August, 2012.
“What are you having some type of barbecue?” The gas station attendant asks me with an awkward look on his face.
“Something like that”, I responding, thinking that telling the truth would result in another strange look and possible some questions that would take a day to answer. So I paid the kind gentleman and lugged the 35lbs of ice back to my car, hurrying home before it turns to a soaking mess.
Once I get home I fill the tub, toss in the 35lbs (plus all the ice from my freezer), set up my computer next to the tub with Game of Thrown’s at the ready, striped to my skinnies, dimmed the lights, started a timer, and pressed play.
***
Thermal Dieting
This is one of my favorite elements that I incorporate into my routine. Partly because it is not very well known and partly because of how ridiculous it seems on the surface. But the science behind it is fascinating to me. Thermal Dieting is the idea that by increasing your exposure to colder temperatures your body has to work harder to maintain its favorite temperature, which we all know from 5th grade is 98.6F. By increasing the gap between what temperature you put your body at and what your body wants to be at, your metabolism will have to increase incrementally to achieve its desired temperature.
Now your probably having crazy thoughts running through your head of how one might go about increasing the thermal load on your body. But before we get to that part, lets first discuss a bit of the science behind how this process works and why it can be so effective at rapidly increasing your rate of fat loss.
***
Warning: Skip the following section if you want to skip the science and go directly to action steps
In your body there are two types of fat, they are Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) and White Adipose Tissue (WAT). Just to clarify, adipose just means fat deposit, or more simply, fat. WAT is a fairly inactive form of adipose tissue that is used as a storage sight of excess fat. BAT, on the other hand, is a very active form, which is also known as the fat-burning-fat. This type of fat is very sensitive to temperature changes and when it becomes aware that the body has been exposed to colder temperatures than it would like, it works like crazy burning stored energy from WAT and also converting it to BAT.
It was originally believed that only babies had BAT to help them stay warm as infants because their shivering mechanisms are not yet fully developed. However, once testing technology got more advanced, the researched revealed that adults too had BAT. They also discovered that the amount of BAT vs. WAT on a body is not a static number, it can rise or fall depending on the frequency, duration, and intensity that the body is exposed to colder temperatures.
There are two leading experts in this field that have done extensive research and testing in regards to cold exposure that I’d like to mention. The first is Dr. Jack Kruse, a neurosurgeon who was able to loss 77lbs in three months and 157lbs in a year and a half using cold exposure as a key element in this transformation. He works with patients year round helping them redesign their bodies using what he calls Cold Thermogenesis, which is a super cool term.
Ray Cronise is the other expert I want to mention. He is a former NASA research scientist who went from one diet to another with limited success. The tipping point for him was hearing that Michael Phelps eating 12,000 calories a day. Even if he was swimming 24 hours a day that would not be enough to burn that many calories so Ray knew that there had to be more to the story. Then it hit him…water is twenty-four times for thermally conductive than air. Thus, by spending so much time in the water Michael Phelps was, probably unintentionally, taking advantage of the thermal aspect of thermo-dynamics. The exposure to the pool water was what was forcing his body to work over-time maintaining homeostasis against the cool water. Once Ray realized this he was able to lose 30lbs in six weeks by constantly putting his body into a cooler climate.
***
If that went over your head, don’t worry. The science is here for those who want it, but you don’t need to understand it in order to reap the benefits of the protocols that are presented. Many of these techniques to help you use cold expose to your advantage are borrowed from other researchers and self-experimenters, whom I give credit to at the end of the post as well as links to their websites.
Here are three protocols in descending order of pain tolerance:
Protocol 1
Method: Ice Bath
Duration: 20 minutes
Temperature: 50-55 Degrees F
Body Parts Exposed: Full body from neck down
This is the infamous ice baths. However, there are a few ways to tweak them so you don’t have to go to such extremes as I have had to in the beginning of this chapter, i.e. finding ice houses to supply the raw materials.
To do this method, fill a bathtub, or hot tub, or swimming pool, whatever you have available with cold water. You can use store bought ice, although you do not need to use as much as I did to get the temperatures low enough. 20lbs should be more than enough and you can buy this at most gas stations or grocery stores. It shouldn’t run you more than a few dollars which is greatly offset by the benefits. An alternative to buying ice for those who live in areas that actually experience winter is to just shovel some snow from outside and plop it into the tub to get it to the desired temperature. Once it is filled high enough for you to submerge your entire body from the neck down, you can get in and enjoy. I recommend having something to do during your baths to make the torture less excruciating, such as setting up a TV show on your computer, music, or having a book. Although from my experience the first few times you do this it can be hard to focus on reading when you’re working so hard on just staying warm, TV shows are the way to go.
