WITH LITTLE OR EVEN NO DOUBT, THREE THINGS WILL COME TRUE BEFORE JANUARY 1, 2010: The Toronto Maple Leafs will be out of playoff contention; your better half will have returned at least one of your Christmas gifts and you’ll have gained at least four to fi ve pounds. Don’t feel guilty – unless you have ‘Börje Forever’ tattooed on your left buttock – you are not alone.

WINTER WEIGHT GAIN Winter weight gain (or for the politically incorrect ‘festive fl ab’) is a bonafi de health condition and millions, if not billions, of dollars are spent each year trying to cure what ails you – be it in a lab or in a gym. But really, the science is easy. It’s cold out, too cold to do anything short of cleaning the snow off your windshield, and you still need to eat.

And while research shows that a little bit of extra padding around the mid-section serves as a great insulator when battling the cold days and nights of Canadian winters, it’s still not healthy to gain a Santa-sized belly every holiday season.

HUMANS CAN’T HIBERNATE That’s why it’s too bad humans can’t hibernate. Apparently bears can’t hibernate either, which was news to CHILL when we started researching this story. What bears do is something called “denning,” which is the technical term for entering an inactive and lethargic state that lasts anywhere from three to fi ve months. Sound familiar?

Except while humans still eat during the winter, bears – and this is the icky part – recycle their body waste. All of sudden packing on those extra pounds doesn’t sound so bad.

But that’s not to say a human’s ability to hibernate wouldn’t be useful if scientists and researchers could fi gure it out.

Dr. Kenneth B. Storey, a Canadian Research Chair in Molecular Physiology who specializes in hibernation at Carleton University in Ottawa, says “We want to induce hibernation for military purposes, so you can turn off a wounded soldier, or for space travel for extended hypothermic bouts where you want to go long distances.

“And medical types want to have humans hibernate for operations. For instance, they will now run your blood into a chiller, chilling you down in your thorax in order to have a longer time to work on your heart. So medicine wants to slow down biological time.

“And of course, if you look at organ transplants in a certain way, you want to turn off an organ. Really, you want to keep it for long periods of time, instead of having to rush it from donor to recipient. As you can see, there’s lots of drive to have humans hibernate.

And there are lots of attempts made to do it but it doesn’t seem to work.

So sorry, you can’t hibernate. End of discussion.” CHILL OUT Two small mammals Storey works with in his lab are bats and ground squirrels. They’ve both fi gured out how to drop their body temperature from the normal resting rate of 37° C to a far more effi cient 5° C. This ability, combined with a suppressed metabolic rate and a four to fi ve month dormant (or more specifi cally, torpor) period, allows them to save 90 per cent of their energy which would otherwise be needed to maintain regular body temperature. And that’s hibernation.

Confused? Talk to Mitsutaka Uchikoshi.

The 35-year old Japanese man once survived more than three weeks of frigid conditions, without food and water, by falling into what doctors called “a state of hibernation.” According to the BBC, Uchikoshi went missing during a climb of Mount Rokko on October 7, 2006. When he was found 24 days later he had almost no pulse, his organs had shut down and his body temperature had dropped to 22° C. What really perplexed the doctors was how Uchikoshi survived because his metabolism, for all intents and purposes, had stopped.Shutting down your metabolism is not a recommended alternative to getting out of daily walks, visits to the gym or a proper diet this winter.Your metabolism is what gives you physical life.

FIGHT THE FLAB So what’s the answer? Simple. You’ve got to get active. Or for you wannabe Lance Armstrongs out there, you have to stay active even if the remote control is begging you to stay in and cuddle up on the couch to watch Survivorman reruns.

Long-time personal trainer Marnie Towers, who now serves as the manager of Goodlife Fitness (Berkshire) in London, recommends you change your routine if you want to avoid becoming a self-induced fatforming factory this winter.

“For a lot of people, the summer comes and they’re all pumped for the gym and to be outdoors and to be active but when the winter comes it’s the same old blah. So I recommend seasonal workouts,” she says.

“In the summertime, hit the cardio and trim some fat off. In the winter months, let’s hit the weights. Let’s get into a good circuit program or maybe let’s put on some lean muscle mass and really challenge ourselves. I think by doing that in the winter time, people will see better results. And those better results will motivate them even more.” There you have it. Dr. Storey says you can’t hibernate and Marnie the personal trainer says even if you could, where’s the challenge?

And remember, if you see a bear heading off into a cave to “hibernate” this winter, make sure you set him straight too.

Dr. Storey even has a test. “Bears do slow down their metabolic rate but people don’t think that’s hibernation because, dude, they’re warm. If you stick a thermometer up a bear’s bum, it only goes to 30° C. Not down to 5° C.” Kind of brings new meaning to term “grin and bear it,” doesn’t it?

HIBERNATION HALL OF FAME

BEARS
A grizzly bear eats approx. 90 pounds (40 kilograms) of food each day in the fall in preparation for its long winter rest. That’s a lot of berries and honey.

And while not a true hibernator, a grizzly bear can sleep as long as a month before changing position.

Though their heart rate slows, a bear’s body temperature fails to undergo a dramatic decline, usually dropping to about 31° to 35° C (88° to 93° F). They may sleep deeply, but they have no diffi culty waking up.

Polar bears that spend the late summer and fall on the shores of Hudson Bay, beyond the reach of seals, also enter a state of hibernation due to the lack of food. Because they don’t den, scientists have dubbed the condition “walking hibernation.”

Noted University of Alberta scientist Ian Stirling concluded that a black bear deprived of food in summer would starve. A polar bear, however, appears to have the ability to turn on its hibernation mode when food is scarce and to turn it off when food becomes more abundant again.

SQUIRRELS
Richardson’s ground squirrels store some food during hibernation and wake up every 10 to 14 days to have a snack.

BATS
Bats hang upside down and pull their wings and tails close to their bodies to keep warm during hibernation. Their body temperature drops and they appear dead to predators.

Bats hibernate from October to April, waking up once a month.

Bats like warm buildings to hibernate in and are able to squeeze through a hole the size of a thumb.

FROGS

A frog’s body has some natural antifreeze chemicals built into it, but a few kinds of frogs, who live in especially cold climates, can even survive being frozen solid.