I'm always afraid of wasting your time, so I take pains to gear the articles at least the overwhelming majority of them to you, the typical reader. I see you as regarding health and fitness as pretty important but something that sometimes has to take a back seat to other things you just absolutely have to do.

Like work. Take care of kids. Keep the house from falling apart.I realize that you may miss a week of workouts because both kids have the flu and your husband has been working overtime, so I also have to recognize that sometimes you read the column with one eye on it and the other on what's cooking on the stove.That's okay. That's the way of the world today.But if you're always on the go, the big question becomes what are you going to take with you?Here's related to reading this column. After doing so, ask yourself one simple question: "What one single thing should I remember from today's article?"Decide on an answer, repeat it a few times to yourself, and then take care of the whatever else constitutes your Saturday.By reducing the article to one important element, you're far more likely to remember that element. Remember a half dozen or so important elements and you might recognize patterns patterns in health and fitness, patterns in your life, patterns in your successes or failures.Get to this point and you've really got something and the something I hope you get from the rest of the column today is that even the smallest elements of your diet do matter. Research may not have yet fully explained how or why all food choices affect you, but they do.Consider this bit of research published in the November 2014 issue of Molecular Nutrition & Food Research as proof. McGill University researchers decided to feed mice a diet designed to make them fat. And did they ever.In 10 weeks, the mice gained 64 percent of their original weight, the equivalent to a 200-pound human adding another 128 pounds.The researchers then fed another group of mice that same fat-making food mix but added an extract of Irish potatoes. These mice only gained 44 percent of their original weight, which would add 40 fewer pounds to the hypothetical 200-pound human.That difference is certainly significant. And it's all the researchers seem to believe because Irish potatoes are high in a number of polyphenols, chemical components in the fruits, veggies, grains, and beans that we eat.In fact, the difference in weight is so significant that the researchers assumed they messed up, so they did the experiment again with a different batch of Irish potato extract. But the results didn't change.Now this study is especially interesting for those who believe that weight control can be achieved by eating foods low on the glycemic index. That's because a baked potato, in many ways a very healthy food choice, has a high glycemic-index score.Since foods that score low on the glycemic help stabilize blood sugar and keep insulin secretions relatively low, both of which help you avoid what I call the "bounce-back" hunger, the hunger that occurs 90 minutes or so after eating poorly, a true believer in the glycemic index would avoid eating baked potatoes. Yet the McGill University research suggests baked potatoes are a food you should regularly consume to aid in weight loss or weight maintenance.I concur. While I only eat baked potatoes on days when I ride long and hard, I find them to be filling (which runs contrary to the glycemic index score) and very effective at restocking my depleted glycogen stores.So the one thing you may decide to remember from today's column is that eating baked potatoes in moderation as long as you don't eat add sour cream, margarine, or butter can only aid your body.Or you may want to remember that eating whole grains is heart healthy.While prior research established that consuming whole grains improved cholesterol levels somewhat, more recent research done at Tufts University and featured in their Health & Nutrition Letter last December found that eating whole grains also helps those who have been already advised to take statins because of high cholesterol levels.The frequency with which statins are prescribed makes this latest finding especially significant. The aforementioned article reports that nearly half of the people over 40 years of age should be taking statins according to the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans released in 2011.In the Tufts University study, also published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 16 grams of whole grains a day were enough to create improvement in the statin users beyond the expected improvement from solely using the drug.