Metabolism — It’s Not Only About Weight
Trigger Warning — Metabolism Supplements
I know that I have mentioned the fact that my particular history of weight loss has left my metabolism kind of wrecked.
This has all manner of impacts, but the one I have been thinking about most lately is thermogenesis (how your body burns energy off in the form of heat).
So, yes, my thermogenizer is also wrecked, with the result that I AM COLD. Always. Well, ok, when I am outside and it hits 95 degrees, I am not cold. But anything falling below 80, 82, and I start to feel chilly. Today, the temperature outside is 88. I assume the temperature inside my office is somewhere around 75. I am wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt, a sweater and a windbreaker and I have a fleece jacket in my lap.
Still cold.
I got an idea the other day from some advertisements I saw, though… you know, the ones about INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM! BURN CALORIES!!!
Well, yeah, if you read the actual ads, it’s something ridiculous like 25 calories a day or something you could burn with their supplement, but it got me to wondering if possibly one of those supplements could work, not for weight loss or whatever they are selling, but maybe as a booster to turn up my internal heater just a notch.
I always worry about supplements, because I assume they are useless at best or actively dangerous at worst. So, I did some cursory searches and I found all sorts of supplements out there touting the miracle of calories burned off in the form of heat. Unfortunately, no one seems to be marketing to those of us who are just interested in the heat, so there’s no mention of HOW MUCH HEAT I might be able to expect… Bah!
Additional research led me to a study of people who were actually talking about increasing thermogenesis with capsaicin, but apparently human beings can’t actually consume enough hot pepper to have a significant impact. And, you know, I don’t want to make myself sick with this.
Does anyone out there have any experience in the past with these metabolism supplements? If you’ve taken them: do they make you warm? For longer than a few minutes? I would still worry about the other side effects, but I know winter’s coming and it would be nice to have something that could turn up the old internal thermostat.
Oh well. For now, I guess I just have to put on sweater…
I love this analysis of thermogenesis. I’d be curious if there is a relationship between weight cycling and chronic coldness. I can’t help you at all in this regard, as I am a human frickin’ thermos, but I wish you luck in finding an answer.
Peace,
Shannon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
A calorie is enough thermal energy to heat about 2 lbs of water by about 2 degrees. So I’m afraid burning about 25 extra calories won’t warm you up much at all.
It’s funny you should blog about this. I’m not thin, far from it, but I think my metabolism is probably wrecked from the dieting, phen-fen, and WLS/rebound weight gain. Either that or my thyroid function is screwed 7 ways to Sunday (my TSH is now in the low normal range, and so are my free T3/T4 levels, but my thyroid is enlarged with nodules, go figure). Cold never used to bother me, and the heat was a PITA, but in the last couple of years, I’ve found that I just can’t handle the level of air-conditioning that my husband likes (he keeps the house at about 72 degrees in the summer and 68 degrees in the winter). I’m cold most of the time, and even in the summer, when I’m in the house, I sometimes have to put on my lightweight spring jacket to keep warm enough. I can handle the heat, but if it’s combined with high humidity, then I have problems.
My husband, on the other hand, is a furnace. The cats love to lay on him because he puts off so much body heat. Oddly enough, when his temperature is taken, it’s usually about 97.8 instead of 98.6.
I don’t know if there’s a solution or not, I’ve asked my doctor, but she’s not much help with anything (which is why I’m looking for a new doctor). I’m going to see an endocrinologist in November, I’ll ask her about the being cold and see what she has to say.
I would be interested in what the Dr. has to say. I’m one of those people that just nods in the Dr. office. Questions? Ack!
I am near 400 lbs and I have always been a furnace. Seriously, if calories are about heat, I should be thin as a rail. If my body’s metabolism was so simple, the fact that I emit so much heat should mean I’m burning calories at a ridiculous rate.
I guess this thermogenesis thing needs more studies…
It’s entirely possible you would have been cold at your current size even if you had always been said size.
I was medium sized and then I was fatter, and now I’m medium sized again; I was cold before I gained weight, then I wasn’t, and now I am again. The important bit is that I’m no colder now than I was before I gained weight (as measured by my preferred thermostat setting), it just bothers me more now because I know what it’s like not to be so cold.
It could be worse: A/C is a lot more expensive to run than heating.
I notice the difference when I gain or lose three kgs. When I gain weight I don’t feel the cold.
I’m a walking fridge too (my base body temperature IS about .3 degrees Celsius lower than normal). I can be perfectly comfortable in the 100s, but I’m unhappy below 75 and plain miserable below 65. For me, it had and has everything to do with my thyroid. Perpetually feeling cold and having an actual lower body temperature are two of the very first signs of hypothyroidism my doctor told me.
T3/T4 meds help; as in, I can use just one Snuggie instead of two blankets but getting warm for any extent of a time when you’re not constantly moving around or hugging the heater? Forget it.
Those supplements don’t help anything at all btw. Tried about four different ones, none of them had any effect. You’re better off with a hot chocolate and a blanket- or eating some Thai curry. The warmth will last longer.