Maunderings for May 22, 2013

As Moore, Oklahoma continues to clean up after last weekend's disastrous tornado, the Atlantic has put together way more than you really need to know about tornadoes in America.  The short version: the May 20th Moore tornado was bad, but not the worst; and no, tornadoes are not increasing in frequency or severity.  The long version is still worth a look and is notable for its level-headed thoroughness.

Scientific American takes the recent Dove soap adverts to task and concludes that you really aren't as beautiful as you think.  They call it the "above average effects", but I prefer the "Lake Wobegon effect".  (You know, "where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.")  But either way, a little bit of thinking you're awesome can probably help in real life situations that benefit from self-confidence.  Just don't let it go to your head.  ;)

And if you're like most residents of mainland China and are tired of Hong Kong's "two-tin" limit on imports of powdered baby formula, maybe you should go to New Zealand and start buying up all of theirs instead.  Or maybe Chinese companies could stop poisoning their own citizens (and everyone else's pets) and put some of their vast resources into producing safe products for domestic consumption.  Right after they start enforcing their own constitution.  :/

Maunderings for May 21, 2013

This is a little behind the times, but apparently Jon Stewart is has recently become big in China. ...And not just because he's tall. (Couldn't resist, sorry.) The New Yorker wrote up an interesting little piece, and you should probably watch the video clip they link to in the second (and 6th) line. Also, Jon Stewart is called Jiong Situ, a.k.a. 囧司徒 in Chinese. I like the Jiong character - 囧.

Even though you've probably been working out like a MoFo for a while now, it only takes about a week to loose your new-found cardiovascular adaptations.  Luckily, a couple of intense max-interval workouts a week will at least help the maintenance.  

In more recent, but basically worthless news, foreign fashion models who want to work in the U.S. are in the same skilled worker category as actual skilled workers.  Since the overall cap is so low, that's causing some grief for the less beautiful I.T. workers, even though only 250 of the 65,000 H-1B visas went to models.  There was legislation introduced in 2008 to reclassify the models out of the H-1B pool, sponsored by Anthony Weiner (insert lewd joke here), but it never made it to the floor.  

Kaffestugan - Definitely a Cheng-Do!

Since I've been in Chengdu, China, I've been trying to collect a few dos and don'ts that I want to remember and/or share.  I call them Cheng-Dos and Cheng-Don'ts.

Kaffestugan is definitely a Cheng-Do.  

Located on the First Ring Road, a bit east of North Kehua Road, Kaffestugan is a Swedish cafe transplanted into Chengdu.  Owned by a Swedish / Korean couple, they serve excellent pour-over coffee (excellent by American coffee standards, not just Chinese); along with snacks, brunch and lunch items, and a good selection of liquor.  The prices are very reasonable, and even though the cafe is located on the second floor of a strip mall, the interior is inviting enough to spend the afternoon barely noticing that you're in China.

I was unable to find their location on Google Maps, but fortunately they are right next to a dental clinic (called Huashan Oral Cavity in English) that is listed.  Click here for a map.


Address: 2F KaiYueXinCheng, No. 9 First Ring Road, South, First Section (opposite Hong Wa Si)
Chengdu 610021, Sichuan, China

邮编: 610021
中国四川省成都市一环路南一段9号凯悦新城2楼

Telephone: +86 (028) 8544 3365
Email: kaffestuganinchengdu [at] gmail.com
Web: www.kaffestugan.com

Eat Fat! Don't Drink Water!

Obviously the title of this post is a vast oversimplification, but it is also the main thrust of the research by Dr Tim Noakes, a South African runner and medical doctor who's writing I have just spent way more time reading that I reasonably should have.

First the water...

Dr Noakes basically believes that humans have evolved to deal with mild dehydration (since we obviously had to run through the African plain for hours on end to catch prey, and no one had invented the Camelback yet) and people who exercise are at a much higher risk of complications from drinking too much water than not enough.  I did not realize it, but drinking water during running or cycling discouraged up to the late 1960s because it would "slow you down".

