What do running and chocolate have in common?

Chase away mental gremlins by running...
for chocolate

Endorphins, of course!  I've known since my dog days in college that when the going gets rough, run... for... CHOCOLATE!  A tidy two ounces of Hershey's, or better yet Toblerone, never fails to set me free from whatever little mental gremlins were holding my creative juices hostage.  The problem is that we humans have a natural tendency to believe that if two ounces is good, twelve ounces must be nirvana.  It turns out that two ounces of chocolate really is the optimal amount in most cases to derive the maximum thinking benefit from the myriad chemicals in chocolate.  More than that and other, not quite so beneficial, effects begin to occur.  Oh, and, by the way, to get the endorphin effect you need real chocolate with all of its full nutritional armament, not chocolate flavered cake, cookies, ice cream, or other substitutes. I don't like the taste of dark chocolate as well as milk chocolate, but the darker the chocolate the greater the facilitation of endorphins.  Don't believe me?  There is plenty of literature on the subject, but start with this article from CNN.


Running, of course, works even better than chocolate for producing endorphins.  Sometimes when I don't fell like running, I remind myself that the more I run, the more chocolate I can eat without any ahh -- sizeable -- effects.  2 ounces?  No problem.  2 pounds?  Well, I better keep working toward my half-marathon.
Até amanhã... 
8/21/11 - 5.1 miles | 58 mins | 5.2 mph | 553 kcal