Month: March 2019

The protein and muscle guru Luc van Loon wants you to bulk up—and keep what you’ve got

At a conference in 2012, Luc van Loon was presenting some exciting data from a newly published study. After a heroic research effort that took 2.5 years and 500,000 euros, he and his colleagues had managed to shepherd a large group of frail, elderly subjects through a six-month strength-training program. Those who had taken a daily protein supplement managed to pack on an impressive 2.9 pounds of new muscle. Success! Old people could be strong!

But van Loon, an “extraordinary professor” (his actual title) of exercise physiology and nutrition at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, wasn’t celebrating. On his phone was a photo one of his students had just sent him of a large plate stacked high with bulging cubes of raw beef. In total, there were 3.1 pounds of beef—a graphic visualization of the muscle lost in just one week by subjects of a bed-rest study the student had just completed.

“I usually put this in more obscene language,” van Loon says, “but you can mess up a lot more in one week than you can improve in six months of training.”

Over the past decade and a half, van Loon has emerged as one of the world’s most rigorous and innovative researchers on the intricacies of how we build muscle. But he has now come to believe that, from a health perspective, how we lose muscle is at least as important. At a conference in Rhode Island last month, hosted by the New England chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine, van Loon laid out the key lessons he and other researchers in the field have gleaned. For anyone who seeks to push their limits, or who plans to get old, here are the highlights.

You Are What You Just Ate

If you really want to understand how protein contributes to new muscle, you need to be able to follow the individual components—amino acids—on their journey inside your body. Starting in 2009, van Loon and his colleagues developed a technique that involved infusing 40,000 euros’ worth of amino acids, specially “labeled” using a rare and trackable isotope, into a cow. Then they milked the cow and, 24 hours later, slaughtered it. The result: milk and beef that can be tracked with painstaking precision as it progresses from a person’s mouth to their biceps by taking frequent samples of blood and biopsied muscle tissue in the hours after a meal.

In one of the resulting studies, the researchers found that substantial amounts of the “glowing cow” protein was incorporated into muscles within just two hours of ingesting it. As the study’s title proclaims, you are, quite literally, what you just ate. Just over 50 percent of the protein made it into the subjects’ circulation within five hours, with the rest presumably taken up by tissues in the gut or not absorbed. During the same period, 11 percent of the ingested protein was incorporated into new muscle.

Overall, van Loon points out, we break down and rebuild 1 to 2 percent of our muscle each day, meaning that you completely rebuild yourself every two to three months. This is a message, van Loon hopes, that might persuade people to think a little more carefully about what they put in their mouths.

If You Exercise First, You’re More of What You Just Ate

We often think of amino acids as the “building blocks” of muscle. That’s true, but the amino acids derived from protein actually play a dual role in muscle growth: In addition to being a source of raw materials, protein acts as a signaling molecule, triggering the growth of new muscle. One amino acid in particular, leucine, seems to be the most potent anabolic signaler, but you need all the amino acids together to effectively build muscle.

There are a bunch of subtleties here, like the optimal dose of protein. In healthy adults, a dose of about 0.25 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight seems to max out the protein synthesis signal from a given meal. That’s about 20 grams of protein if you weigh 175 pounds. So it makes sense to hit that target three or four or even five times a day.

That’s why van Loon and his team decided to experiment with a pre-bedtime dose of protein to see if they could boost muscle synthesis as you sleep. Their initial proof-of-principle study involved snaking a tube down the nose and into the stomachs of their subjects and flushing in 40 grams of protein while they slept. It worked—and van Loon, to his bemusement, soon started getting calls from sports coaches asking where they could get nasogastric tubes. (You can just eat the protein before you go to sleep, he explained to them.)

But the best way to augment protein’s muscle-signaling capacity is simple: Exercise before you eat, and your muscles become more sensitive to protein’s signals. “You can’t study food without exercise, and you can’t study exercise without food,” van Loon says. “There’s a synergy between them.”

If You’re Inactive, You’re Less of What You Just Ate

Unfortunately, there are also factors that make your muscles less sensitive to protein signaling. Getting older is one of them, which is why older adults seem to need a larger dose of 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, rather than 0.25, to max out their rates of protein synthesis.

But is it really age that causes this “anabolic resistance”? Or is it simply a consequence of our unfortunate habit of becoming less physically active as we age? Van Loon’s bed-rest study piqued his interest in the rapid and devastating effects of inactivity, particularly in hospital settings, where people are often confined to bed for five to seven days. According to the “catabolic crisis” model of aging, we don’t lose our muscle mass at a steady and predictable rate. Instead, much of the loss takes place during short periods of time—a week in bed after a fall or a knee replacement, say—during which we lose massive amounts of muscle that we never fully get back.

Van Loon advocates some simple fixes—like never, ever feed someone in a hospital bed unless it’s absolutely necessary. Make them get up, and ideally make them shuffle down the hallway to get food. Same for watching TV. Even this tiny amount of muscle contraction, he says, will enhance muscle synthesis when the patient eats. Similarly, since you don’t eat as much when you’re in bed, the proportion of protein in the meal should be higher to ensure sufficient muscle synthesis signals.

Of course, some people really can’t get out of bed—so van Loon did some wild-sounding experiments. In one, he immobilized one leg of his volunteers with a cast for five days, then drilled a hole in the cast to apply neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to half of those volunteers. The immobilization caused a 3.5 percent reduction in the cross-sectional area of the quadriceps; twice-daily electrical stimulation prevented this loss.

