairly, may have with the picking up of somewhat heavier things than they’re used to. Some folks are concerned about injury, or don’t want to bulk up, or simply have never considered themselves the weightlifting type.

Lifting heavy weights is not, in and of itself, unhealthy, as long as proper form is used. There are actually a lot of benefits to strength training – stronger bones, for instance, in addition to stronger and more balanced muscles. There are the aesthetic aspects, of course, even if you’re like me, and  have no designs on becoming a professional, or even amateur, bodybuilder. I just want to look good with my shirt off.