Mount Hood

Ditch that winter weight and sculpt your body for summer 2015

By Conner Williams
 Opinion-Editorial Editor

As the year comes to a close and you are slowly losing the ability to process any academic information whatsoever, you might consider switching over from working your mind muscles to your muscle muscles (yeah, that’s the right term!) as the nice weather makes its way into the Pacific Northwest.

In other words, it’s about that time of year when you already have or are about to make yourself a promise that this summer is the one where you go all out and get the best body you’ve ever had.

We’ve all been there, myself included. The winter and spring seasons came to a close much too quickly, and you’ve checked the scale several hundred times trying to trick yourself into thinking that you didn’t actually put on those ten pounds. All you did was drink craft beer and eat homemade cookies all winter; what’s the big deal, right?

Hey, I’m not judging you. I’m in the same boat, and believe me, I’m ready to get down to business and hit the gym.

I have pledged allegiance to the gym of the United Plates of America, and to the lifestyle for which it stands, one weight room, under Arnold, with protein shakes and curls for all.

Ahem, excuse me, my inner gym bro took over for a second there.

So, here are a few simple general tips for shedding those unwanted pounds for your ideal summer body and overall physical health.

 

1. Stick to complex carbohydrates

Complex carbohydrates are digested slowly and provide long-term fuel for your muscles. They often contain higher amounts of fiber and derive from whole grains and legumes.

Contrary to complex carbs are simple carbs, which are made up of more “basic sugars with little real value for your body,” according to Diana Rodriguez of everydayhealth.com and reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH. They are digested quickly, raising your glycemic index and increasing insulin production.

This is not ideal because when your insulin has spiked too much and your body has reached its maximum amount of glycogen storage in the muscles for immediate use, the excess is stored as fat. If only we could store an unlimited amount of glycogen as muscle, this would be a much simpler process. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works.

Simple carbs take the form of white bread, pasta, white rice, and just about anything with a starch base. Unlike complex carbs, which contain longer chains of sugars to slow down digestion and deliver energy for longer periods of time, simple carbs contain short chain sugars and are low in fiber, providing energy for short periods of time and thus leading to increases in fat storage.

It’s fairly effortless to make simple substitutions in your diet; switch white rice with brown, eat whole grain bread rather than white (Dave’s Killer Bread is the best, in my opinion), try sweet potatoes rather than regular ones, and eliminate simple sugars like candy and soda.

2. Increase and vary your cardio

Believe me, I hate doing cardio just as much as the next person, but it plays a huge role in burning fat. Try to find something active that you enjoy doing or can at least tolerate, such as jogging, playing tennis, racquetball, swimming, bicycling, or some other activity where your heart rate is elevated for an extended period of time.

These longer periods of cardio are called aerobic exercise, which means that they require the intake of oxygen to move and fuel your muscles. The sibling of aerobic exercise is anaerobic exercise, which is “any short-duration exercise that is powered primarily by metabolic pathways that do not use oxygen,” according to the Medical Dictionary of thefreedictionary.com.

This type of exercise consists of brief, interval-based activities, such as sprinting and weightlifting, which invoke the use of fast-twitch muscle fibers, as opposed to aerobic exercise, which recruits slow-twitch fibers for muscular exertion. Fast-twitch fibers are large and are utilized for power and strength, while slow-twitch fibers are used for endurance exercises like running and cycling.

Think of the contrast in body composition between a sprinter and a marathon runner, and you’ll understand the difference between the two muscle types. Both forms of cardio should be utilized, but many argue that anaerobic exercise may lead to increased fat loss as opposed to aerobic exercise.

According to an article on bodybuilding.com by Shannon Clark, an exercise science and sport performance degree recipient from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, anaerobic activities “will boost metabolism a good deal more than moderate paced training.”

In addition, this means that the body will burn more calories while at rest, thus increasing overall calorie and fat burning even when not working out. Burning calories while I’m watching Netflix? Sign me up. I’ll take 15 minutes of sprints over an hour jog any day.

3. Make sure to eat breakfast

As college students who often sleep in until the very last minute before our first morning class, we sometimes make the conscious choice to skip breakfast in order to save precious wake-up time.

First of all, if you sleep an average of eight hours per night, that is eight hours that you’re going without fuel. And if you skip breakfast, you’re sacrificing more time where you could have revved up your metabolism with a balanced meal.

Unfortunately, fat is the first stored tissue that our body chooses to use for fuel when we are sleeping, and that is why it is important to fuel your body and kick start your metabolism fairly soon upon waking.

