Cold Thermogenesis Guidelines/Results page 17

[Apex Predator]

Your n=1 might be quite different than anyone elses. The way I look at CT is this. I'm almost at my ideal weight, but still have some ongoing health issues that need some work. Other people are having success with CT, it costs me NO money to try it, and has no negative side effects. I'm searching for better health, so why not try it? So far, the results are better than those I have received by some of the crazy things doctors have wanted me to try. When I was first trying to track down the cause of my health issues, a cardio-pulmonologist decided I must be experiencing silent reflux and put me on heartburn meds. Worst. Decision. Ever! Good grief - that stuff actually GAVE me heartburn and reflux. Took me weeks to get it turned around.

Longer life? I believe in the Lord, my God and my Creator. My days are numbered by Him. But I get to choose how I live those days. I would much rather be an active participator in my life instead of living on the couch because I'm so sick and tired. I'm willing to try anything that might help me reach my goal (within reason, right?).

I don't have a bunch of links to offer you to convince you that this is the bomb-diggity. If you have reason to try it, then go for it. But if you are happy with your weight and health, then why bother? Your time is better spent elsewhere.

I'm in here to know who to reccomend it to. I talk to people about health and weight all the time, and if this is a good strategy for them, I want to be able to reccomend it, just like I do primal and sometimes things like the leptin reset.

[otzi]

So can I really just put an ice pack on the back of my neck? For how long?

I have heard, but haven't personally read, that the book "4 Hour Body" by Tim Ferris has a chapter devoted to ice packs on the neck. Maybe you should check that out.

[MrZZeroG]

Anyone notice this advice differs a bit from Dr. Kruse? Here, Ray Cronise says 'cold drives hunger' where Jack says 'cold kills hunger'. Well, in my experience, while I'm in the cold, I have absolutely zero hunger. When I warm back up, the hunger comes back with a vengeance. Does anyone else have the same feeling? I have been at the eating game for a while so I usually don't fall victim to the urge to pig-out, maybe right after a CT session would be the perfect time for that Big Ass Salad we're supposed to eat.

Thanks, and to be be clear, mild cold stress exposure causes a deviation from your normal set point (hunger/satiety/heat (energy, not temperature). You will get a drive for hunger AFTER cold exposure, not during. In studies of cyclist, runners and swimmers, it was the swimmers that never had the urge to eat during the activity, but got hungry 2-4 hours later.

This is the body's natural response to a large dump of thermodynamic heat (stored energy not temperature) and it is the attempt to put you back to zero. As you gain weight, this set point changes and when you "diet" you have a deviation from your new "normal" (fat) and the body only knows that things have changed and it needs to put things back to normal - homeostasis controls by HPT axis. A simple example of these differences with respect to hot/cold can be found: here

so, my advice and experience seems to agree with any surfer/scuba diver you might talk to - they get ENORMOUSLY hungry after hours of mild cold stress. The same is true for completive swimmers.

The conclusion is that if you are going to do mild cold stress, 2-4 hour window AFTER exposure, eat a nutrient-dense, calorically restricted meal. Since most SAD salads are not nutritious, I would steer people away from that and into large stir fry of cuciferous vegetables: bok choy, broccoli, kale cauliflower, rapini, cabbage, watercress, radish and NOT spinach, romaine, etc... Don't load it up with oil, sauté with water.

my next post will deal with this in a little more detail when I discuss the gut as an endocrine organ.

Ray Cronise

[joe2.0]

CT is definitely interesting stuff. Have noticed that Ray Cronise doesn't seem to see the promise that Dr. Kruse does in it as a heal all. Dr. Kruse had mentioned once in a post that Ray Cronise and Tim Ferris didn't take it as far as he was which would explain the difference in degree of difficulty and perhaps results. Dr. Kruse could obviously be overselling or too optimistic but time will tell.

I see a bit of bashing on Dr. Kruse, and for me, I am going to wait to see the results of my own tests as well as others before judging. From the brown fat stuff there is definitely some promise to it and enough for me to do it. I am not overweight but see the benefits of getting the right type of fat in the body. Weather it will have the impact that Dr. Kruse forcasts only time will tell.

If Dr. Kruse is correct, we should start seeing folk with things like diabetes posting that they are cured as no two ways about it, he has said would be the outcome. We will then see Dr. Kruse on tv with patients who have been cured of said diseases and later accepting his Nobel Prize...If he's not correct, well...lol at all of us desperate enough to try this stuff and hopefully we'll at least get something out of the BAT/WAT fat stuff...

[Shijin13]

Thanks, and to be be clear, mild cold stress exposure causes a deviation from your normal set point (hunger/satiety/heat (energy, not temperature). You will get a drive for hunger AFTER cold exposure, not during. In studies of cyclist, runners and swimmers, it was the swimmers that never had the urge to eat during the activity, but got hungry 2-4 hours later.