In another study, van Loon tried the technique on actual comatose patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. Biopsies showed that these patients were seeing a 20 to 30 percent reduction in the size of their muscle fibers during their hospital stays. “Basically the people are melting in front of your face,” he says. So van Loon zapped one leg but not the other with NMES twice a day for a week—and again warded off atrophy. The approach is nowhere near as good as even the most basic exercise, he says, but it appears to be better than nothing.

Chew Your Food

Okay, this one doesn’t really rank up there as an Eternal Law of Muscle. But it’s cool. In one of the “glowing cow” studies, van Loon and his colleagues compared ground beef to steak. The ground beef was absorbed more quickly, with 61 percent of the tracer amino acid in the ground beef appearing in the bloodstream within six hours versus just 49 percent for the steak.

How significant this is remains a bit unclear (rates of muscle protein synthesis weren’t significantly different in the study), but it’s worth noting—particularly because we tend to get less good at chewing our food as we get older. In fact, van Loon says, studies in the 1960s found that people who retained more of their own teeth tended to have more muscle. Bizarrely, body position also matters: When you eat lying down, you slow down protein digestion and likely reduce the synthesis of new muscle protein.

So, as van Loon told the conference in Rhode Island, the overall body of research boils down to one simple message: Your mum was right. Eat three protein-rich meals a day, get plenty of exercise, and—I’m not going to warn you again!—sit up straight and chew your damn food. With your mouth closed.

Discuss this post on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for the Sweat Science email newsletter, and check out my forthcoming book, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.

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In the United States, the Winter Olympics suffer from an unfortunate enthusiasm gap compared to its summer cousin. In the 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC suffered from unusually low ratings, with an average of 27.8 million viewers. To put that in perspective, that’s still 20 percent higher than the 2014 Winter Olympics. But why?

First, there’s the barrier to entry: On top of snow and ice, the events all require special equipment. Then there’s the fact that most Americans have never watched these events, let alone tried them. But Phill Drobnick, coach for the U.S. Curling Team, thinks that’s exactly what makes the Winter Games so special: “A lot of people don’t have an opportunity to see these types of sports. The Winter Olympics are the only chance to really check them out.”

To help you better appreciate this year’s Winter Games, we’ve broken down what it takes to train for eight of the most grueling events. While they’re all difficult, we took into account the physical rigor and mental stamina required to create a rough (maybe kinda subjective) ranking, starting with the easiest (sorry, curlers) and ending with the hardest.

In its simplest terms, curling is basically shuffleboard on ice. One player slides a stone down a lane as two sweepers skate alongside, vigorously brushing the ice to control the stone’s speed and stop it where it can get the most points. Now, admittedly, that sounds pretty simple. “I hear people say, ‘That’s my ticket to the Olympics,’” says Rick Patzke, CEO of USA Curling. “But they end up trying it and realizing it’s a lot harder than it looks.” In a single game, the sweepers can cover as much as four miles, so training emphasizes cardio and upper-body strength. With a schedule that lasts nearly the entire duration of the games and usually includes two matchups per day, some players will compete for nearly 50 hours total. The physical element pales in comparison to the mental focus and coordination you need for that same period to gauge ice friction, judge speed, and strategize targeting opponents’ stones.

At first glance, skeleton looks both simple and insane. Athletes launch themselves head first onto a bare-bones sled that fires down the luge track. They’ll fly at nearly 90 miles per hour and reach five Gs of force. Powerful, explosive movement is crucial here, because that initial launch is the only chance to build up speed on your own. After that, it’s all gravity. That means the athletes spend a great deal of time doing HIIT-style workouts and shorter, faster efforts to replicate this part of the race. You steer by shifting your body, using your core almost exclusively to dictate micro-movements and shifts in weight, so developing strength and control here is key. Although races are often over in about 60 seconds, they require incredible mental toughness to overcome your physical gut reaction that this is way too damn fast, which could cause you to flinch and lose valuable speed or even crash.

You literally launch your body from a squat position and then hold yourself rigid as you fly through the air. Umm, that’s not easy. To do so effectively, you have to stay as straight and aerodynamic as possible—imagine holding a plank while going 60 miles per hour. A lot of ski-jump training happens off the hill, with a variety of exercises that target the core and glutes, plus drills that simulate the jump. And while gear may make marginal differences in performance, this is about as clean-cut and simple a sport as you can get in the Winter Olympics. It’s just your own body and how fast and far you can launch it.

Bobsledders need to be buff. Even the smallest two-person sled is nearly 300 pounds (four-man sleds are a minimum of 460), and it’s on you and your team to take it from a standstill to around 25 miles per hour in less than five seconds before hopping in. Track athletes and football players tend to transition pretty well into bobsleigh because they’ve developed the powerful, explosive energy spurts needed to generate momentum. Like skeleton, competitors will hit up to 90 miles per hour over a mile-long track with 15 to 20 curves. Power cleans and squat jumps are good training, since you’re firing your body forward from a similar crouching position on the ice. Once inside the sled, your goal is body control, limiting movement that could influence the sled’s trajectory. That’s especially key past 50 meters, when the sled is no longer on grooves—meaning it can careen out of control and flip with any wrong turn.

Slalom—the slowest of the alpine-racing disciplines yet the one that arguably requires the most technique—calls for precision movements and incredible coordination. It’s so quick that even as you’re knocking down a gate, your eyes and mind already have to be on the next two. That means you have to learn to get over mistakes quickly and think on the fly. Physically, you must keep tight control of your turns, which requires balance. Off the mountain, slalom skiersdo a lot of cross-training to build strength and stability, like plyometric exercises, medicine ball throws, cycling, and slacklining.