In addition, it is not uncommon for people that skip breakfast to ingest more calories during the day to make up for their hunger and lack of fuel at the beginning of the day. I personally like something simple: three scrambled eggs, one cup of steel-cut oatmeal, and a banana.

4. Limit your alcohol consumption

This is painful for me to put on this list, but make no mistake, alcohol is a huge supplier of empty calories. By that, I mean that it is full of carbs and calories and offers hardly any other nutritional value.

Granted, many studies have shown that moderate amounts of certain alcohol, particularly red wine, can reduce the risks of cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.

According to an article from WebMD on a study by Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, the study reported that “light drinkers who consumed wine cut their risk of dying prematurely by almost one third, and wine drinkers as a group had significantly lower mortality rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer.”

That sounds great, but remember that this is all in moderation. Doing keg stands at a party is going to bring in a significant amount of calories, all of which have no additional nutritional value. They don’t call it a beer gut for nothing.

So while you’re kicking back and sipping a Corona (assuming you’re of age and it’s a light) on the beach showing off your brand-new abs, you’ll be able to look back on this list and realize that all it took was some simple diet tweaking, creative and varied cardio work, and moderation to achieve that summer bod you’ve always wanted.

Diversity in books still a work-in-progress

By Emily Pate
 Freelancer

Literature can be an escape from everyday life, a place to retreat from reality. And yet, for many, these retreats are not as accommodating- or as representative–as they should be.

In 2012, Roxane Gay, writing for the Rumpus, surveyed books reviewed by the New York Times in 2011. She discovered that 90 percent of these books were written by white authors.

“That is not even remotely reflective of the racial makeup of this country,” Gay said, “where 72 percent of the population, according to the 2010 census, is white.” In addition, nearly 67 percent of the books were written by men.

It’s not just in adult books that this lack of diversity is found. Also in 2012, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) did a survey of 3,600 books for children. Of all these books, only 7.5 percent were about non-white characters.

CCBC also reports that, over the last two decades, the percentage of children’s books written by or about people of color has remained near 10 percent, instead of the 37 percent that would more accurately reflect the population of the United States.

However, CCBC’s data indicates that the percentage of these books rose in 2014, up from 10 percent to 14 percent. It’s a small step, but still in the right direction.

There are improvements in other areas as well. According to Diversity in YA, at http://www.diversityinya.com, 47 LGBTQ+ books were published by mainstream publishers in 2014, a 59 percent increase from 2013, a number is still distressingly small considering the huge volume of books published every year.

And yet, like the percentages on racial diversity, the numbers are improving.

There are organizations that strive to take progress even farther. One such organization is the We Need Diverse Books Campaign, created in 2014 as a result of the lack of diversity in literature, especially in books directed towards young people.

On their website, http://weneeddiversebooks.org, the campaign defines itself as an organization that “advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people.”

Representation is, as the We Need Diverse Books Campaign says, essential. Even aside from the desire to see oneself reflected in the pages of a book, diversity in literature, especially in books directed towards children and young adults, can teach empathy and self-confidence.

Better representations gives readers a broader, and more accurate, view of the world. Diversity is also something that anyone can contribute to. Through readers purchasing diverse books and encouraging better representation, the publishing industry can be directed towards literature that better represents all readers.

Buy games; help kids: The Humble Bundle

By Declan Hertel
 Staff Writer

Games are expensive. This is the sad truth of all gaming, be it video, board, or roleplaying: it is a costly hobby. However, efforts to make gaming more accessible have been made.

For video games, Valve (Team Fortress 2, Portal) has the Steam platform, a program that allows users to buy and download games, along with providing support for multiplayer gaming and a social network based around games.

Steam is known for its massive sales, especially during the winter and summer, where they mark down every game on their marketplace by a significant percentage and offer bigger deals on popular games day to day. But these huge sales are rare, and gamers are still on the lookout for cheap games.

Enter the Humble Bundle. Every few weeks on humblebundle.com, a bundle of games is put up for sale, and customers can pay what they want for them. You must pay at least $1, but the more you pay, the more you get.

The Humble Bundle typically offers several tiers of games; the first tier is “pay-what-you-want,” and the second tier requires that you beat the average price (at the time of this writing, the current Bundle has an average of $5.51).

The second tier is generally where the better, more well-known games lie. Relatively recently, Humble Bundle introduced more tiers with fixed prices for a third tier, generally around $15-$20 to get the biggest name games in the bundle. If you pay their highest asking price, you’ll receive all the games from every tier, often getting $250+ worth of games for $20.

