Weekend plans

Friday
Study microbiology
Arizona Daily Wildcat party @ 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Nick Seibel's after-party @ 8 p.m. (Possibly going - may need wine for that)

Saturday
Study microbiology
Courtney Johnson's arts desk party @ 8 p.m. (Will need wine/cheese/gifts for that)

Sunday
Study microbiology
Grocery shopping
Sleep well

Monday
Microbiology test @ 11 a.m.!
Eat celebratory lunch
Clean
Organize
Rest
Plan desk party?

Tags: life, school, work, friends

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Winter plans

Finals are approaching and my days as the copy chief at the Daily Wildcat are coming to an end. I'll finally have time between finals to catch up on the world at large and the music landscape.

One thing I'll need to do during the winter — aside from getting more sleep — is work on this blog's design. I haven't updated it in almost a year, and it shows. Another thing to work on is more frequent posts. Hopefully, with more free time next semester, I'll be able to post something at least once a week.

In working on the NutClub's blog (another project I need to revamp), I find that Wordpress offers a little more flexibility with its design than Blogger can afford.

Here's the plan for winter and beyond (Skip ahead if you don't like lists):
- Restore power to my bedroom and living room
- Finish my tenure as copy chief at the Daily Wildcat
- Prepare visual editing sheet
- Clean up desk and computer
- Finish my finals
- Clean up room
- Make plans with a certain someone (Too obvious?)
- Sort through old assignments and papers to see what's worth keeping
- Prepare writing samples and complete applications for Daily Wildcat
- Compose list of potential dietetics internships locations
- Reserve hotel room at the Oberlin Inn for journalism conference
- Prepare materials for the conference re: ethics, copyediting
- Sort through comics for donation or sale and for Rian
- Sort through clothes for donation
- End-of-the-year lists and gifts!
- Prep winter holiday gift for friends - something art-related.
- Computer clean-up
- Collect writing samples for studying

So, lots to do and little time to do it. I'm going to have make a step-by-step list to tackle each item.

Tags: life, work, school

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And I'm Back with a Head Full of New Knowledge

Summer school ended Wednesday and it appears that I barely passed organic chemistry II. I'm not entirely happy with my grade, but I believe it is enough to allow me to enroll in upper division nutrition courses. I will have to improve my grade for that course at a later date.

Sports nutrition was a different story; I did quite well in the class in spite of my lack of knowledge in the area. Now that I've completed the class, I wish I had this knowledge back when I was playing varsity tennis in high school. I can remember a few matches where a better diet and hydration plan would have helped me play better or helped me recover from fatigue much more quickly.

Speaking of fatigue, my final project for the nutrition class was to prepare for a debate arguing the merits of branched chain amino acid (BCAA) supplements. I approached my topic with a lot of skepticism (I'm skeptical about any supplement or product aimed at athletes), but I found, to my surprise, a growing body of scientific evidence that supports BCAA supplementation.

BCAAs seem to have a positive effect ameliorating central fatigue. Central fatigue is fatigue that affects the central nervous system (what I'll call c-fatigue), but its causes and the possible mechanisms involved are not well understood. There's also peripheral fatigue (or p-fatigue) that originates in the muscles. With p-fatigue, the muscles use glycogen (stored glucose) and blood glucose for energy via the Krebs cycle. Your glycogen stores are limited so once these stores have been exhausted during a workout or competition, your body will break down muscle tissue to amino acids for more energy. Insulin comes into play here; as I understand it, insulin breaks down stored lipids into free fatty acids (FFAs) for energy use. (They can also come from digested food.)

One working theory regarding the cause of c-fatigue relates to p-fatigue. Many amino acids are released after the catabolism of muscle tissue; among these free amino acids are the BCAAs and tryptophan. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid and a precursor for 5-hydroxytrytamine (5-HT), or as it is commonly called, serotonin. The brain converts tryptophan to serotonin. One of serotonin's many effects on the brain is sleepiness.

After you finish exercising and feel exhausted, FFAs and tryptophan are released into the blood. The protein transporter, albumin, carries both of these molecules, but albumin will prefer to bind to FFAs over tryptophan. So you have a lot of tryptophan circulating in the blood.

At the barrier between the brain and blood, there are protein transporters that will take in both BCAAs and tryptophan. The theory goes that with more free BCAAs circulating in the blood, they will outcompete tryptophan for these transporters and decrease the amount of serotonin in the brain, thus relieving the strength of c-fatigue.

BCAAs supplements are as easily digestible as other amino acids, comparable to how the body quickly absorbs a sugar-and-electrolyte solution for hydration. So with greater uptake of BCAAs, you would have more BCAAs in your blood and decrease the brain's uptake of tryptophan. This is the reasoning behind using these supplements and the evidence used to support it.

There are, of course, some flaws and problems with all of this, chief among them is that the scientific evidence surrounding c-fatigue is still limited. The reason for this is that scientists can have great difficult measuring brain chemistry. There are published studies that show BCAA supplementation has little or no effect on muscle catabolism. Another argument is that muscles use 6 essential amino acids for anabolism of which BCAAs constitute only 3 of them.

At the moment the evidence is leaning toward BCAA use, but as with any supplementation, caution is the word.