Start off trying to do 10 minutes in the tub. If you can do that, get out and wait a few days before trying again. If you can’t then you can either try another method or continue attempting them trying to get to 10 minutes and eventually 20 or 30 minutes. I do not recommend doing for than 30 minutes per session. That is plenty of time for you to cause a cascade of hormonal and enzymatic changes in your body. Doing more will only cause more agony.
So as you can probably tell by now, I’m a little crazy in terms of what I like to put myself through so you should take what I say with a grain of salt, but for what its worth, I found these baths to be far easier than I thought they would be. When I first heard a podcast with Dr. Jack Kruse I thought that is was insane and I couldn’t wait to try it but I couldn’t possibly see how I would be able to do it. Once I got in the first time it was immediately shocking, but after the first few minutes I went fairly numb and the rest was easy. Each successive time after that it got easier and easier to the point where I looked forward to them and found them relaxing. Now I enjoy my ice baths, which when I tell people they think I’m missing a few cards from my deck.
Protocol 2
Method: Cold Walks
Duration: 15-30 minutes
Temperature: Variable
Body Parts Exposed: Full Body, minus hands, feel, and ears.
This method is obviously weather dependent. I would not recommend trying out this protocol in the middle of a snowstorm. However, the idea is to get your body adapted to the cold. A great way of doing that is to go for brisk walks in the cooler weather with minimal clothing and protection from the elements. I
I will usually go in a t-shirt or thin long-sleeved shirt, bathing suit shorts, beanie, gloves, and Vibram five-finger shoes with toe socks. The reason for this specific protection to the outer extremities is because when your body is exposed to the cold it’s main goal is to keep the vital organs warm such as the brain, heart, and all the other good stuff in your core. Thus, it shunts blood flow away from your fingers and toes in order to preserve the most important parts. This is why you’re fingers get stiff first in the cold and why people get frost bite on their fingers, toes, ears, and nose but rarely on other parts of their body. This is a biological survival mechanism at work.
Always head out with warmer layers available that you can always put on in the event that you get too cold or that the weather worsens. Don’t be stupid about this. It’s important to be safe when trying out these methods. You would make an ugly popsicle.
Start out with a 10 or 15-minute walk to get used to it. Then, as you get more comfortable you can add time to these sessions. It’s always better to go slow and work your way up than to immediately push yourself too far, which can result in stalling your progress for weeks.
Protocol 3
Method: Facial Submersion
Duration: 10 minutes
Temperature: 50-55 Degrees F
Body Parts Exposed: Face
During this process you fill your sink with cold water and ideally ice cubes to bring the temperature down. Then you submerge your face and hold your breath for as long as comfortable. DO NOT TRY TO GO BEYOND A POINT OF COMFORT. This is not a breath holding exercise, it is designed to help your body become more accustom to cold exposure and to active the Mammalian Dive Reflex which is triggered when the face is exposed to cold water. Once you are out of your comfort zone, come out of the water, wait 30 seconds to a minute, or until you have caught your breath, then begin submerging your face again. Do these for ten minutes.
Rules To Follow with the Thermal Dieting Protocols
1) Do them either in the morning or the night. Usually better to do at night before bed because they cold exposure can help induce a melatonin response that helps people fall asleep faster and with better REM sleep. Also, insulin levels are usually lower at night so it is an ideal environment to mobilize fat and burn through excess calories.
2) There’s a difference between pushing yourself and going beyond you limits. In an activity like you need to be cautious not to go too hardcore all at once. You need to work you way up as you become cold adapted. I recommend starting at one of the lower protocols and slowly graduating to the ice baths and cold walks. Of course there are going to be those of you who want to jump right in and I am the same way, however, just don’t do anything that’s going to do more harm than good.
3) Drink 16-32 oz of ice water right before preforming any of these protocols. This helps lower your core temperature quicker, thus you spend more time with your BAT activated.
4) Have a high protein and fat meal about 30 minutes before the cold walks or ice baths.
Did you like this post? Have you tried a variation of cold thermogenesis before? Let me know in the comments!
Sources and Links
Dr. Jack Kruse
Ray Cronise
Timothy Ferriss- Four Hour Body
“What are you having some type of barbecue?” The gas station attendant asks me with an awkward look on his face.
