The energy to generate heat has to come from somewhere. Is it the friction of the blood pumping through the veins and tissues in your body? Is there some kind of chemical heat generation at the cellular level? Where does the heat come from?
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Your body generates heat as an indirect result of its normal functions, but it can also undergo a more direct heat generation, especially to adapt to colder temperatures.
From the total energy your body spends on a day, from 50 to 75% is used to keep everything running throughout your organs and tissues.
From the rest, most of it directly or indirectly contributes to heat generation. Around 10 to 15% is used for physical activity, and all that energy used especially for muscle movement does end up eventually converted into heat.
Another chunk of that total energy spent might be used for more “wasteful” heat generation – that is, heat for the sake of heat. At least 10% of your energy is spent for increased heat protection after you’ve had meals.
Also, adaptive heat generation in your brown fat tissue increases heat production to compensate for colder surroundings, with “chilly” non-freezing weather increasing your heat production by up to 30%.
As to how this last process works, I’ll keep it ELI5 by saying that the usual chemical reactions your body uses to get energy from food and convert it into usable energy for body processes are in a way made more inefficient by your brown fat tissue. Usually you’d want those reactions to be as efficient as possible without losing much energy in its least practical form – heat, but in this case, that is exactly what you want in order to produce more heat. That is the job (in this case) of brown fat.
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