Where does the heat come from that your body produces after doing physical activities even in the cold?
In: Biology
Within each cell there are organelles called mitochondria that are powerhouse of the cell. Glucose and oxygen is turned into energy and the waste product carbon dioxide. For more information look at the Krebs Cycle and the Citric Acid Cycle.
Another thing besides the other comments is the inefficiency of metabolic reactions. One molecule of glucose makes about 30 ATP molecules but the energy content of a glucose molecule is about 100 times that of ATP. The remainder is lost as heat during metabolism.
Ultimately it comes from the food you ate. Metabolism takes in glucose and puts out energy, CO2 and water — much like a fire does.
Your body produces heat, through friction and chemical reactions. More motion makes more friction and consumes more fuel, so more heat.
When your cells do things, they produce heat as a biproduct, so your body will always be making heat. When your muscles work harder, they will also produce more heat.
Sometimes, when you need heat, but don’t have anything to do, your body will produce heat by doing pointless back and forth movement with your muscles just for the heat you get out; shivering.
But as well as that, there’s a particular kind of brown fat in your body that also does the same job, although rather than having to *move* to waste the energy, as with shivering muscle, it’s like a car engine disconnected from the wheels, just roaring away doing basically nothing, but just like a car engine, it also gets warmer.
People who are used to dealing with cold climates without shivering will almost definitely be burning up lots of energy in their brown fat, intentionally using sugars and fat to do nothing at all, other than keep themselves warm
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