Tags: nutrition, supplements

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August Update

It is now August and I'm still in the middle of the second semester of my organic chemistry. I don't know how I'll do in the end. Sports nutrition has been interesting; I have a whole set of factors to consider in the future.

The nutrition club's blog is up, but still undergoing some changes. I'm working at the university newspaper as copy chief. And I have a full-time course schedule for the fall.

It promises to be a busy season.

Tags: life, school

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Organic Chemistry or Why I Won't Have Much Time Here

I'm taking a year of organic chemistry this entire summer along with one organic chemistry lab and sports nutrition.

What this means is that I won't be posting stuff here as frequently or as in depth, at least not until toward the end of July.

Back to studying...

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Current Media

Books:
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
Best Food Writing 2006 & 2007 edited by Holly Hughes
Food for Fifty by Molly Molt
Best American Magazine Writing 2004

Music:
Goldfrapp's Seventh Tree
Lucky Soul
Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent Jens; Night Falls in Kortedala
The Archives

Educating the Younglings

I've started teaching a class on comics again, only this time it is for a class of 5th-8th graders in a small town in the middle of the desert. (I last taught this course to peers my age in a small town in the middle of farmland.) I try not to let the fact that I am twice as old as them bother me since I get to expose them to the wider world of comics. (The phrase "literary terrorist" comes to mind as I plan the semester for them. [Welcome NSA! Please alert the FBI of your findings here.]) Finding appropriate material among my personal library is proving to be more difficult than I expected. I'm discovering that I'm reduced to using excerpts that I may have to scan on my own time. But that's not the most interesting part about the first class. What surprised me was how they couldn't wait to rip the comics out of my hands, tearing my arm off in the process. My revenge will come in the form of the work I have in mind for them.

However, in order to get my revenge, I'll need resources and comics. So I am in need of suggestions. Anything come to mind?

Break!

I finished my last final yesterday. What a relief. I did well with my nutrition classes, but not so well with my organic chemistry class. Thankfully, there is a "grade replacement option" available, which means I can retake the class and have that grade replace the previous one.

I have to find a good place to visit by car for the winter vacation. Given the finickiness of my siblings and I when it comes to these sorts of decisions, this may take a while. At least I now have time to catch up on my reading.

On Nutrition and Education, Part 1

As you may or may not know, I'm studying to be a registered dietitian (RD) right now. My first semester has consisted of nutrition from the cellular, biochemical, industrial, culinary, and lifecycle points of view. From my vantage point, it seems Western nutrition and its supporting science are still in its adolescent stages. We know more now but oftentimes the recommendations made by the authoritative organizations are colored by the influence of business, politics, and a lack of sufficient evidence. Not surprising, I know, but these factors make it difficult for nutrition professionals (let alone the public and me) to separate the chaff from the grain.

The food pyramid is a good example. When it first debuted in 1992, there was enormous pressure from food industry lobbyists - meat and dairy, mainly - over the wording and placement of the food groups. The most recent pyramid (MyPyramid) is designed poorly because of, yes, lobbyists from the same industries. Compare:


Even at a reduced scale, there are noticeable differences in clarity, effectiveness, and overall message between the two models. The latter does have certain improvements over its predecessor, namely, greater details and explanations, factors in people with lactose intolerances, and has an image stressing the importance of exercise. But the MyPyramid doesn't present some of the latest evidence and advice concerning diets and nutrition (supplements, alcohol, vegetarian diets, etc.)

This is where a dietitian (of which I will be, hopefully) should step in - and not necessarily a physician (I'll talk about this in future entries) - to provide the details and advice to the individual. I often feel as if I've been thrown into the middle of a jungle with nothing but a machete because the scientific evidence for many areas of nutrition (even RDAs [recommended daily allowances] have changed, often dramatically) can offer confounding preliminary conclusions.

Some of my goals with this blog are to share and clarify what I've learned in the classroom, find the islands of sensibility, and clear away my own fog of confusion surrounding nutrition.* There will be jargon and abbreviations, but I'll try to explain them whenever it seems necessary. Hopefully, we'll all have a stronger, more nuanced understanding of nutrition.**

*Caveat: please keep in mind that I am not qualified to offer any professional nutrition advice (yet). What I present here serves as a reference and method of understanding what I learn in my classes and of nutrition and health in general. Please consult an RD for any nutrition-related advice and guidance.

**Asian nutrition is something I'll address as well, even though it's not a part of my current training. This is an area that should be part of any future RDs' education, especially now.

Downtime

It has been a hectic two weeks. Last weekend I was conducting interviews of family members for an essay about generational diet changes and doing research on beriberi outbreaks in the world for a group oral presentation the entire 3-day weekend and this past week. I'm halfway done with reviewing for a food science exam on Monday and have to finish reading an article from the ADA about aging and nutrition before this weekend ends.

So it's the end of the semester. Fun times.

Thankfully, a few things have been keeping me sane during this period of compressed learning:
Jens Lekman - his new album is just...wow. I can't stop listening to that sweet nectar in my car. Or at home. Or whenever I take a walk. Or when I'm reading. Or...
Sally Shapiro - whose album finally reached the U.S. this past month and just in time for the winter season.
Soap - seriously.
Yotsuba&! - one of the rare books (let alone manga) where reading it causes me to laugh out like I heard a joke from my invisible friend.