Just in case you were curious as to how I spent my weekend, I went snowboarding. Killington stayed true to its cause to be the first North American ski resort open each season by opening its doors yesterday, October 30th. Once I saw the announcement on Killington’s website, there wasn’t really any question in our heads, you know?

Apparently Hurricane Wilma’s left flank contributed to an unusual weather front that resulted in a nor’easter. It dumped 29 inches of snow on Killington, which makes for a nice base during early season riding. The conditions were actually quite good, aside from the “spring condition” areas that were popping up all over the place (and make for some extremely fun gaps), it was pretty much packed powder (East-style) all the way around - I wouldn’t have hesistated to bring a newbie there with us, as the snow was more than soft enough for a first time. Unfortunately, conditioning is activity-specific, so we were more than just a little tired after our first outing of the season - legs don’t quite have the pop just yet, you know? Here’s looking forward to some DOMS during the coming week.

Typically I take a buttload of pictures each outing (thanks to the advent of digital photography), but we’ve actually gotten a new toy, the Samsung SC-X 105L Sports Digital Camcorder, so I spent the day testing that out (alas, our backup photographer, Sairalyn left the digital camera in the car, so no action shots). I’ll post up some stills once I get the files transferred to my computer.

And you’ll be happy to discover, neither I nor Roald have forgotten how to spin.

So begins the leg conditioning…

About a month and a half ago or so, I was struck by an unusual request from a regular personal training client of mine. At the start of our session, he said,

At the time, I was somewhat confused. What for? It happened to be the case that my client (who works at the United Nations) had been in meeting after meeting that week about the impending avian flu epidemic, and he’d mentioned that things were getting bad in Asia, and they were afraid it was going to spread.

How right they were.

The recent events in Asia and Europe foreshadow an influenza panic that has the potential to wipe out over a hundred million people if allowed to develop to fruition - i.e., if H5N1 (avian flu) mutates into a human-to-human strain. As a result, governments have been going crazy, all but beating down Swiss pharmaceutial Roche’s front door to obtain stockpiles of Tamiflu (oseltamivir), which as of this writing is the only known defense against the avian flu virus. Roche is a pharmaceutical giant, but it is only one company, and had announced that 1.) It only had so much production capacity, 2.) It was already contracting to deliver 20 million doses to the US Government, maybe, and 3.) Sorry, but no, it would NOT waive its patent rights to the Tamiflu recipe so that other pharmaceutical companies could produce generic versions of Tamiflu to combat a potential flu pandemic.

Well, as of last Tuesday Roche had finally agreed to license the rights to produce Tamiflu to desperate governments and other pharmaceuticals interested in boosting worldwide production. It looks as though we might actually be ready for the storm.

Or are we? Some skeptics rightly point out that putting all our eggs in one basket is an extremely shortsighted line of defense. Consider the case of the Vietnamese girl who died after the avian flu she was infected with mutated into a strain that was resistant to Tamiflu. If it happened once, so the argument goes, it can happen again, especially if you calculate the odds on over 100 million infections. Even if you do have the drug, its effectiveness is limited to within the first 48 hours of infection. So if you don’t quite get ahold of it in time…Scary stuff. Did I mention it takes as long as 12 months to synthesize Tamiflu?

What if your Tamiflu doesn’t even work?

So what can we do about this, other than stockpile Tamiflu doses of dubious quality and/or sell unopened doses of it to the highest bidder on Craigslist or eBay (I only wish that was a joke, but alas, the truth is stranger than fiction)? Well, there is hope. Efforts in Asia and Europe to control the spread of the disease (currently only through handling of infected birds) are making some headway, and the possibilities of other drugs (such as zanamivir) as front-line defenses against the bird flu are being explored.

A different client of mine remarked, “If you hear your chicken coughing and sniffling as it’s being brought out to the dinner table, excuse yourself and order a pizza.” Sounds like a plan, for now.

From the annals of my celebrated gym-face picture vault comes another county fair prizewinner:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Michael Chinchilla.

Above: This is exactly how Chinchilla looks right before he’s about to deliver a spinning elbow to your noggin. Exactly.

Who knew seated biceps curls could inspire such concentration and focus?

Just randomly perusing the Internet landscape:

Eat Fat to Lose Fat.

It shouldn’t even be questioned that the low-fat diet advanced during the fat-phobia craze of the 80s and early 90s is an unhealthy and nonsustainable diet. Aside from throwing the baby out with the bathwater (i.e., essential fatty acids with saturated fats), the low-fat diet also features a high proportion of carbohydrates comprising the daily calorie intake. It gave rise to the entire low-fat/fat-free food industry, ignored the issue of dietary control of hormonal levels (insulin, in particular), and probably was the single biggest factor why today Americans are so goddamn fat.

