For a given pace.
For a given pace.
You typically burn less. Exercising produces TONS of excess heat. Cooling the body requires energy. When it's very cold, your body doesn't have to work as hard to stay cool, allowing more energy to be dedicated towards forward movement.
In extreme temperatures, when you're shivering, you can generate a bit of heat from brown fat. But typically when that happens, you're actually forced to slow down.
Doens't it need to burn more energy to stay warm though?
No. Your body is cooling itself while exercising. There is almost no cooling if you are underdressed in the cold. Now if overdressed, it will have to cool itself.
No, bro.
You burn more calories in the hot temperatures because more energy is taken out of you from sweat. That's why gym bros go in the sauna after they pump iron.
bartholomew_maxwell wrote:
Doens't it need to burn more energy to stay warm though?
Yes of course it does. Ignore the armchair experts.
When it's too cold for a fast race wrote:
bartholomew_maxwell wrote:
Doens't it need to burn more energy to stay warm though?
Yes of course it does. Ignore the armchair experts.
So you started a thread and then answered your own question?
Insofar as racial justice is concerned, this phenomenon disproportionately affects African-Americans, LGTBQ, women, and POC.
This question has been asked and answered in the scientific literature.
While sub-maximal exercise in cooler conditions leads to a shift in substrate utilization (increased fat oxidation at cooler temperatures), there are no measurable differences in whole-body oxygen consumption or energy expenditure when running or cycling in cold conditions.
The energy used in sweating is so trivial that any differences in this parameter are not measurable/observable during exercise in different environmental conditions.
800 dude wrote:
You typically burn less. Exercising produces TONS of excess heat. Cooling the body requires energy. When it's very cold, your body doesn't have to work as hard to stay cool, allowing more energy to be dedicated towards forward movement.
In extreme temperatures, when you're shivering, you can generate a bit of heat from brown fat. But typically when that happens, you're actually forced to slow down.
Good thoughts, I always seem to have more energy when training in moderate weather rather than hot.
I understood it this way: cold temperatures raise your basal metabolic rate. But I think when you run your body is burning calories at a higher rate any way so it doesn't really make a difference. So by my logic if you finish a run in cold weather and don't warm up totally right away (hot shower) then maybe you can burn some more calories
Isn't heart rate a good indication in this case, the higher the HR, the greater the energy use? The body is doing more of something, requiring more circulation? And in hot conditions for a given pace your HR will be higher.
If you are training in such cold temperatures or so underdressed that the heat generated as a side product of the exercise can't keep you warm, and therefore you need to shiver or somehow generate even more heat, your workout is probably going to suffer massively and you end up burning less fuel. Because your muscles won't be able to even function properly towards the end anymore, and you might even be forced to cut the workout short.
But maybe the question was more about trying to 'hack' the base metabolic rate to increase.. ? Probably will have the opposite effect, the body tries to save even more energy when indoors thinking it will need it when exposed to the cold again?
I already answered the questions based off empirical evidence found in the scientific literature... why are people still throwing out their random guesses and ill-informed anecdotes?
-end of thread-
Your answer was wordy and boring. I’m a mile oak and need instant gratification. Now where’s my avo toast?
Milenial
If by “extremely cold” you mean well below 0F, you’ll burn more calories because you’ll be wearing much more clothing.
totally anecdotal...but when i've backpacked at high altitudes in winter months, i can eat a ton of food, like an entire 2 person meal. But i cannot eat nearly that much on warm weather trips. I thought it was because i was expending more energy on the cold trips.
I'm not sure I agree with a lot of the answers on this thread.
It would depend on the pace, plus how cold you mean.
For example there is a big difference between hiking in hot and cold weather. Cold burns way more calories.
https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/20/exercising-cold-calories-burned/
If you watch any of the survival shows, while they are not running, they are typically very active all day, and they lose WAY more weight in the colder environments.
A lot of these studies about running in the heat are not comparing it to extreme cold. If it's just slightly cold, then yes, I'd say running in the heat takes more energy.
Found this on reddit of all places:
If the temperature is slightly colder than normal, there is a chance that the heat you produce for running (via byproducts of energy metabolism) is sufficient enough to keep your body at regulatory temperature; thus you would not need to burn any more energy to produce heat.
If you are not working out hard enough for the normal energy metabolism pathways to produce the heat, or it is too cold to produce enough heat via these mechanisms, then your body will upregulate thermogenin (an uncoupling protein involved in heat regulation) and use some calories to maintain heat by producing even more.
Also you would have to factor in the weight of all of your cold weather clothing.
Maybe a bit of it depends on what you're used to/adapted to as well.
When you sweat it means your fats are burning. How do you sweat in cold weather.
If we are talking about hiking or living outdoors in a cold environment of course your body has to burn more calories to keep warm. Because you'd need more heat than what you'd get as a side product of those relatively low intensity activities.
Compare that to going outdoors for a 1-2hr run with a higher intensity than a hike (meaning more heat output from the exercise) and then going back indoors.
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Hats off to my dad. He just ran a 1:42 Half Marathon and turns 75 in 2 months!
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