For the most part, we do NOT burn calories just for the heat, although burning calories for cellular function always releases heat as a byproduct.
If your body gets cold enough, shivering is its way of making more heat, but it’s not burning calories for heat directly. The muscles are moving, which requires calories, which comes with extra heat.
Point being, you don’t burn more calories in the cold. That’s why you’ve never heard of a diet where you sit in a refrigerator all day. Once you get cold enough to start shivering, the body is already cold enough that it’s actually slowing metabolism overall and adding shivering is still lower calorie draw than being warm.
For the most part, the body regulates temp by controlling how heat is lost. Particularly how much 98.6F blood goes near the skin surface. If you’re in 60F wind and you’re losing heat faster than you’re making it, you don’t start burning more calories, rather, your skin blood vessels constrict letting the skin get relatively cold, so less heat overall is shed through the skin. However, note that your skin getting cold and clammy is just a surface effect. The blood will remain around its normal temp, just flow differently.
Also, nervous system being what it is, we add or remove extra clothing based on whether we feel cold or hot.
Latest Answers