It may be tempting to call speed skating the Winter Olympics version of track and field, but that’s not quite right, as far as muscles and mechanics go. You’re better off comparing it to cycling, considering the powerful thighs, velocities, and constant danger of tipping over. (In fact, one of the most decorated speed skaters in history, American Eric Heiden, was also a national cycling champion.) Skaters can reach speeds over 30 miles per hour on a flat surface, with their legs doing all the work. That means not only do you have to spend long hours in the weight room generating your fast-twitch muscles, but you also better develop some serious endurance to be able to hang with the best on the ice.

This is one of the most storied and tenured sports at the Winter Olympics, yet it remains one of the most difficult for U.S. fans to understand and appreciate. Endurance is king here, whether it’s a 10K, a relay race, or a sprint. At these competitive levels, it’s a world apart from the leisurely cross-country skiing most people might try on a snowy weekend. It’s a full-body sport, with legs and arms working full tilt from start to finish. Balance is also a big deal—crashes on downhill turns can dramatically shake up the results—meaning a strong, controlled core can make or break you. For the Americans, this year will be mental battle. The United States hasn’t taken a single gold in any cross-country events—Nordic countries typically dominate the sport—but our team is poised to kick up some powder, thanks to the fiery Kikkan Randall and her teammates.

Many of these sports clearly evolved out of some practical, real-world discipline that now, out of context, looks bizarre. The biathlon, which started out as military training, is the poster child for such an evolution. The two sports that make up the “bi-” are cross-country skiing and riflery, with two to six shooting ranges studding each course. This sport is punishing, and not something you can easily pick up, even with two or three years of training, especially since every course you encounter can be wildly different. On top of the endurance training needed to cover the ski portion with skill and speed—which involves weights, sprints, and, in summer months, trekking on specialized roller-skis—biathletes have to learn to shoot accurately and confidently while their heart rate is elevated.

Quit popping pills. These nutrient-dense eats have all you need for peak performance.

It’s time to change your supplement strategy. Unless you have a medical condition that prevents you from properly absorbing the nutrients from your foods or follow a diet that requires you to eliminate entire food groups (like vegan or vegetarian), opt for whole, real foods rather than pills, capsules, or powders. You’ll avoid some of the pitfalls of popping supplements, and you’re probably already getting what you need. “If you’re eating a variety of whole foods and balancing whole grains and legumes with adequate proteins, lots of green/leafy veggies, and healthy fats, you are likely meeting and even exceeding your nutritional requirements,” says Eliza Savage, nutritionist at Middleberg Nutrition in New York City. Luckily, the most popular supplements—typically vitamins, minerals, and specialty supplements like a probiotic or omega-3 fatty acid—are also some of the most plentiful in whole-food form, which means it’s easy to make the change.

These simple guidelines will help you get these supplements into your diet naturally.

Calcium

Why You Need It

Your elementary school health teacher was right: Calcium is key for protecting and strengthening bones, and it’s especially important if you do a lot of high-impact activities. (We’re looking at you, runners.) Calcium also plays a key role in muscle contraction, says Joy Bauer, author of From Junk Food to Joy Food and founder of Nourish Snacks. Without enough calcium, you’re more likely to experience muscle cramps during exercise.

How to Get It from Real Food

Your body can’t absorb large amounts of calcium all at once, so eat smaller portions of calcium-rich foods at every meal, Bauer says. Try a serving of cow’s milk, which naturally contains the nutrient, or nondairy milk, which most brands typically fortify with added calcium. Soybeans, white beans, collard greens, kale, broccoli, and almonds are also chock-full of it, she says.

Vitamin D

Why You Need It

Calcium and vitamin D work in tandem. To absorb the calcium you’re eating, you need high-enough levels of vitamin D, making this micronutrient vital for bone health.

How to Get It from Real Food

“Your body can make vitamin D with the help of sunlight, but you’ll want to get most of your daily intake from food,” Bauer says. Fatty fish like salmon, herring, mackerel, and sardines are great options, Bauer says. A three-ounce serving of sockeye salmon contains almost your entire recommended daily amount of vitamin D. You can also get smaller doses from egg yolks and fortified cow’s milk, almond milk, soy milk, and coconut milk.

Vitamin C

Why You Need It

Vitamin C doesn’t just boost your immune system; it’s also responsible for the health and production of collagen, the connective tissue that holds muscles and bones together, Bauer says. And since collagen production slows as you age, it’s especially important to consume it every day to remain active throughout your life. Research even suggests that people who eat a diet low in vitamin C may have a greater risk of developing certain forms of arthritis.

How to Get It from Real Food

Although oranges get most of the vitamin C glory, bell peppers have even more. Eating just one bell pepper a day (of any color) puts you well over the recommended 75 milligrams per day for women and 90 milligrams per day for men, Bauer says. Other picks include guava, grapefruits, strawberries, pineapple, broccoli, kidney beans, kiwi, and cauliflower.

Vitamin B Complex

Why You Need It

Vitamin B complex is actually mix of eight vitamins—B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, and B12—rather than just one single variation. Together, they help keep you energized, Savage says. Without B vitamins, your body won’t reap all the benefits of the nutritious foods you eat.

How to Get It from Real Food

Each B vitamin can be found in a variety of food sources, but it’s best to focus on dark leafy greens, beans and legumes, and animal products like fish, poultry, beef, eggs, and dairy. “I recommend trying to include at least two servings a day of these foods,” Savage says.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Why You Need It

Omega-3s are full of benefits: They’ve been shown to decrease inflammation, lower blood pressure, play a role in hormone production, and provide energy, Savage says.