“Something like that”, I responding, thinking that telling the truth would result in another strange look and possible some questions that would take a day to answer. So I paid the kind gentleman and lugged the 35lbs of ice back to my car, hurrying home before it turns to a soaking mess.
Once I get home I fill the tub, toss in the 35lbs (plus all the ice from my freezer), set up my computer next to the tub with Game of Thrown’s at the ready, striped to my skinnies, dimmed the lights, started a timer, and pressed play.
***
Thermal Dieting
This is one of my favorite elements that I incorporate into my routine. Partly because it is not very well known and partly because of how ridiculous it seems on the surface. But the science behind it is fascinating to me. Thermal Dieting is the idea that by increasing your exposure to colder temperatures your body has to work harder to maintain its favorite temperature, which we all know from 5th grade is 98.6F. By increasing the gap between what temperature you put your body at and what your body wants to be at, your metabolism will have to increase incrementally to achieve its desired temperature.
Now your probably having crazy thoughts running through your head of how one might go about increasing the thermal load on your body. But before we get to that part, lets first discuss a bit of the science behind how this process works and why it can be so effective at rapidly increasing your rate of fat loss.
***
Warning: Skip the following section if you want to skip the science and go directly to action steps
In your body there are two types of fat, they are Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) and White Adipose Tissue (WAT). Just to clarify, adipose just means fat deposit, or more simply, fat. WAT is a fairly inactive form of adipose tissue that is used as a storage sight of excess fat. BAT, on the other hand, is a very active form, which is also known as the fat-burning-fat. This type of fat is very sensitive to temperature changes and when it becomes aware that the body has been exposed to colder temperatures than it would like, it works like crazy burning stored energy from WAT and also converting it to BAT.
It was originally believed that only babies had BAT to help them stay warm as infants because their shivering mechanisms are not yet fully developed. However, once testing technology got more advanced, the researched revealed that adults too had BAT. They also discovered that the amount of BAT vs. WAT on a body is not a static number, it can rise or fall depending on the frequency, duration, and intensity that the body is exposed to colder temperatures.
There are two leading experts in this field that have done extensive research and testing in regards to cold exposure that I’d like to mention. The first is Dr. Jack Kruse, a neurosurgeon who was able to loss 77lbs in three months and 157lbs in a year and a half using cold exposure as a key element in this transformation. He works with patients year round helping them redesign their bodies using what he calls Cold Thermogenesis, which is a super cool term.
Ray Cronise is the other expert I want to mention. He is a former NASA research scientist who went from one diet to another with limited success. The tipping point for him was hearing that Michael Phelps eating 12,000 calories a day. Even if he was swimming 24 hours a day that would not be enough to burn that many calories so Ray knew that there had to be more to the story. Then it hit him…water is twenty-four times for thermally conductive than air. Thus, by spending so much time in the water Michael Phelps was, probably unintentionally, taking advantage of the thermal aspect of thermo-dynamics. The exposure to the pool water was what was forcing his body to work over-time maintaining homeostasis against the cool water. Once Ray realized this he was able to lose 30lbs in six weeks by constantly putting his body into a cooler climate.
***
If that went over your head, don’t worry. The science is here for those who want it, but you don’t need to understand it in order to reap the benefits of the protocols that are presented. Many of these techniques to help you use cold expose to your advantage are borrowed from other researchers and self-experimenters, whom I give credit to at the end of the post as well as links to their websites.
Here are three protocols in descending order of pain tolerance:
Protocol 1
Method: Ice Bath
Duration: 20 minutes
Temperature: 50-55 Degrees F
Body Parts Exposed: Full body from neck down
This is the infamous ice baths. However, there are a few ways to tweak them so you don’t have to go to such extremes as I have had to in the beginning of this chapter, i.e. finding ice houses to supply the raw materials.
To do this method, fill a bathtub, or hot tub, or swimming pool, whatever you have available with cold water. You can use store bought ice, although you do not need to use as much as I did to get the temperatures low enough. 20lbs should be more than enough and you can buy this at most gas stations or grocery stores. It shouldn’t run you more than a few dollars which is greatly offset by the benefits. An alternative to buying ice for those who live in areas that actually experience winter is to just shovel some snow from outside and plop it into the tub to get it to the desired temperature. Once it is filled high enough for you to submerge your entire body from the neck down, you can get in and enjoy. I recommend having something to do during your baths to make the torture less excruciating, such as setting up a TV show on your computer, music, or having a book. Although from my experience the first few times you do this it can be hard to focus on reading when you’re working so hard on just staying warm, TV shows are the way to go.
