Does one burn fewer calories when running in the cold?
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peabrain47
Posts: 4 Member
It's winter and days are cold. It's hard to have to push myself to go out and run, but i somehow manage. The days I run, I run like 60-65 minutes. But gee the calorie burn is like ridiculously low.
My question is, is there a difference in Calorie burn when running in the cold compared to running on hot days?
Is there a way to get a better calorie burn, running in the cold?
Thanks for answering.
My question is, is there a difference in Calorie burn when running in the cold compared to running on hot days?
Is there a way to get a better calorie burn, running in the cold?
Thanks for answering.
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Replies
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I would almost suggest that it's higher in the cold, because you're having to maintain a higher internal temperature compared to the external temp.
I'm curious to hear what others would say.
How do you measure your calorie burn?3 -
Yes it's different, it's slightly higher as your body has to work to produce the heat to keep you warm.
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If you're using a HRM, your HR may just register as lower in the cold than it does when you're hot. Or it may just not work as well in the cold.1
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It takes the same amount of energy to move a given mass over a given distance no matter what the temperature. Are you running the same distance as you normally would? If yes I'm inclined to think there's a problem with your HRM.
While shivering may burn calories your body (assuming you're dressed appropriately for the temperature) warms up quickly and the difference is negligible.
Bravo for running outside in winter, I'd rather chew on broken glass than run on a treadmill. The only thing that is guaranteed to keep me off the roads is freezing rain.
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I'm with you, @BrianSharpe . I resorted to the treadmill last winter only when the streets were sheets of ice or when it dropped to -30C.0
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I'm with you, @BrianSharpe . I resorted to the treadmill last winter only when the streets were sheets of ice or when it dropped to -30C.
LOL I've done my fair share of -30 runs, I think it was about -36 when this one was taken at Mont Tremblant.
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BrianSharpe wrote: »It takes the same amount of energy to move a given mass over a given distance no matter what the temperature. Are you running the same distance as you normally would? If yes I'm inclined to think there's a problem with your HRM.
While shivering may burn calories your body (assuming you're dressed appropriately for the temperature) warms up quickly and the difference is negligible.
Bravo for running outside in winter, I'd rather chew on broken glass than run on a treadmill. The only thing that is guaranteed to keep me off the roads is freezing rain.
Yea, I run the same distance. I hope its not my Garmin that's messing up.0 -
I would almost suggest that it's higher in the cold, because you're having to maintain a higher internal temperature compared to the external temp.
I'm curious to hear what others would say.
How do you measure your calorie burn?
I measure using Garmin vivosmart HR. My winter runs always show my calorie burn as way lower than when I run on those really hot days. Guess my HR doesnt even go up anymore. God!!0 -
BrianSharpe wrote: »I'm with you, @BrianSharpe . I resorted to the treadmill last winter only when the streets were sheets of ice or when it dropped to -30C.
LOL I've done my fair share of -30 runs, I think it was about -36 when this one was taken at Mont Tremblant.
I'm going to derail this thread for a second because I have a question for you. I am new to running in the winter. It looks like you do a good job protecting your face. Do you do anything to protect your eyes and around your eyes? Looking for ideas.
(sorry for getting off topic)0 -
magster4isu wrote: »BrianSharpe wrote: »I'm with you, @BrianSharpe . I resorted to the treadmill last winter only when the streets were sheets of ice or when it dropped to -30C.
LOL I've done my fair share of -30 runs, I think it was about -36 when this one was taken at Mont Tremblant.
I'm going to derail this thread for a second because I have a question for you. I am new to running in the winter. It looks like you do a good job protecting your face. Do you do anything to protect your eyes and around your eyes? Looking for ideas.
(sorry for getting off topic)
Not the person you're asking, but I've run in -15 to -20 degree conditions the past two winters and I've found that my sunglasses work just fine for protecting my eyes and the area around them. The rest of my face, I cover pretty similar to @BrianSharpe0 -
magster4isu wrote: »BrianSharpe wrote: »I'm with you, @BrianSharpe . I resorted to the treadmill last winter only when the streets were sheets of ice or when it dropped to -30C.
LOL I've done my fair share of -30 runs, I think it was about -36 when this one was taken at Mont Tremblant.
I'm going to derail this thread for a second because I have a question for you. I am new to running in the winter. It looks like you do a good job protecting your face. Do you do anything to protect your eyes and around your eyes? Looking for ideas.
(sorry for getting off topic)
If it's really windy I'll wear a pair of ski goggles (tinted for daytime, clear when it's dark) and in bright sunshine I'll wear sun glasses (you get a lot of reflected light from snow)0 -
My guess is that the cooler weather allows you to run the same pace with less effort, and lower heart rate, thus making your hrm think you are burning less calories. Kind of like how heated yoga with an hrm makes people think they are burning way more than they actually are. Your caloire burns in the summer may have been over estimated.1
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peabrain47 wrote: »BrianSharpe wrote: »It takes the same amount of energy to move a given mass over a given distance no matter what the temperature. Are you running the same distance as you normally would? If yes I'm inclined to think there's a problem with your HRM.
While shivering may burn calories your body (assuming you're dressed appropriately for the temperature) warms up quickly and the difference is negligible.
Bravo for running outside in winter, I'd rather chew on broken glass than run on a treadmill. The only thing that is guaranteed to keep me off the roads is freezing rain.
Yea, I run the same distance. I hope its not my Garmin that's messing up.
It seems you're not the only one with this issue.......I found this thread on the Garmin forums. It seems to be an issue with the optical heart rate monitors. Typically your heart rate will be a little lower in cooler weather but there's not a strong correlation between heart rate and calories expended.
https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/running/forerunner-235-aa/120820-1 -
I mean it costs calories to maintain your body heat. Maintain means keeping it at 37 degrees C. If you run, typically, you are in the process of overheating and your body needs to trigger certain mechanisms to expend the excess heat. In theory if you were in cold enough weather that the external cold was enough to balance out the heat generation from running in such a way that you did not need to expend energy to maintain your body temperature I suppose that could in theory mean less calories....in theory.
But I think we are talking about something really negligible relative to how many calories you expend running. More likely that there was something off with your monitor. I highly doubt running in cold weather actually means you burn significantly fewer calories.0 -
There is no real calorie difference in running the same path in the cold or hot weather. This is one of the limitations on HRM based calorie calculations. Your HR is affected by weather, but the HRM has no way of knowing that the difference in HR is due to weather and not doing more/less work, so it tends to overestimate calories burned in hot weather, and underestimate in cold weather. It's not an issue that is unique to Garmin, I saw the same thing with a Polar HRM before I started using a Garmin GPS watch.
On average, my Garmin seems to line up with the formula based on difference (calories = 0.63 x weight in lbs x distance in miles), but I can clearly see trends of underestimating on cool weather runs and overestimating on hot weather runs.3 -
I would almost suggest that it's higher in the cold, because you're having to maintain a higher internal temperature compared to the external temp.
I'm curious to hear what others would say.
How do you measure your calorie burn?
Actually, we burn more calories in hot weather keeping our body temperatures low enough than we do in cold weather keeping our body temperature high enough. To burn a significant amount of calories from the cold one must be cold enough that they are shivering. We generally avoid that situation by laying clothing to retain core body temperature. But in hot weather we are much more willing to subject ourselves to temperatures that make us sweat a great deal.1 -
Heat is a "waste product" of exercise.0
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I do because when it's cold out I tend to stay inside on the couch.3
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