“How could this possibly be,” you say? Well, dear reader, it can be because it is for charity.

The proceeds are split between the game developers and one or more charities, which have included Child’s Play, a charity that provides gaming consoles to children’s hospitals; Electronic Frontier Foundation, a “non-profit digital rights group”; Charity: Water, which provides clean drinking water to developing nations, and the American Red Cross, among many others.

Customers are given the opportunity to split their money between the developers and the charities however they want, with a default 10 percent going to charity.

When I first heard about the Humble Bundle, after the initial excitement of 10 games for a dollar, I thought, “How could this possibly be a success? Why doesn’t everyone just give the minimum and be done?”

It turns out that many people are very charitable indeed, even when it would be very easy not to be. In the current bundle, the total amount given (with six days left at the time of this writing) is $462,963.85, and the biggest donation is $1,000.

Since its start in 2010, the Humble Bundle has also introduced Weekly Bundles, Book Bundles, Mobile Bundles for Android, and the Humble Store, which functions like the Steam store, but with a charitable angle.

Humble Bundle is a service that is well worth taking advantage of. You get your cheap games, and the rest of the world gets a little bit brighter. I think the world would do well with more such services, but for now, Humble Bundle will do.

Max Max: Second Opinion

By Declan Hertel
 Staff Writer

In sharp contrast to my colleague Nathaniel, I hated “Mad Max: Fury Road.” I hated it because it was a perfect action film and, therefore, has ruined all other action films for me.

I didn’t know that movie genres could be won, but “Mad Max: Fury Road” has won action films.

I couldn’t look away for a second. “Mad Max” is, for my money, the most visually beautiful film since 2009’s “Avatar.” The vibrant orange and blue color palette brings the wasteland to life, deftly avoiding the brown deluge that often plagues post-apocalyptia.

Every element of the world — from the absurdly dangerous automobiles to the religious fervor of the War Boys; even the bungee-suspended, pajama-wearing flamethrower-operator/war-guitarist (take a second to absorb that) — just feels… right.

Without exaggeration, I say even the weakest action sequence in the film is far and away better than any other I’ve seen recently. Every scrap is executed with complete abandon, reveling in the madness without a care in the world; it’s an attitude best expressed by Nux during an utterly unhinged battle sequence: “What a day! What a LOVELY day! “

Have yourself a “lovely day” at the cinema. Go see “Mad Max.”

4.5 paws out of 4, and I’, not even kidding.

“MAD MAX: Fury Road”

By Nathaniel Dunaway
 Entertainment Editor

In 1979, Australian filmmaker George Miller released his feature-film debut: a dystopian action thriller entitled “Mad Max.” The film starred Mel Gibson as Max, a role that would launch the then 23-year-old actor into stardom.

Inspired by the 1970’s oil crisis, in which oil prices skyrocketed, affecting millions of Australians in particular, “Mad Max” (and its immediate sequels “The Road Warrior” and “Beyond Thunderdome,”) follows Max, a lawman, and his travels through a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, where he encounters vicious motorcycle gangs, mutants, vengeance and driving. Lots and lots of driving.

Miller had always planned a fourth film in the franchise, but the project remained in development hell for nearly 30 years. When it finally became a reality with the release of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” this month, the response from fans and critics alike was virtually unanimous: it was worth the wait.

“Fury Road,” essentially a reboot of the series rather than a strict continuation, stars Tom Hardy (“Bronson”) and Charlize Theron (“Monster”) as Max Rockatansky and Imperator Furiosa, respectively.

The film begins with Furiosa, a badass, one-armed raider, leading a convoy of war rigs from the Citadel — a colony led by the film’s antagonist, Immortan Joe — to Gas Town, a city with a monopoly grip on gasoline. Halfway to her destination, however, she veers off-road, thus setting the insane events of this insane film in motion.

As it turns out, Furiosa is actually smuggling Immortan Joe’s Five Wives (the women he keeps as “breeders”) to safety. When the masked, deformed, and insane Joe realizes this, he leads a war party after Furiosa to retrieve his wives.

If that description of the film sounds somewhat Mad Max-less, that’s because it is, for the first act at least. Early on, Max is captured and serves as the “blood-bag” (an unwilling blood donor) to Nux, a Citadel raider played by Nicholas Hoult (“Warm Bodies”). Only after the first half-hour does Max cease being a passive character to whom things simply happen, and becomes the driving force of the film, when he decides to aid in the rescue of Immortan Joe’s Five Wives.