The current government recommendations seem to be that people should drink at least 40 ounces / 1.2 liters of water per hour of exercise and try not to loose much if any water weight while exercising; and everyone has heard by now that "if you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated".  Noakes states that people get into trouble this way because their bodies are not loosing water nearly as fast as they are consuming it, and if they continue to do this for several hours (like during a marathon) this can cause people to become over hydrated and possibly develop a condition called Hyponatremia.  Normally, most people will just pee the excess water out, but

"...what happens in hyponatremia is that, for some reason, the brain interprets that the person is dehydrated and secretes the antidiuretic hormone. As a consequence, that prevents all urine production. Although they are sweating, they may be sweating at a rate of 20 ounces per hour, but they are drinking at a rate of 40 ounces per hour. Every hour they are accumulating 20 ounces. You can do that for a couple of hours, but once you’ve accumulated about 60 to 80 ounces of water in your body, all of your tissues become bloated, and the organ that becomes most affected is the brain.
"The brain swells, and because it is in a rigid skull, it cannot swell very much. The more it swells, the more pressure, and that eventually squeezes the arteries supplying blood to the brain. Ultimately, there is less oxygen getting to the brain, and certain parts become damaged. Once it affects your breathing centers, then you’re in real trouble, because it stops breathing, and that is essentially irreversible."(1)  

Obviously this is an extreme case, and most of us (non marathoners) will never have to worry about how much water to drink over a five hour race, but it is interesting to keep in mind.

In Noakes' new book, "Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports", he quotes James Fixx's 1977 book, "The Complete Book of Running":

"Drink lots of water while you're exercising.  It used to be considered unwise to drink while working out.  Recent studies have shown, however, that athletes, including runners, function best when allowed to drink whenever they want to.  A 5% drop in body weight can reduce efficiency by 15%, and 6% is about the maximum you can comfortably tolerate."  

But Dr Noakes clarifies that drinking "whenever they want to" really means drinking when you're thirsty.  I have never weighed myself before and after an intense workout or long run, but I highly doubt I have ever sweat out any significant portion of my body weight.  To loose 5% of my weight, I would have to sweat out about one gallon of water.  I don't want to know how far I would have to run for that to happen!

The basic take away from all of this is that you probably don't have to worry about how much water you're drinking while you're working out.  If you're thirstly, drink something.  But ever drink just because the Gatorade advert told you that you should.

Take a look at these articles if you want to dig a little deeper:
(1)http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/tim-noakes-on-the-serious-problem-of-overhydration-in-endurance-sports.html
(2)http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Beverages/Too-much-water-could-be-dangerous-20120721
(3)http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Beverages/Tim-Noakes-on-overhydration-in-athletes-20120721
(4)http://scienceinafrica.com/old/2003/february/exercise.htm

And now onto the eating fat!  

Or not.  Turns out that Dr Noakes is talking about a special case - his.  Well, his and people with a similar condition, a predisposition to develop adult-onset diabetes because of a metabolic abnormality called "carbohydrate resistance" (CR).  I have no idea how common this inability to process simple carbohydrates is, but apparently it is fixable by -- surprise! -- not eating carbs!  This is basically the Atkins diet, which should probably be called the Harvey/Banting diet for it's original proponents, way back in 1861(!).  As a real doctor should, Noakes wisely doesn't propose this high fat / low carb diet as a cure-all for everyone, only those who's personal biology is served by it.

I don't seem to have any problems using pretty much whatever kind of food enters my body and I don't have any close family with adult onset diabetes, so it looks like I don't have to worry about his, but Dr Noakes writes a compelling and interesting case for those whom it might help.

Read his column and judge for yourself:
http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Nutrition-basics/Tim-Noakes-on-carbohydrates-20120721


Both of these topics go a long way to show how much what is thought of as healthy -- by both the medical and lay community -- change over time and how little perspective we really have from day to day.  So, eat when you're hungry, drink when you're thirsty, and go sweat a little!  

Vintage Drags, in Slow-mo

Since I've been sooo productive since getting to Chengdu (more on that later), I thought I would toss up a quick post about what I actually did do today instead of all the things I intended to do but didn't.

Basically, this involves drinking coffee all day, listening to good tunes from Big Blue Swing, doing some laundry in a very strange combination washer/dryer, and watching vintage drag racing videos.  This one in particular is pretty sweet.


Nostalgia Drags at 240 FPS from Matthew Macomber on Vimeo.

Check out the wrinkle of the sidewalls (they're drag tires - they're supposed to do that) at 0:58, a Mustang pull a serious wheelstand at 1:08, and the Gasser nose dive from an equally serious wheelstand at 1:20.  Pretty wild!

I've also been thinking about the repercussions being in China to witness the N7N9 flu and a crazier-than-usual North Korea... but those are kind of a downer and you can read about those things pretty much anywhere.  (The Sinocism blog is a good place to start if you want an insiders pick of the stories.)