Saturday, December 10, 2011

Brown Fat

Ever heard of brown fat? Yeah, me neither. According to Bicycling magazine (via The Obesity Reviews), spending too much time in artificially heated environments can cause weight gain. Hello! I live in the Midwest. It gets darn cold here in the winter! The upside though is that spending time in the cold can help make you thinner. Brown fat (not regular fat) burns calories but is only activated by cold temperatures. Ummm...what? That sounds all sciency to me but this jumped out at me: Fully activated brown fast can raise resting metabolism by 20%. Yes, please! A jump-started metabolism is what this girl needs. My weight loss has plateaued again so maybe the cold weather training will kick my lazy metabolism into gear!

It's about 18 degrees (with the "feels like" temperature hovering at 11) this morning. I'll be burning all kinds of brown fat as I head out for my 10+ mile journey. I'll let you know if I'm thinner when I get done.

3 comments:

  1. That is CRAZY! I have never heard of this either.

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  2. I love your sense of houmor. But the brown fat theory make me want to go out into the cold morning and run. Not that TX gets that cold. I hae being cold it makes me cry. Anyway thanks for sharing.

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  3. I've never heard of brown fat either! Crazy! But just thinking about it is totally motivating me to make sure I run this winter. Chicago brutal wind, cold, and snow here I come! =)

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