As a true cold weather enthusiast, I was happy I was chosen to write an article about it. Even more delightful, research shows, if we spend our time in colder temperatures, we can burn more of the fat stored in our bodies, including from the key reservoir of body fat, our butts.
Anyone who has been winter camping, especially 25 miles north of Thunder Bay at minus 25 degrees C (-13 F), knows campers are encouraged to consume a lot of fat calories to stay warm. Okay, so there may not be many people who are aware of this information but I have known it for 20 years. I was taught that we need to eat more fat as we will burn it for fuel to stay warm. I was also taught, because we need to move and stay active to stay warm, and since it is difficulty to consume enough extra calories while camping in the snow, weight loss often occurs.
So what a pleasure to discover that the research showed no travel or snowshoes are needed. All we have to do is lower our thermostats. There is even a theory linking today’s obesity issue to the fact that we have central heating and warm cars. Think how much longer our ancestors were exposed to colder temperatures 100 years ago. Rooms were warmed up as needed and they seldom reached 22 C (70 F). Transportation was horse and sleigh or buggy or they would be walking so they would always have been activating a process called non-shivering thermogenesis.
Thermogenesis is a process for producing heat in the body by burning fat stores. Exercise can burn calories but does not always burn stored fat. It can also produce an increase in appetite because the calories burned were from the food just consumed instead of converted stored fat. Non-shivering thermogenesis burns stored fat providing the body with necessary heat. If losing weight is your goal, this is good news. So lower the thermostat to 20 degrees C (68F) during the day and 18 degrees C (64 F) at night and allow the body to adjust. This means the body is now burning more stored fat 24 hours a day and more than it was at the higher room temperature, a great tip to go with any weight loss program.
Being outside is another way to burn more fat so instead of using the treadmill, go for a walk. Shivering to produce heat also burns fat but, in this scenario, the body is too cold so use this as a guide. Feeling the cold without shivering is ideal. After is nice walk, enjoy a hot Maca Chocolate Drink (recipe in newsletters below). The ingredients help maintain energy and deliver powerful antioxidants and nutrients that will be beneficial for any exercise program, even just walking in the cold.
For the recipe and more information about non-shivering thermogenesis, check out the article in the in one of these newsletters:
A Pastry Queen Goes Green
CAHN-Pro Nutrition News and Views
References:
1. High incidence of metabolically active brown adipose tissue in healthy adult humans: effects of cold exposure and adiposity, Saito M, Okamatsu-Ogura Y, Matsushita M, Watanabe K, Yoneshiro T, Nio-Kobayashi J, Iwanaga T, Miyagawa M, Kameya T, Nakada K, Kawai Y, Tsujisaki M., Source Department of Nutrition, School of Nursing and Nutrition, Tenshi College, Sapporo, Japan. saito@tenshi.ac.jp
2. Thermogenesis challenges the adipostat hypothesis for body-weight contro,lBarbara Cannona1, Jan Nedergaarda1, The Wenner-Gren Institute, The Arrhenius Laboratories F3, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden, presented at Symposium on ‘Frontiers in adipose tissue biology’, Edinborough Scotland April 2009
3. Br J Nutr. 1981 Mar;45(2):257-67. Influence of mild cold on 24 h energy expenditure, resting metabolism and diet-induced thermogenesis, Dauncey MJ.Br J Nutr. 1981 Mar;45(2):257-67.
4. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/central-heating-may-be-making-us-fat/
5. The effect of short daily cold exposures on development of brown adipose tissue in mice, Gerhard Heldmaier Biomedical and Life Sciences, Journal of Comparative Physiology B: Biochemical, Systemic, and Environmental Physiology, Volume 98, Number 2, 161-168, DOI:
10.1007/BF00706127
6. BAT Cold-Induced Thermoregulation and Biological Aging,Florez-Duquet, Maria, and Roger McDonaldPhysiology Graduate Group and Department of Nutrition, University of California, Davis, California Physiol. Rev. 78: 339–358, 1998
7. Dietary isoflavones alter regulatory behaviors, metabolic hormones and neuroendocrine fun Carnitine is necessary to maintain the phenotype and function of brown adipose tissue.
8. Ozaki K, Sano T, Tsuji N, Matsuura T, Narama I. Department of Pathology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Setsunan University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. ozaki@pharm.setsunan.ac.jp Lab Invest. 2011 May;91(5):704-10.Epub 2011 Feb 14.
9. Dietary isoflavones alter regulatory behaviors, metabolic hormones and neuroendocrine function in Long-Evans male rats. Lephart ED, Porter JP, Lund TD, Bu L, Setchell KD, Ramoz G, Crowley WR., Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA. edwin_lephart@byu.edu.
10. Corticosterone decreases nonshivering thermogenesis and increases lipid storage in brown adipose tissue. Strack AM, Bradbury MJ, Dallman MF.Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco 94143-0444.
11. Brown fat norepinephrine contents and turnover during cold acclimation and hibernation in the golden hamster (mesocricetus auratus), Dale D. Feista, †, a, Department of Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, U.S.A., PMID: 15617573
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