How to Get It from Real Food

“There is debate about the optimal source of omega-3s—namely about plant versus fish-based sources—but just eating a variety of foods rich in omega-3 will satisfy your needs, says Savage. For animal sources, she recommends at least one 4.5-ounce serving of fish (like salmon, tuna, and sardines) or grass-fed dairy and meat twice per week. Vegans and vegetarians should eat nuts (try walnuts) and seeds (opt for flax) or soy products such as tofu and edamame to meet their recommended intake.

Probiotics

Why You Need It

Recent research has linked intestinal bacteria to everything from multiple sclerosis prevention and anxiety to athletic performance, so maintaining a healthy gut is critical. Good bacteria also supports digestion, helping you absorb the nutrients you consume.

How to Get It from Real Food

The amount of bacteria in each food varies, but it’s a good idea to incorporate a variety of probiotic-rich foods into your diet each week, though remember to ease into how often you incorporate them. In this case, too much of a good thing can lead to bloat and discomfort. Savage’s go-tos are plain unflavored Greek yogurt or kefir in a smoothie, sauerkraut or kimchi on a sandwich, and kombucha or miso soup.

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Check out these seven new docs from the biggest film festivals of the season

It’s that time of year when the weather starts to get a little too cold for desert climbing but the snow is not quite there yet. We suggest you embrace this brief shoulder season. Take an extra rest day.

Here’s an activity for you: Check out these new documentaries premiering at the season’s big film festivals. Watch quiet crushers and professional athletes setting big goals and stopping at nothing until they meet them. Get into the mind of a world-famous alpinist, and learn what hawks can tell us about an ecosystem’s well-being. When you’re done, get off the couch and get back outside already.

‘Break on Through’

Last February, 19-year-old Margo Hayes of Boulder, Colorado, became the first woman to climb 5.15a, a grade few men have achieved, when she sent La Rambla in Spain. In September, she climbed a second 5.15a, France’s Biographie. “I don’t know anything about 5.15,” says Alex Honnold in the film. “I’ve never climbed 5.15. I’ve never even tried 5.15. I’ve never even touched the holds on a 5.15.” Break on Through shows just how painful it is to chase 5.15, following Hayes’ many attempts and, ultimately, her success on both ascents. Hayes is a poised, laser-focused athlete whose self-described obsessive personality and drive (and positive attitude) get her to the chains on these two remarkable climbs. Premiering and playing at Reel Rock 12.

‘Jane’

An in-depth portrait of the life of widely adored conservationist Jane Goodall. The film taps footage—previously thought to be lost—from National Geographic archives that was shot by her future husband Hugo van Lawick during her adventures in Gombe, Tanzania, in the early 1960s, when Jane was in her mid-twenties. The archival footage is complemented by modern-day interviews with Goodall, whose unorthodox approach and the decades she dedicated to understanding chimps have informed what we know about our closest living relative. Bonus: The score was composed by Philip Glass. Currently playing at select theaters.

‘2.5 Million’

This film documents skier Aaron Rice’s 2016 quest to ascend 2.5 million feet of human-powered vert in the backcountry in one year—and break the world record. That’s 10,000 feet every single day. After years of working odd jobs and being a ski bum, Rice was looking for some sort of direction and purpose. He knew the world record was 2 million feet but thought humans were capable of more. So he set off to do it, facing all the injuries and physical and mental exhaustion one might expect of the feat. Premiering at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

‘Stumped’

Stumped is a humorous and honest profile of climber Maureen Beck and her attempt to climb 5.12. Beck was born missing the lower part of one arm and is pretty tired of being an inspiration just because she climbs. “I don’t want to just be a good one-armed climber. I want to be a good climber,” she says. What is inspiring about Beck, though, is that she took something she once thought impossible and worked at it until it became possible. She spent five months and tried her project 50-plus times before finally sending 5.12. A parody news broadcast asks viewers, “Could it be possible that disabled athletes are just regular athletes and the rest of us who find this so inspiring are just boring assholes with no fucking clue?” Premiering at Reel Rock 12.

‘Sky Migrations’

Ecologist Charles Post plays host on a journey to follow the Southwestern U.S. segment of raptor migration that starts in North America and extends the length of South America. The crew tracks the birds from a Hawkwatch International research station in Nevada, through Utah and Colorado, to a station in the mountains of central New Mexico. The film, equal parts serious and light, introduces viewers to the network of stewards, volunteers, and field scientists who collect data about the raptors. As apex predators at the top of the food chain, the birds serve as indicators for the overall health of an ecosystem. If something is happening with the raptor population, it often indicates that something else—something deeper—is going on. Premiering at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

‘Above the Sea’

Chris Sharma is notorious for his yelling as he reaches for improbable holds, and Above the Sea features plenty of his screaming high above crashing ocean waves. But it’s also, at times, a quiet film that chronicles the legendary climber’s attempt of a first ascent on the steep, overhanging cliffs of Mallorca. If he sends, it will be one of the hardest (if not the hardest) deep-water solos on record. Premiering at Reel Rock 12.

‘Bonington’

Chris Bonington is a prolific mountaineer. He started climbing at age 16 and went on to put up multiple first ascents. He made the difficult first ascent of Nuptse in 1961 and the first British ascent of the Eiger’s North Wall in 1962, Everest’s Southwest Face in 1975, and the Ogre in the Karakorum in 1977. He also led the first ascent of Annapurna’s South Face in 1970. The 83-year-old has kept climbing even into his eighties. This film examines the life of a premier alpinist and offers a glimpse at the man behind those feats, as Bonington looks back at the risks he’s taken and loss he’s experienced in the mountains. Premiering at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

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I love hunting, and I really like guns. So it might sound to you like I’m the kind of red-blooded American who would support the NRA (or be supported by it). But in fact, it’s the opposite. Let me tell you about my guns and how I use them. And while some of you may never agree with my stance on gun ownership, I think you’ll understand why I've never joined the advocacy group.

