In the cold season many people switch to more heavy and fatty foods, after which the question arises, how to quickly get rid of excess calories. In this case, it is often possible to meet the advice that this can help to play sports in the cold and frost, writes Vox.

Such recommendations are very often published in magazines, newspapers and popular sites - but is this true?.

It is true that in the cold, the body needs more energy to maintain heat. But, it turns out, doing sports at low temperatures is not the best way to spend more energy with the same loads.

What is the reason? Let's look at what thermogenesis is. This is the name of the process when our body begins to generate heat involuntarily, when it's cold. Usually this happens after 0 degrees, but if a person is easily dressed, then after 20 degrees Celsius.

One way to do this is to shiver. The brain causes the muscles to contract, and thus the body warms up. Also the body activates "brown fat" - the type of adipose tissue that is responsible for producing heat. Mammals accumulate it most of all, which fall into hibernation. Unlike white fat, which simply keeps heat in the body, brown waste energy to produce it. And the trembling, and the work of brown fat increase the consumption of calories of your body, so we burn more energy in the cold.

But here there is a problem: when we perform exercises, the body begins to warm up due to physical activity. And the sport can warm the body enough that the body does not use the deposits of "brown" fat and does not make you tremble. Therefore, the cost of calories does not change.

Even if you wear light clothing when training in the cold to start thermogenesis, at the best it will be possible to burn only a few extra calories.

In studies where subjects were placed in a cold room for a day, they burned 150 to 200 calories - and this is for the whole day in the cold, and not for an hour of training in the frost.

Therefore, running at minus temperature - almost the same as in normal weather.

The body will not begin to burn insanely calories, and that additional energy that we will spend will not allow us to immediately lose weight.

By the way, classes during the heat also have no effect. At high temperatures, we sweat more, but it just comes out with water, not extra calories.

So if you are overeaten, the best solution is simply to cut the next serving of food. Training, whether they are in the cold or hot, will not save you from excess calories by themselves.

lemonade. style.

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