Start off trying to do 10 minutes in the tub. If you can do that, get out and wait a few days before trying again. If you can’t then you can either try another method or continue attempting them trying to get to 10 minutes and eventually 20 or 30 minutes. I do not recommend doing for than 30 minutes per session. That is plenty of time for you to cause a cascade of hormonal and enzymatic changes in your body. Doing more will only cause more agony.
So as you can probably tell by now, I’m a little crazy in terms of what I like to put myself through so you should take what I say with a grain of salt, but for what its worth, I found these baths to be far easier than I thought they would be. When I first heard a podcast with Dr. Jack Kruse I thought that is was insane and I couldn’t wait to try it but I couldn’t possibly see how I would be able to do it. Once I got in the first time it was immediately shocking, but after the first few minutes I went fairly numb and the rest was easy. Each successive time after that it got easier and easier to the point where I looked forward to them and found them relaxing. Now I enjoy my ice baths, which when I tell people they think I’m missing a few cards from my deck.
Protocol 2
Method: Cold Walks
Duration: 15-30 minutes
Temperature: Variable
Body Parts Exposed: Full Body, minus hands, feel, and ears.
This method is obviously weather dependent. I would not recommend trying out this protocol in the middle of a snowstorm. However, the idea is to get your body adapted to the cold. A great way of doing that is to go for brisk walks in the cooler weather with minimal clothing and protection from the elements. I
I will usually go in a t-shirt or thin long-sleeved shirt, bathing suit shorts, beanie, gloves, and Vibram five-finger shoes with toe socks. The reason for this specific protection to the outer extremities is because when your body is exposed to the cold it’s main goal is to keep the vital organs warm such as the brain, heart, and all the other good stuff in your core. Thus, it shunts blood flow away from your fingers and toes in order to preserve the most important parts. This is why you’re fingers get stiff first in the cold and why people get frost bite on their fingers, toes, ears, and nose but rarely on other parts of their body. This is a biological survival mechanism at work.
Always head out with warmer layers available that you can always put on in the event that you get too cold or that the weather worsens. Don’t be stupid about this. It’s important to be safe when trying out these methods. You would make an ugly popsicle.
Start out with a 10 or 15-minute walk to get used to it. Then, as you get more comfortable you can add time to these sessions. It’s always better to go slow and work your way up than to immediately push yourself too far, which can result in stalling your progress for weeks.
Protocol 3
Method: Facial Submersion
Duration: 10 minutes
Temperature: 50-55 Degrees F
Body Parts Exposed: Face
During this process you fill your sink with cold water and ideally ice cubes to bring the temperature down. Then you submerge your face and hold your breath for as long as comfortable. DO NOT TRY TO GO BEYOND A POINT OF COMFORT. This is not a breath holding exercise, it is designed to help your body become more accustom to cold exposure and to active the Mammalian Dive Reflex which is triggered when the face is exposed to cold water. Once you are out of your comfort zone, come out of the water, wait 30 seconds to a minute, or until you have caught your breath, then begin submerging your face again. Do these for ten minutes.
Rules To Follow with the Thermal Dieting Protocols
1) Do them either in the morning or the night. Usually better to do at night before bed because they cold exposure can help induce a melatonin response that helps people fall asleep faster and with better REM sleep. Also, insulin levels are usually lower at night so it is an ideal environment to mobilize fat and burn through excess calories.
2) There’s a difference between pushing yourself and going beyond you limits. In an activity like you need to be cautious not to go too hardcore all at once. You need to work you way up as you become cold adapted. I recommend starting at one of the lower protocols and slowly graduating to the ice baths and cold walks. Of course there are going to be those of you who want to jump right in and I am the same way, however, just don’t do anything that’s going to do more harm than good.
3) Drink 16-32 oz of ice water right before preforming any of these protocols. This helps lower your core temperature quicker, thus you spend more time with your BAT activated.
4) Have a high protein and fat meal about 30 minutes before the cold walks or ice baths.
Did you like this post? Have you tried a variation of cold thermogenesis before? Let me know in the comments!
Sources and Links
Dr. Jack Kruse
Ray Cronise
Timothy Ferriss- Four Hour Body