I own two Glocks. One is chambered in 10mm, a powerful round that, with the right loads, might make a good backup for a can of bear spray in grizzly country. The other, a 9mm, uses cheaper rounds, making it more affordable to shoot, and it's more compact. It lives in a fingerprint safe next to my bed, just in case I need to defend my home, as I did last year after a break-in. I have three shotguns. My semi-auto 12-gauge is an ideal gun for bird hunting. I also have a fancy old 12-gauge side-by-side from the 1960s that I use at my gun club. The third, a family heirloom, is a10-gauge hammer gun that dates back to the early 1800s, and may or may not have been made by the same relative that made one of Daniel Boone’s rifles. My great-great-grandad used it to defend the family farm in North Carolina from the Union Army. He was unsuccessful. I have two bolt-action hunting rifles. I used one to shoot my first pronghorn a couple years agoand I’m turning the other, chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, into a custom long range precision rifle. I can easily take it out to 1,000 yards. 

I also have an AR-15, the kind used in multiple mass shootings. I believe the Constitution grants me the right to own this gun—the Second Amendment was written to enable responsible, able citizens to act as a check against a potentially tyrannical government, and hostile invasion. And, well, if there's ever a major disaster or dissolution of civic order, I want to be able to get my family to safety, no matter what other people may try and do to prevent that. I also believe we need new policies like smarter gun regulations, written by firearms experts, in order to make ownership of an AR-15 safer for all citizens. 

Which brings me to my first point.

By refusing to participate in the gun-control conversation whatsoever, the NRA reneges on its responsibility to help legal, responsible gun owners. In modern society, regulating the way guns are made, used, and owned is both necessary and inevitable. By utterly refusing to bring the expertise and insight of the firearms industry to the conversation about gun safety, the NRA is hanging us gun owners out to dry.

Take my home state of California, which just required me to bolt some silly things to my AR, in order to keep it compliant with the ever-tightening gun laws. The mandated grip (pictured above), with a big fin on the back, keeps my thumb from wrapping around it, making it more difficult to hold, and potentially impairing my safety. The comfortable, adjustable stock that comes standard on these rifles had to be replaced by an uncomfortable fixed item. Neither did anything to make the gun less lethal. And neither regulation included input from the NRA.

Because the NRA has become so absurdly absolutist, anyone associated with the organization and anyone influenced by its propaganda utterly refuses to take part in any discussion about gun safety. So most gun regulations that are created are written by people who know very little about firearms. The NRA could fix that, but instead it's shirking its duty to help gun owners. And that's the one thing the organization is supposed to be good for. 

In contrast to virtually every other country, hunting in America is an utterly egalitarian tradition. It’s how millions of American families affordably put the healthiest possible protein on their dinner plates, and it’s the reason why we have such healthy wildlife populations. You’d think the NRA would work to protect this tradition—and the 640 millions acres of public land where it takes place—but instead it takes money from the oil and gas industries and works to promote their interests on public lands over those of hunters.

After taking millions of dollars from oil and gas industry donors, the NRA lobbied heavily for the Wilderness and Roadless Recreation Act, between 2010 and 2012. The bill would have opened up public lands wilderness areas to road construction, and oil and gas extraction, threatening wildlife populations, and the habitats they rely on. It was universally opposed by hunting and conservation groups, yet the NRA called the hunters opposing its passage “extremist groups.” 

In addition to supporting oil and gas interests, the NRA was also a major donor to Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Congressman whose efforts to sell off public lands last year met with resounding protests from hunting groups, forcing the politician to dress up in camo and announce his withdrawal of the effort.

The NRA has also supported efforts to privatize hunting permits in Montana, effectively supporting the idea of restricting hunting access to our country's game animals to only the wealthy.  

Road accidents are the second most common cause of accidental deaths in this country. They’re also a problem we’ve been able to do something about. Since 1921, the numbers of deaths per 100 million miles traveled have fallen from 25 to just two. That’s because scientists were able to study the causes behind road fatalities and come up with solutions to make our byways safer. 

Imagine driving today without seatbelts or airbags because the auto industry had prevented car-safety research. That’s exactly what’s going on with guns. Due to the NRA, the Center for Disease Control has been prevented from researching gun safety since 1996. In fact, NRA-sponsored politicians in Congress threatened to halt all CDC funding if it didn't stop researching gun safety. Does it make sense to halt all public health efforts over a political disagreement? The NRA thinks so. 

https://twitter.com/deray/status/880409739015766016?lang=en

The NRA attempts to sow fear and spread division between gun owners and the rest of this country, as evidenced by the above ad. It suggests that violence is an appropriate resolution for political disagreements.

Our President has suggested that violent video games and movies may be the cause of this country's gun violence. Why not political propaganda created by the NRA? Right now we need unity, not thinly-veiled calls for violence. "The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth," states NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch, speaking about American liberals. Is that a responsible message?

The NRA’s funding, in the run up to its record-breaking spending on the 2016 Presidential election, is the subject of an ongoing federal investigation. Alexander Torshin, who's been called a "godfather" in the Russian mafia, serves as the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank and is reportedly a close confident of Vladimir Putin, allegedly used massive donations to the NRA to foster access to the politicians it supports. One of the topics of the investigation is seeing if any of Torshin's tens of millions of dollars in donations to the NRA reached the NRA's donations to our politicians.

