Cold Showers?

oceansablue

I agree with dmpizza, these little tricks may help but if you want some solid, permanent results you've got to start eating right and working out. (Says the noob who just joined MFP >.>)
On a side note, I don't think I could do this, I hate the cold. I'd rather be too hot than too cold.

xarge

Q=mc delta T = energy = mass x specific heat capacity x change in temp
A human is a giant water bag, so lets use the specific heat of water.

4.186 Joules/gram degrees C. Next, lets say the person goes into a cold shower for 1 minute as you described. First of all, their entire body can not and will not change it's entire temperature in that amount of time, but lets pretend in your scenario it is plausible idea. We now need a mass. Lets say a person of 180lbs which is 81646.6, but we'll round it to 81647grams. Okay. Next you need a temperature change. Hypothermia kicks in around 95F. Lets put 99 as our high and 96 as low. 37.22 to 35.56 = 1.66 C change.

So Q = 4.186J/gC x 81647g x 1.66C =567345J=135 calories.

So under the delusion that in 1 minute, our entire core body temperature OF ALL OUR BODY MASS dropped from 99F to 96F, then yes our body would burn 135 calories. That being said, if you think that is remotely possible with the limited flow of a shower of water hitting you at 70F exposed to open air in a room of 75F and the limited physical contact it has - you're an idiot.

As per survival manuals, in say 70F water FULLY IMMERSED it will take approximately 20-30 minutes to drop your temp below 96 degrees. THIS change WOULD give you the calorie deficit calculated.

So, if you take a person, put them in a cold BATH, fully immersed to the neck, and MAINTAIN the temperature at 70F for 20-30 minutes, then yes, at that point, they will have burned 135 calories.

Edit: and entered hypothermia

Gosh the big numbers. I'm used to using kg and kJs. Very nice!

Actually human body is estimated to have a specific heat capacity of around 3480 j/g-1c-1, you don't need to assume a giant water ball. However study on mice showed that high body fat mice has much lower heat capacity compared to lean mice so your numbers will get even tinier on a hypothetical near hypothermia scenario :drinker:

Cold water is great for many things, helping with blood circulation and water retention is one them but it's definitely not burning calories.

Like Sara said, do jumping jacks people -.-

xarge

The science on this is pretty solid. Some people take ice baths. But all of it is peripheral, in other words, it helps but it doesn't stand alone at all.
You always need to eat right and exercise.

What kind of science is that? Can you cite the articles? Besides some authors with fad diets?

ImNotThatBob

That's as patently absurd as the science behind this little ditty.

WARM SHOWERS CAUSE YOU TO WEIGH LESS

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Chemistry-including-Biochemistry-1355/warm-objects-weigh.htm

Whatever happened to common sense?

tobnrn

That's as patently absurd as the science behind this little ditty.

WARM SHOWERS CAUSE YOU TO WEIGH LESS

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Chemistry-including-Biochemistry-1355/warm-objects-weigh.htm

Whatever happened to common sense?

It got washed down the drain in the cold shower. Hehehe

brewitzer

Wow! What a bunch of smartasses some of you are!

magj0y

The science on this is pretty solid. Some people take ice baths. But all of it is peripheral, in other words, it helps but it doesn't stand alone at all.
You always need to eat right and exercise.

What kind of science is that? Can you cite the articles? Besides some authors with fad diets?

Page 128-131 of the book The 4 hour body by Timothy Ferris explains the science between it and the fat burning fat that is activated by ice water. He did this study with Ray Cronise, a NASA scientist who specialized in biophysics and analytical chem.
It's in the ice age chapter. They repeated this study several times to look at many angles, and the ice cold water, on the upper neck and back, activate fat burning fat.

Yes, you need to eat right and exercise, but for a 5 minutes of an ice cold shower to stimulate BAT, sure, why not? can you do several jumping jacks? absolutely. But will jumping jacks stimulate fat burning fat? You don't need to go overboard with bags of ice in your tub. just 5-10 mins.

