The FastDay Forum

Our furnace died and it is going to be a few days before we get one installed and man, is it cold here!

I hope at least I can burn some calories by heating my body

Nothing better than an optimistic loser

[Tracieknits]

Oh I'm sorry! We're in the same boat - our new furnace will be installed on Tuesday. I told them we're not an emergency as our furnace *sometimes* turns on, and the technician taught my husband how to force the furnace to go on. We got three space heaters at Home Depot in the interim.

I'm so grateful this happened while the weather's been mild (ours first refused to turn on this past Saturday, when the temp outside was a high of 65 degrees). Can you imagine if we had to deal with this in typical January temps?

I hadn't thought of the effect of cold on weight loss though. I usually associate being cold with my thyroid being too low, which means fast weight gain. But with that, it's being too cold on the inside, not the outside.

There was a Japanese study done quite a few years ago where they got female college students to either wear trousers or a skirt for the whole winter. The skirt wearers were allowed to wear boots and tights though. The results were that the trouser wearers had fatter thighs and calves by spring. There was no other difference, they weren't to to diet or change their lifestyle in any way. They had a few hundred participants so it was a decently big study.

I heard this a few years ago. All about the body using more energy to get/keep warm. I hope it's true, I'm freezing haha Let us know if you have a bigger loss this week with no furnace.
Dee

I think the body's calorie burn doesn't change too much with external temperature. It regulates heat by constricting pores, reducing perspiration, constricting blood vessels and moving blood circulation away from surface and extremities, goosebumps to increase thickness of body hair. If you start to enter into a state of hypothermia, then the body will take further measures such as shivering, increased heart rate, etc. which may increase the calorie burn slightly. On the other hand, cold temperatures slow down your cells' ability to consume glucose, and you may even end up hyperglycaemic. If you are cold, there is probably a tendency for you to move around more, and this will also tend burn calories, albeit a small amount. All in all, It seems to me that turning your furnace off is a poor weight loss strategy

So my switch to tights ankle boots and skirts last winter helped my weight loss

Who'd have thought @julieathome

Thanks for explaining it @ma3xiu1 but I fined when it's cold I move much less and really find it harder to get moving. Just curl up on the sofa more.
Dee

Seem to remember that in the sixties when mini skirts first came into fashion that it was shown that women's legs and thighs increased in size to compensate for being exposed to the elements more!

I will loose another stone by xmas shivering.... Got my thermals on (sexy!).. thermal socks.. fleece..

If anyone has read that daft book '6 weeks to OMG', you will know that he recommends having a cold bath every morning (between 15 and 20 deg C) in order to stimulate metabolism working up to 15 mins, in conjunction with black coffee only for breakfast.

I am ashamed to say I tried it and it is bloody freezing. And no it didn't work. What a fool I was.

If anyone has read that daft book '6 weeks to OMG', you will know that he recommends having a cold bath every morning (between 15 and 20 deg C) in order to stimulate metabolism working up to 15 mins, in conjunction with black coffee only for breakfast.

I am ashamed to say I tried it and it is bloody freezing. And no it didn't work. What a fool I was.

Tim Ferriss also recommended the cold shower in his book The 4 Hour Body and demonstrated on a poor audience member on Dr Oz. Nothing like shivering in your bathing suit in front of a national audience! Like rawkaren, I tried it once or twice and then said never again!

http://www.fourhourbody.net/ice-ice-bab ... hour-body/

ETA: somewhere around here there is an old thread with several fans who tried the cold showers and liked them. So, each to their own, I guess. If you have ever watched the Biggest Loser you can often see the contestants sitting in ice baths. I guess some of the trainers endorse the cold theory.

@43tweaker, more likely they believe the ice baths make for more entertaining television

I know a few anorexics who believe it. I hate being cold so it's a trick I never resorted to.

It makes sense to move more when you are cold because moving warms you up.

Yes Dr Dukan recommended cold showers. I did try the shower a bit cooler...but where's the pleasure in that?! No, I'll just follow the 5:2 thank you very much!!

The calories-in/calories-out thermodynamics crowd might be hard-pressed to second-guess this, no? Especially with the shower and the heat capacity of water. You could even do math, like:

Bob weighs 100kg and the human body is 2/3 water. If you cool his average body temperature from 37C to 34C, how many kcal of food or stored fat would need to be burned to restore the body to its original temperature?

Answer: 100kg * (2/3) * (37C - 34C) * 1kcal/kg*C = 200kcal

So a really, really cold shower that probably makes you sick buys you an ice cream bar!