This is the body's natural response to a large dump of thermodynamic heat (stored energy not temperature) and it is the attempt to put you back to zero. As you gain weight, this set point changes and when you "diet" you have a deviation from your new "normal" (fat) and the body only knows that things have changed and it needs to put things back to normal - homeostasis controls by HPT axis. A simple example of these differences with respect to hot/cold can be found: here

so, my advice and experience seems to agree with any surfer/scuba diver you might talk to - they get ENORMOUSLY hungry after hours of mild cold stress. The same is true for completive swimmers.

The conclusion is that if you are going to do mild cold stress, 2-4 hour window AFTER exposure, eat a nutrient-dense, calorically restricted meal. Since most SAD salads are not nutritious, I would steer people away from that and into large stir fry of cuciferous vegetables: bok choy, broccoli, kale cauliflower, rapini, cabbage, watercress, radish and NOT spinach, romaine, etc... Don't load it up with oil, sauté with water.

my next post will deal with this in a little more detail when I discuss the gut as an exocrine organ.

Ray Cronise

I can remember when swimming competitively at the national level - after a morning training session in a cold outdoor pool in early may - I'd be ravenous by lunch time and easily put away 2-3cans of tuna, and veggies...

i've also noticed sometimes after a spot CT session - I'll be more hungry than I would if I haven't CT. Though when coupled w/exercise while CT (snowboarding in 10 degree weather for 6hrs) - the hunger held off to dinner around 630/7pm....

[MrZZeroG]

Taking a bit of Ray's advice. Ate a small salad after my cold shower last night, all seems well.

Ray doesn't recommend eating salad. He'd also prefer you do thermal loading on an empty stomach after your fast (morning). I am not surprised at all you woke up hungry.

Ray Cronise

[quelsen]

Apex.

I am taking a pause to answer a similar question.

what parts matter to whom.

for instance.

Primal versus Paleo

Ketogenic versus Isocaloric

Cold ADAPTATION versus Temperate Adaptation.

I keep seeking ways to lower my weight. I know that for me isocaloric doesnt work. Ketogenic doesnt seem to allow me to reduce, however, it does not allow me to gain either and in my world no gain is no pain.

Cold adaptation appears to be clearing my system of estrogen and other "goodies" making me harder ( longer and uncut ) which i currently adjudge a good thing

and being Keto makes me primal by default but i am not truly Paleo ( you may have got me on that one ) as I do butter and heavy cream.

I can tell you that my buddies kids dont need to worry about what they eat now, but the youngest got a shin splint the other day and my mind went immediately to a lack of vitamin K and i suggested he ice it like mad. Will he *shrug*

So for that segment of the population that are not metabolically compromised i think this is gilding the lily. But who knows what could happen for them 50 years later. however as my buddy says, his quality of life ( ie eating zucchini bread at will ) isnt worth an extra 10 years. his thyroid issues dont bother him enough to care to manage it over and above his admittedly sloppy PCP. but he is within 15% of his BMI at age 50 so who cares. he eats what he wants drinks what he wants and it doesn't affect him greatly.

On the other hand you got me. who eats less and more restricted than he does and always has. he out eats me constantly and other than his twice a week at the gym he sits all day long. Me, from age 26 to 36 i was in the gym 6 days a week for 3 hour sessions and on paper my strength looked awesome, my endurance was wonderful and my ass was gaining over 100 pounds on 800-1200 kcal daily. hell the gym owner refunded a year for me out of pity because he could not reconcile my weight with my ethic, one of the few people i have ever met to trust that i was not secretly eating a hostess factory at night.

To this day i still have not found out my issue. I have more information than i did, and i know that HCG will take the weight off even if at a slower rate now. but HCG is a major epic cheat, and i want to find the real underlying problem.

I think that in the end it is all about genetics way more than about behavior. I know my n=1 is biased toward that conclusion, and it smells like victim mentality however i do feel that we are all created unequal, and that we have the intellectual potential to correct those inequalities if we so desire.

I do

[otzi]

I was thinking about this concept last night, and realized, wait, I've always worms shirts, no jacket or both much of the winter, and got fatter through much of that time, even when I lived in an unheated attic. Still interested in playing with it, but wanted to mention that for the record.

This is why it seemed like bunk to me at first, too. Having lived in alaska most of my life, I know cold. I've also learned to fear cold. A man cannot survive long at -40 without really warm clothing. A man cannot survive long in +40 deg water without a survival suit. As with most Alaskans, as soon as it gets cold in September or October, we wear parkas, facemasks, heavy mittens, etc... We also turn up the heat in our house and spend little time in the actual cold. It is very, very common for nearly everyone here to gain 5-20lbs from Oct thru May. In the 24hr summer sun, we get active again and lose some of the weight. This is how I got up to 250lbs a few years ago. Another thing Alaskans love to do in the winter is EAT. With as little as 1 hour of daylight at Dec 21st, or in some cases no sunlight from Nov - Feb (Barrow, AK). It is very hard to get outside even bundled up.