Still, Charlize Theron’s Furiosa is constantly at odds with Tom Hardy’s Max for the title of “Fury Road’s” true action hero. Max’s name may be in the title, but it’s Furiosa’s mission that the audience invests in — first when she seeks to save the Five Wives, and later, when she seeks revenge on Immortan Joe, played terrifyingly by “Mad Max” alum Hugh Keays-Byrne. Regardless, Furiosa will still inevitably go down as one of the great action characters of all-time.

“Fury Road” is filled to the brim with explosions, gunfire, fights, frenzy, and fun. It’s an action film in the purist sense, in which the action serves as perfectly-executed exposition in the telling of a great story. It’s never action for action’s sake, never mindless or aimless.

The title of “action film” has a sour connotation to some, suggesting a men’s only club of overwrought violence and one-liners, but “Fury Road” is about as far from Steven Seagal as you can get, mainly due to Imperator Furiosa, the epitome of the strong female hero.

She’s a scarred, battle-hardened fighter with no time for in-depth introspection or (and thank God/George Miller for this) a love-interest. But the feminist themes don’t stop there, with the story of the Five Wives’ escape from the clutches of Immortan Joe serving as an allegory of sorts for the reproductive rights of women.

Action doesn’t always mean flame-spewing electric guitars and hand-grenade spears. It also means what the characters do, and in this film, what they do and what decisions they make are paramount. “Fury Road” takes place over a frenzied three days of mayhem, leaving little breathing room and even less room for needless character arcs. What the characters do inform who they are, nothing more, nothing less.

In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, the idea of a two-hour long film encompassing what is essentially a single car chase would come off as overdone and gimmicky, but in George Miller’s hands, it’s truly a sight to behold.

So go out and behold it, as soon as you can. You’ll be glad you did.

4 paws out of 4.

Northwest Passage release party

The Northwest Passage will celebrate the release of its spring issue, Tuesday, May 26 at 5:30 p.m. in Hamersly Library room 107. The literature and arts magazine is a collaboration of poetry, short stories, photography, and art all created by the Western community. The party will include students reading and showcasing some of their work published in the spring issue.

Bethany McWhorter, editor-in-chief of the Northwest Passage said, “It’s been an interesting journey this term with the production and now the release of this issue, but I’m very pleased with the final product. I’m looking forward to where the next editor takes it next year.”

Leadership Awards honor standout scholars

By Jack Armstrong and Madison McCammon
 News Editor and Freelancer

The Student Leadership Recognition Awards were held Tuesday, May 12. This awards ceremony is an annual event on campus.

“This was the 25th year of these awards here at Western,” said Gary Dukes, vice president for student affairs.

This year’s ceremony entitled “Lead Long and Prosper,” was presented in a classic Star Trek theme, and even provided party-goers with the opportunity to utilize a photo booth featuring Kirk and Spock.

The awards themselves are focused on recognizing students who display great effort and achievement in both their on campus, and off campus activities.

“Students can be nominated by anybody on campus, although it is usually faculty,” said Dukes. “Then, once a student has been nominated, there is a committee of faculty and staff who makes the final decisions.”

Some of the awards were campus-wide nominations but some were department or club specific.

“Each department has their own process for award determination. Some are peer-selected, others are staff-selected and some are selected directly by the university committee,” said Megan Habermann, assistant director for student leadership activities.

Kylie Roth, recipient of the Julia McCulloch Smith Outstanding Graduating Women Award, said she felt “very honored and grateful” to be given the award. Roth, a senior psychology major, also received the Karl Amspacher award and a Who’s Who certificate.

Roth has been chosen to be one of the speakers at commencement as a result of receiving the award. Roth said she still is not certain what she intends to speak about.

“In general, I plan to talk about the things that stood out to me during my four years at WOU and encourage all graduates as we move forward with our lives,” she said.

Two other graduating students were selected to speak at commencement ceremonies after receiving their awards.

Eli Zachary was announced as winner of the Delmer Dewey Outstanding Graduating Men Award, and Erica West Oyedele was announced as winner of the 2015 Outstanding Graduate Student Award.

Oyedele was recognized by her supervisory professors for her work on her thesis entitled “Persistence of African-American/Black Signed Language Interpreters in the United States: The Importance of Culture and Capital.” She was also recognized for her commitment to complete her program remotely from California.

“I don’t know exactly what they saw in me,” said Oyedele, “but they saw something, and for that I am grateful.”

Even though the award ceremony lasted much longer than expected, winners and attendees left happy.

“It was a special, fun night, and my congratulations go out to all of the deserving winners,” said Roth.

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