One can safely suspect that I do not hold the low-fat diet in high regard.

Well, personal trainers continue to tell their clients to “avoid foods high in fat,” and clients are advised to lower the total number of calories they consume daily (especially from fat), but no options are given when confronted with the envitable hunger pangs that accompany a reduced-calorie, carbohydrate-based diet. Patients are advised not to eat foods high in fat and to minimize fat in their diet for fear that their blood cholestrol should hit record highs and cause their hearts to spontaneously explode. Fat is still the enemy, I’m afraid. Even though it really isn’t.

So here’s more grist for the mill: According to the study cited in the article, by restricting fat in the diet, the liver doesn’t get signals to engage in lipolysis, and no fat is burned. Additionally, existing fat in the system is not sufficient - instead, new fat must be introduced (through diet) in order to kick-start the process. In other words, if you don’t eat fat, you stay fat (or at least, your body tends not to burn fat for energy too easily).

Just another nail in the coffin for the low-fat crowd.

One thing, however - why do all researchers have complex names, like “Clay Semenkovich?”

Monophasic sleep - sleep that occurs in one unbroken stretch, i.e., the usual 7-8 hours most people get every night.

Polyphasic sleep - sleep that is broken down into sections and accumulated throughout the day, i.e., 3 hours at night, a morning nap of 1.5 hours, and a 20 minute afternoon nap. Or, the Ubersleep cycle.

For some sort of background, I have been an insomniac all my life, since I was a child. As a result, any sort of sleep system that allows the user to get by on less than the prescribed 7-8 hours of sleep per night intrigues the heck out of me. After all, having gotten by on ~5 hours of sleep per night most of my adult life, one gets to feeling rather unjustly deprived.

Lately, in the recent year, I’ve been averaging even less (~4 hours) and it has begun to show up in my performance - I get random bouts of extreme sleepiness throughout the day, and round about my “bedtime” (9pm, the time that, if I were to actually fall asleep, I would end up getting a full 8 hours), a crushing feeling of exhaustion (I’ve fallen soundly asleep at this computer numerous times, only to be awoken by Sairalyn telling me to go to bed, at which point I am completely awake and furiously resume typing run-on sentences like this one).

Throughout the years of sleeplessness I’d self-determined that so long as one was allowed “catch-up sleep” (which I’d get on the weekends, when I could sleep in longer), one could sustain themselves nearly indefinitely on sleep deprivation during the week. I devised a crude averaging system whereby I made sure to average at least 6 hours/night (or a total of 42 hours of sleep for the week).

Along comes a system that proposes to be the briefest and most efficient sleep system ever, claiming to leave the user feeling better and more energetic - polyphasic sleep. Rob Cherry sent me a link to one derivation of it - the Uberman sleep cycle - and I have to admit, it was the first time in a long time my feelings and sympathies wanted so desperately to overcome my intellect.

I mean, a system that lets you sleep 2-3 hours a day, and you end up a totally unself-conscious, primal, raw-fueled ultra-genius? Sounds like a godsend to me.

What are the potential downsides? Well, you could fall asleep and die behind the wheel or something like that, if the allegations are untrue. Individuals who are chronically sleep-deprived tend to have suppressed immune systems, inability or dampened ability to metabolize glucose, and general lack of growth hormone production. Not to mention the impairment of concentration and recall that occurs with general sleeplessness.

Dr. Claudio Stampi, who’s been featured on PBS and NPR and works with clients whose professions and/or livelihoods depend on a generally sleepless schedule (such as astronauts and solo sea sailors) advocates a sleep microcycle not unlike the Uberman schedule - 6 20-30 minute naps spaced evenly throughout a 24 hour period. Dr. Stampi (aka “Dr. Sleep”) documented an average Joe (actually, his name was Francesco) going through this sleep protocol and recorded his performances on various cognitive test given throughout the experiment. The entire 2 month long project was shown on the PBS show “Scientific American: Frontiers”. The end result? Francesco passed all tests with flying colors and apparently suffered no ill effects.

Does this mean that Rob’s stumbled upon a new dawn of super-productivity for mankind? Probably not, as the discipline required to adapt to such a spartan routine eludes most. But I know I’ll be giving it a try in the next couple of weeks…

…after all, I’ll be up anyway.