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I own guns in order to support my recreation in the outdoors, to keep my loved ones safe, and to put healthy food on my table, while providing the most effective conservation tool for our wildlife. In these capacities, responsible gun ownership is a proud American tradition. So, it’s not just a shame that the organization allegedly working to protect our interests is actually working against them—it’s just plain un-American. 

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The search for alpinists Marc-Andre Leclerc, 25, and Ryan Johnson, 34, has been called off. The two men had not been heard from since Monday, March 5, when they made an attempt on the north face of the main Mendenhall Tower, a dozen miles from Juneau, Alaska. When they didn't return to town by the evening of March 7, Alaska State Troopers and Juneau Mountain Rescue began a search and rescue operation.

Between weather delays, helicopters searched both the north and south sides of the towers, as well as possible descent routes. According to a post from the Alaska State Troopers, on Tuesday, the “weather cleared and search assets were able to be deployed. The chartered Coastal helicopter, with Juneau Mountain Rescue members on board, was able to reach the north face of the Mendenhall Towers. An intact anchor rope was seen at the top of an ice shoot on the 4th Tower. Two climbing ropes were also seen in a crevasse midway down the 4th Tower. The ropes match the description of the gear carried by Johnson and Leclerc. Due to the circumstances, Johnson and Leclerc are presumed deceased. Due to continuing significant avalanche danger and safety hazards, recovery efforts are not feasible at this time.”

That evening, Leclerc's father, Serge, posted a note to Facebook:

"Sadly we have lost 2 really great climber and I lost a son I am very proud of. Thank you for the support during this difficult time. My heart is so broken…Part of me is gone with him…"

Leclerc was one of the best alpinists in the world. He made dozens of bold first ascents, including the first solo of the Corkscrew route on Cerro Torre, in Patagonia, and the first winter ascent of Mount Slesse, near his home in British Columbia. Johnson wasn’t quite as internationally recognized, but had put up many significant climbs in the Mendenhall Towers and made an ascent of Denali and Mount Hunter, both in Alaska.

Johnson had a 2-year-old son, and a GoFundMe account has been set up for him. 

Additionally, a GoFundMe account has been set up for Leclerc's family and girlfriend, Brette Harrington.

Plus, a case for changing the way you think about calories

Keeping tabs on your hunger is key to successful training. If you’re pushing hard, you’re burning through more calories than usual, and you need to pay close attention to how much food you’re using to fuel those efforts to avoid an energy deficit. Similarly, if you’re toning down your training for whatever reason or trying to cut a few pounds to hit racing weight, you have to think about eating less without feeling like your energy is depleted.

But many athletes think the number of calories is all they need to measure, rather than the quality of those calories. Specifically, they should think about the satiety—or fillingness—of the foods they eat.

Satiety is the subject of a 1995 study out of Australia. The scientists fed participants 240-calorie portions of popular foods—everything from meats and potatoes to cakes and pastas. Every 15 minutes thereafter, participants reported how hungry they felt. Two hours later, the participants could eat whatever they wanted from a breakfast buffet while scientists tracked their intake—the idea being that hungrier participants would eat more at the buffet and fuller ones would eat less despite having eaten the same number of calories beforehand. In the end, the researchers came up with a quantifiable metric to measure how full different foods—from oats and whitefish to cake and french fries—will make you feel. That result is known as the satiety index.

That number differed pretty dramatically between items. Foods with lots of fat or sugar (like doughnuts or croissants) didn’t keep people full for very long, whereas the more natural, unrefined alternatives (like fruits and lean proteins) delivered high satiety numbers, says Stephan Guyenet, an obesity researcher and author of The Hungry Brain. Researchers gave each food its satiety index as compared to that of white bread, which was arbitrarily set at 100 percent. The least and most filling foods, for example, were croissants and white potatoes, with scores of 47 percent and 323 percent, respectively. Compared to a serving of equal calories of white bread, croissants are roughly half as filling, and white potatoes are more than three times as filling.

Calorie density is the key factor that predicts a food’s satiety index. In the study, less calorie-dense foods tended to be more filling because participants had to eat more volume (in ounces) to reach the same number of calories. In other words, 240 calories’ worth of lower-calorie food took up more room in their stomachs. Those foods also tend to have more fiber, so they take longer to digest.

The second metric to consider is a food’s macronutrient profile. For example, foods higher in protein and fiber kept participants fuller for longer, while those high in fat did not.

The takeaway: If you’re having trouble cramming in calories, eat foods with a lower satiety score. You’ll top off fuel reserves without feeling uncomfortably stuffed. If you’re trying to cut weight or avoid feeling hungry all the time, eat foods with a higher satiety score. They’ll help control your cravings while keeping your total calories at a lower number.

We went one step further, and used the study’s results to create a visual guide that illustrates how full a variety of foods will make you feel. The x-axis represents ounces—the amount of each food you’d have to eat to reach the 240-calorie mark. The y-axis represents satiety index—the number the food was given in the study to illustrate how filling it is compared to a 240-calorie serving of white bread. A score below 100 means the food is less filling; anything above 100 is more filling.

The higher up and to the right that a food falls, the fuller it will keep you for longer, and vice versa for foods lower and to the left.

Bakery Products

Croissants, cakes, and doughnuts registered as the least filling foods. They’re relatively calorie dense, high in fat, and rewarding only in the short-term.

Snacks and Confectionaries

Although a smidge more filling than the bakery products, most classic snacks and candies didn’t rank high on the index. The humble Mars bar was the least satiating food in this category, while fiber-rich popcorn was the most.

Carb-Heavy Foods

The right kind of carbs can be a great weight-loss tool: Plain boiled potatoes were the most filling food in the study. (Read our ode to the humble spud here.) Fatty fries, on the other hand, were the least filling of the category.