I think I will go on the word of a NASA scientist who did this testing multiple times.

magj0y

http://www.livestrong.com/article/154168-how-to-lose-weight-with-cold-showers/

Yes, and it's effective at burning back fat. Burning *fat* , not calories.

this is one reason swimmers burn so many calories. the water is cold and the body has to work over time to keep body temp up.

Extracts from the study:

<snip> Eleven lean male subjects (height: 184±3 cm; body mass: 77.7±2.7 kg; BMI: 22.9±0.6 kg/m2; age: 21.7±0.6 years), not using any medications and not seen by a MD in the last three years participated in this study. Subjects stayed twice in the respiration chambers of the department of Human Biology, Maastricht University, wearing standardized clothing. The two conditions are defined as follows: 1) baseline: 34 hours measurement of energy expenditure at energy balance, comfortable temperature (22°C); 2) cold exposure for 82 hours in energy balance, mild cold without shivering (16°C). Macro-nutrient composition was equal in both conditions: 47, 38, and 15% energy from carbohydrate, fat, and protein, respectively. After each respiration chamber stay a muscle biopsy was taken, from M. vastus lateralis according to the technique of Bergström [24]. A part of the biopsy was stored in a preservation medium for mitochondrial uncoupling measurement, the rest of the biopsy was quickly frozen in liquid nitrogen for protein quantification and CS activity analyses. <snip>

<snip>The increase in energy expenditure, 0.32 MJ/day <snip>

If my conversion is correct, thats 76 calories - over a whole day at a reduced temperature. So, as has been said, the impact of a shower is negligible and you would be better off doing a few jumping jacks or burpees.

You forgot the part that it specifically burns fat. Jumping jacks burn calories. cold water burns fat.

xarge

You forgot the part that it specifically burns fat. Jumping jacks burn calories. cold water burns fat.

I guess you are basing it on this:

A team led by Sven Enerbäck, a medical geneticist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, found that when subjects spent 2 hours in a cold room wearing thin clothing and intermittently soaking their feet in ice water, their brown fat burned 15 times more energy than it did at room temperature. One subject had enough brown fat to lose 8 to 9 pounds per year.

(...)

mice fed a high-fat diet and kept at room temperature ended up nearly four times heavier than mice fed the same diet and housed at 39 F. Researchers estimate that just 2 ounces of active brown fat could burn 300 to 500 calories a day. "You don't need much to have a profound effect on your body's metabolism," Cypess says.

Read more: Brown Fat and Weight Loss - The Future of Fat - Popular Mechanics

Read more: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/genetics/brown-fat-revelations-may-lead-to-new-weight-loss-drugs-670440

That's a huge discovery! Not. They are only a bit more informed about why the BMR is increased in winters. It's quite possible to measure the BMR of people living in cold climates already. As brown fat is rumored to be activated as a heating mechanism against cold, that's already calculated in. If you want to live in 39F (that's like 4*C) to burn 300-500 calories extra, you can move north and save on heating bills.

And sadly, above "studies" are all about calories burned, nor fat loss.

I'm seriously not trying to be a smartass but this is turning into a super fad diet myth.

Sarauk2sf

http://www.livestrong.com/article/154168-how-to-lose-weight-with-cold-showers/

Yes, and it's effective at burning back fat. Burning *fat* , not calories.

this is one reason swimmers burn so many calories. the water is cold and the body has to work over time to keep body temp up.

Extracts from the study:

<snip> Eleven lean male subjects (height: 184±3 cm; body mass: 77.7±2.7 kg; BMI: 22.9±0.6 kg/m2; age: 21.7±0.6 years), not using any medications and not seen by a MD in the last three years participated in this study. Subjects stayed twice in the respiration chambers of the department of Human Biology, Maastricht University, wearing standardized clothing. The two conditions are defined as follows: 1) baseline: 34 hours measurement of energy expenditure at energy balance, comfortable temperature (22°C); 2) cold exposure for 82 hours in energy balance, mild cold without shivering (16°C). Macro-nutrient composition was equal in both conditions: 47, 38, and 15% energy from carbohydrate, fat, and protein, respectively. After each respiration chamber stay a muscle biopsy was taken, from M. vastus lateralis according to the technique of Bergström [24]. A part of the biopsy was stored in a preservation medium for mitochondrial uncoupling measurement, the rest of the biopsy was quickly frozen in liquid nitrogen for protein quantification and CS activity analyses. <snip>

<snip>The increase in energy expenditure, 0.32 MJ/day <snip>

If my conversion is correct, thats 76 calories - over a whole day at a reduced temperature. So, as has been said, the impact of a shower is negligible and you would be better off doing a few jumping jacks or burpees.