Alaska has a huge population of morbidly obese, diabetics, metabolic syndrome, and unhealthy people. There are groups of people, though, that thrive here. Dog Mushers, skiers, trappers, and others who spend extended time outdoors in the winter. Granted, they bundle up and dress for cold, but they see more cold than most.

Last winter and this winter, I exercised almost nightly on a treadmill in my unheated (40deg) garage wearing just shorts. I usually just walked at 3 mph at max incline for 30-60 minutes. This winter, I stepped it up a notch. I lowered my house temp to around 67 deg (as low as the wife would allow!) and started spending time outside in shorts only at temps from -30 to +10. At first, I could only spend a few minutes at below zero temps, now I can comfortably walk around my yard for 20-30 minutes at -10 deg. or lower.

What my goal of all this is, is to recruit the BAT (brown fat) depots I may have to activate and burn energy. All the studies (not just Dr. Kruse) point to BAT activation as a healthful move for weight control, leptin sensitivity, insulin sensitivity, and a host of other conditions.

Seriously, Apex, you seem interested in this for science sake. Go to Google Scholar and type in Cold Thermogenesis Obesity and brown adipose tissue. Sort the results by 2011 and newer. You will be shocked at the research going on in this field.

I think the wild cards are: does everyone have usable BAT, what is the exact amount of cold exposure needed to activate this, what diet is best for CT, and how long do the effects of CT last.

You know Cold Thermogenesis isn't a unique term. There are all kinds of Thermogenesis. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), Non-shivering thermogenesis (NST), Over-eating thermogenesis (OET), and Exercise Induced thermogenesis 9EIT) to name a few. It is a very specific reaction at the cellular level, completely different from Thermoregulatiion. Thermogenesis is especially interesting in NST and CT because it comes about through activation of UCP-1, an uncoupling protein that allows cells to bypass their normal ATP produced heat and burn energy directly as heat. It is very, very unique and specific to cold exposure.

In the 30's, a drug was discovered called DNP ( Uncoupling Proteins and Fat Loss: Misplaced Hopes? | Weight Loss). Thousands of people took this drug and lost weight independantly of food intake. It was studied very well. Unfortunately DNP made peole go blind so it was stopped.

Sorry for the novel. The more I study CT, the more jazzed I get about it's potential.

[MrZZeroG]

Sorry for the novel. The more I study CT, the more jazzed I get about it's potential.

what he said.

It's really not that complicated. >gasp< a scientist that simplifies.

Ray Cronise

[wthiswrongwithme]

Apex.

I am taking a pause to answer a similar question.

what parts matter to whom.

for instance.

Primal versus Paleo

Ketogenic versus Isocaloric

Cold ADAPTATION versus Temperate Adaptation.

I keep seeking ways to lower my weight. I know that for me isocaloric doesnt work. Ketogenic doesnt seem to allow me to reduce, however, it does not allow me to gain either and in my world no gain is no pain.

Cold adaptation appears to be clearing my system of estrogen and other "goodies" making me harder ( longer and uncut ) which i currently adjudge a good thing

and being Keto makes me primal by default but i am not truly Paleo ( you may have got me on that one ) as I do butter and heavy cream.

I can tell you that my buddies kids dont need to worry about what they eat now, but the youngest got a shin splint the other day and my mind went immediately to a lack of vitamin K and i suggested he ice it like mad. Will he *shrug*

So for that segment of the population that are not metabolically compromised i think this is gilding the lily. But who knows what could happen for them 50 years later. however as my buddy says, his quality of life ( ie eating zucchini bread at will ) isnt worth an extra 10 years. his thyroid issues dont bother him enough to care to manage it over and above his admittedly sloppy PCP. but he is within 15% of his BMI at age 50 so who cares. he eats what he wants drinks what he wants and it doesn't affect him greatly.

On the other hand you got me. who eats less and more restricted than he does and always has. he out eats me constantly and other than his twice a week at the gym he sits all day long. Me, from age 26 to 36 i was in the gym 6 days a week for 3 hour sessions and on paper my strength looked awesome, my endurance was wonderful and my ass was gaining over 100 pounds on 800-1200 kcal daily. hell the gym owner refunded a year for me out of pity because he could not reconcile my weight with my ethic, one of the few people i have ever met to trust that i was not secretly eating a hostess factory at night.

To this day i still have not found out my issue. I have more information than i did, and i know that HCG will take the weight off even if at a slower rate now. but HCG is a major epic cheat, and i want to find the real underlying problem.

I think that in the end it is all about genetics way more than about behavior. I know my n=1 is biased toward that conclusion, and it smells like victim mentality however i do feel that we are all created unequal, and that we have the intellectual potential to correct those inequalities if we so desire.

I do

quelsen, do you have your story, pics, diary, etc. posted somewhere? I would love to read it. You are such an inspiration!!!