Protein-Heavy Foods

Every food in this category beat out bread. Ling fish—similar to cod—was the most filling, thanks to the large portion size required to hit 240 calories.

Fruits

Volume of the 240-calorie serving determined how full each fruit made the participants feel. Bananas, the smallest portion, registered last, while oranges, the largest portion, were most filling.

Breakfast Cereals

Refined cereals tended to score lower, while basic one-ingredient, unprocessed oatmeal was the third most-filling food in the study.

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 This year, for the fifth Olympics in a row, Ralph Lauren designed Team U.S.A.’s uniforms for the opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics. The outfits include red-white-and-blue parkas, pull-over ski sweaters, work boots, and flag-emblazoned jeans. But, when the designer debuted the team outfit on the Today Show on January 22, one item garnered particular scrutiny: a pair of tasseled leather gloves with the Olympic rings beaded on the top.

Brad Peterson and Charlie Brown, co-founders of small Colorado company Astis, say their friends started calling to congratulate them because the gloves closely resemble theirs.

“We’re still getting congratulations because people think we made them,” Peterson says.

Astis, which has been around since 2010, has developed a niche following within the ski world. Its signature waterproof leather gloves and mittens feature hefty cuffs, some accented with fur and tassels, all with intricate, colorful beaded designs. The design is based on a pair of hand-crafted mittens Peterson received 15 years ago from a friend, who commissioned them from a Cree Native American artist.

When they were torn apart by his sister’s dog in 2009, he set about making himself another pair. Friends and family began requesting their own, and, in 2010, Astis was born.

About two years ago, Peterson received a message from a Ralph Lauren employee, who inquired about Astis’s design and production process. Over the next year, Peterson says, conversations continued with several Ralph Lauren employees. At one point, the brand expressed interest in partnering with Astis to make gloves for the Team U.S.A. Olympic uniform. But the conversations fizzled out.

When Peterson saw images of the gloves Ralph Lauren had ultimately designed, he was surprised and saddened.

A spokeswoman for Polo Ralph Lauren relayed the following statement to SKI magazine: “The American West has been a well-established source of inspiration for Ralph Lauren, and the design team had always conceived of creating a Western-inspired glove for Team USA’s opening ceremony uniform. The gloves were inspired by vintage ranch gloves and rugged Western style, and we explored production with a number of manufacturing partners to execute the design vision.”

(Ralph Lauren did not respond to Outside’s request for comment before the publishing deadline. Outside will update this story if we hear back.)

“I was so close to a dream of mine,” Peterson says. “When I started making these, I thought, ‘How cool would it be to have the Olympic rings and American flag on the gloves.’ To come that close, and then see Ralph Lauren do it, it’s kind of sad.”

But, Peterson says he is certainly aware of the inspiration he himself drew from the gloves made by that Cree artist more than 20 years ago. “I didn’t invent the wheel,” says Peterson. “I’m an honest guy. I don’t think you get anywhere by lying.” In fact, Astis and Brown have recently begun conversations with Len Necefer, who founded an organization called Natives Outdoors—which is dedicated to increasing representation of Native Americans in the outdoor industry—about potentially collaborating. 

Necefer says he had seen both native and non-native people wearing similar styles of gloves during his travels throughout Quebec and other parts of Canada but was never bothered by it. But he's excited by the prospect of collaborating with Astis on projects that benefit both the company and native communities.

"The discussion of cultural appropriation is important, and it's something that Astis is very aware of," Necefer says. He also sees a silver lining of the whole saga with Ralph Lauren: the opportunity for the two small brands to come together and prove that they can make a better product. 

"Now we, as smaller brands, have the opportunity to show that we can do a better job," Necefer says.

Why settle for crappy hotel-room java when you can bring your own?

Finding a morning coffee on the road is often a struggle. You might try the stale instant in your room or the old-and-cold in the lobby. Or you could venture into the unknown, half-conscious, searching for a decent cup that inevitably costs too much. Fortunately, there are fixes to this conundrum, whatever your morning java preferences. Here are six ways you can take your coffee with you.

Stoked Roasters and Coffeehouse Stoked Stix ($9)

Normally, we have to be pretty desperate to chug instant, but this is a different bean. Founded by ultrarunner Jax Mariash, Stoked is a boutique coffee roaster based in Hood River, Oregon, that also processes some of its custom blends into instant. Rip open a package, dump the contents into an eight-ounce cup, pour in boiling water, and drink. The medium roast is smooth and almost chocolaty, while the dark roast has a slightly nutty, balanced zing. Varieties come by the box, with eight packages in each, and are ideal for camping.

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Go Cubes ($40 for 80 Chews)

This is indisputably the most travel-friendly delivery system. Just pop two of these gummies into your mouth, no lineups, boiling, or percolating required. Made from cold-pressed coffee, the cubes come in three flavors—mocha, latte, and pure drip—and go down easy, almost melting in your mouth. Each cube contains 50 milligrams of caffeine, about as much as half a cup of regular coffee, in addition to B vitamins and L-theanine, an amino acid.

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Ember Mug ($150)

The average cup of coffee lands in a cup at 160 degrees—hot enough to scald your tongue—and rapidly cools to lukewarm. The admittedly pricey Ember mug gets around this problem with walls that cool your drink to a preset temperature by absorbing some of the heat, plus a heating coil that fires up to keep your brew at just the right temperature. The leakproof lid and two-hour battery life make it ideal for slow sippers and long drives.