You forgot the part that it specifically burns fat. Jumping jacks burn calories. cold water burns fat.

On a deficit, what do you think happens - when you burn calories? And you are sort of missing the point here - lets say you take a long cold shower for 60 minutes - you would burn 12 calories of fat. Have at it!

xarge

You forgot the part that it specifically burns fat. Jumping jacks burn calories. cold water burns fat.

I guess you are basing it on this:

A team led by Sven Enerbäck, a medical geneticist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, found that when subjects spent 2 hours in a cold room wearing thin clothing and intermittently soaking their feet in ice water, their brown fat burned 15 times more energy than it did at room temperature. One subject had enough brown fat to lose 8 to 9 pounds per year.

(...)

mice fed a high-fat diet and kept at room temperature ended up nearly four times heavier than mice fed the same diet and housed at 39 F. Researchers estimate that just 2 ounces of active brown fat could burn 300 to 500 calories a day. "You don't need much to have a profound effect on your body's metabolism," Cypess says.

Read more: Brown Fat and Weight Loss - The Future of Fat - Popular Mechanics

Read more: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/genetics/brown-fat-revelations-may-lead-to-new-weight-loss-drugs-670440

That's a huge discovery! Not. They are only a bit more informed about why the BMR is increased in winters. It's quite possible to measure the BMR of people living in cold climates already. As brown fat is rumored to be activated as a heating mechanism against cold, that's already calculated in. If you want to live in 39F (that's like 4*C) to burn 300-500 calories extra, you can move north and save on heating bills.

And sadly, above "studies" are all about calories burned, nor fat loss.

I'm seriously not trying to be a smartass but this is turning into a super fad diet myth.

ETA: And also various post mortem studies showed that brown fat tissue decreases over age and is not evenly distributed in humans.

Anticipated_Serendipity

Can't say I heard of the shower, but I read somewhere that they conducted a study that you burn calories by adding ice to your water. Don't know if that's true or not, sounds crazy to me. But wouldn't hurt to try it. Lol.

Guess you can burn some calories in a cold shower if you are shivering the entire time. :P

nuffexercise2012

No not true, if that were the case I would be a six by now...due to my cold showers in summer time....

Capt_Apollo

http://www.livestrong.com/article/154168-how-to-lose-weight-with-cold-showers/

Yes, and it's effective at burning back fat. Burning *fat* , not calories.

this is one reason swimmers burn so many calories. the water is cold and the body has to work over time to keep body temp up.

thats the reason swimmers burn so many calories?? it couldn't possibly be the full body work outs that go on for hours in anerobic conditions.

nope. the water's cold. thats why phelps and locht looks like they do.

yoovie

^ I snortlaughed

wattsj56

i read this as well, it's on livestrong.com

Capt_Apollo

i read this as well, it's on livestrong.com

so it must be true.

Sidesteal

http://www.livestrong.com/article/154168-how-to-lose-weight-with-cold-showers/

Yes, and it's effective at burning back fat. Burning *fat* , not calories.

this is one reason swimmers burn so many calories. the water is cold and the body has to work over time to keep body temp up.

thats the reason swimmers burn so many calories?? it couldn't possibly be the full body work outs that go on for hours in anerobic conditions.

nope. the water's cold. thats why phelps and locht looks like they do.

10/10, would read again.

Acg67

http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2012/04/you-pcs-vs-jack-kruse-md-dds.html

Erindipitous

Erindipitous burned 174 calories doing 1 minute of "Cold Shower"


..Well, *kitten*.. Now I have room for ice cream.