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TightPac TV2 Spicevac ($10)

TightPac is known mostly to cooks and other hobbyists who want to keep herbs fresh. But the company’s vacuum-sealing containers are also great for coffee. A two-way valve allows air out but not in, keeping your coffee fresher for longer.

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Snow Peak Cafe Latte Set ($111)

This camp stove barista set allows you to heat and froth your milk while you brew with the titanium French press. The hand pump makes impressively peaky foam, and the entire system comes in a sleek carrying case that weighs only 13 ounces total.

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Timbuk2 Blue Bottle Weekender Travel Kit ($125)

A collaboration between stylish bag maker Timbuk2 and high-end coffee subscription service Blue Bottle, this kit includes a stainless-steel burr-style hand grinder, a drip feeder that perches on the two enamel mugs, felt koozies, hemp filters, and a healthy supply of Blue Bottle coffee, all of which nests comfortably in a waxed-canvas satchel. This is not for the casual coffee snob, but if you’re particular about your drip coffee, this kit will fulfill your needs almost anywhere you go.

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In the face of unexpected pitfalls, you learn that it’s not about the problems you encounter—it’s how you deal with them

Since the day we purchased Artemis, the Airstream, people have repeatedly told us that trailers are second only to boats when it comes to repair costs and maintenance headaches. The day we picked her up, a hose clamp came loose, which sent water trickling from the fresh tank and the previous owner scrabbling beneath the shower to stanch the leak. “If you’re not a handyman, you will be,” he said, once he’d stopped the drip. “There’s always something to fix.”

Almost two years later, we’ve had a few issues, but nothing that seriously slowed us down. Until last week.

We’ve spent the last few weeks flying around the country for work, so picking up Artemis where we’d stashed her in Santa Fe felt like a homecoming. Jen was lucky enough to draw an elk tag in the Gila Wilderness this year, which meant we were in store for some quiet camping and dark skies. All we had to do was hook up, drive south, find a site, and relax. We got about halfway through that list before plans rattled apart.

On the 20-mile dirt road into the Gila, Jen, who was driving, slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the truck. “We’ve got a problem,” she shouted. A dark trail in the dusty New Mexico roadway led away from Artemis from the fresh water tank, which had sprung a leak. By the time I’d circled the truck and reached her, Jen had her pinky jammed like Hans Brinker in a hole where the plastic drain nozzle of the tank used to live. A kicked-up rock had sheared it clean. About that time, a rancher drove by and slowed. “That’s you wasting all that water, huh?” he said. “Trail goes back for miles. Gallons and gallons of water wasted.” 

The rancher drove away, and Jen and I hemmed and hawed and yelled at each other briefly. We didn’t know what else to do. Without fresh water, the hunt—and our quiet time—was over before it began, but we had no spare plug and no apparent fix. Then, with nothing else to do, Jen kept the leak plugged with her finger, and I rooted furiously through the cabinets in the trailer. Eventually I fashioned a duct tape plug for the main leak and whittled a twig to fill the lower pinhole. With a couple of layers of duct tape overtop—and a few more passersby to remark on our plight—the flow was down to a drop or two a minute. Problem mostly solved.

The campsite we’d scoped in advance was occupied, which meant we had to drive around washboard dirt roads looking for a place to stay. Pushing a 23-foot trailer in and out of rutted two-tracks isn’t easy, and all I could think about was getting somewhere to stop our fresh water hemorrhage. Meanwhile, it had started to rain.

Three more sites we knew were occupied, then we nearly stalled on a steep pitch of slippery mud roads as we headed up to a place we’d seen but never scouted. Jen gunned it, Artemis swayed like a willow in the wind, and fortunately we made the top of the hill to find an open—and lovely—campsite.

The fun wasn’t over. When I spun the propane knob to fire up Artemis, the hiss of leaking gas lead to a couple of rotted-out gaskets, which meant no heat or hot food. I steamed for a minute or two as cold rain throbbed on my bare head. Then, inside the trailer, the weather-beaten roads had twisted a closet hinge so brutally that the wood panel door lay on the bed, clothes strewn like flotsam. In the cold, gray of the fall evening, with nothing else to do, Jen and I poured a bourbon and discussed our hasty, early morning retreat. Without fresh water and fuel, and in the pouring, frigid rain, Artemis seemed like nothing more than an unwieldy tent. With real services three hours away, it seemed we’d have to pull out at dawn.

A friend once told me to never quit an endurance race before a good night’s sleep, as sunlight and rest bring clarity. The same holds true for Airstreaming. Dawn cast away the clouds for a flaxen sunrise, which seemed to clear my head. I’m still no handyman, but I managed to reinforce the fresh tank till it no longer dripped, use copious wraps of electrical tape to choke down the fuel leak to a trickle, and duct tape the closet door shut so it was out of our way. None of it was pretty, but it did the job. No need to drive hours to town and abort our plans.

Jen managed to find and take an elk a few days later, which means we’ll eat well for the year to come. As important, we realized that, with a bit of ingenuity, problems in the field can be solved in the field, at least temporarily. When there’s no Home Depot around the corner or handyman to call, you make do. Three days after we arrived, the fresh tank was still two-thirds full and the propane was running fine. The lesson: don’t panic when things go south; just sleep on it, and then start improvising. Also, we’ll carry spare tank drains, hinges, propane fitments, and extra duct and electrical tapes from here forward.

Even after Jen finished the hunt, we stuck around for more quiet time. We even witnessed the blaze of Orionid meteors three black dawns in a row. After we left the Gila, there was a brief moment when I thought, “Duct tape works fine. Problems fixed.” Then, on Jen’s prudent urging, I pointed Artemis toward the nearest hardware shop.