The Thermogenesis Effect–Saving the Environment and Yourself at the Same Time.

First, some caterwauling:
The information I’m going to post on this blog, is, by virtue of me posting it here, copyrighted. That means don’t try to repackage it and claim it’s yours and sell it. If you like the plan and it works for you, please point people here.

That title reminds me of Trek..oh well.. onward.

More correctly, today I’m going to talk about Thermoregulation which includes Thermogenesis and the caloric usage of cooling methods. Thermogenesis is the effect of a living being producing heat. There are two main ways to produce this heat, NEAT (Non Exercise Associated Thermogenesis) and EAT (You guessed!.. it’s Exercise Associated Thermogenesis). We covered one aspect of NEAT already, fidgeting. But I want to talk about another aspect.

Humans are mammals and as such are all homeotherms (with the possible exception of Darth Cheney) and as such have to maintain homeostasis (or a constant temperature). When our environment is too hot or too cold, we make adjustments (or more accurately, our mitochondria make changes) to maintain an internal temperature at which our enzymes can perform their at optimum functionality and at which our constituent cells don’t die. The advantages of homeothermy are many (including allowing Fred Flintstone to outrun that T rex JOKE!) but one ‘disadvantage’ that we can turn to our advantage is that it requires more food to be burned.

So how do we use Homeothermy to our advantage and save the environment all in one fell swoop? In the winter, you turn down the heat a few degrees and in the summer you don’t turn on the air conditioning quite as often. Since it’s Winter here we’ll talk about keeping the temperature a degree or two cooler first.

There are three main ways to turn up your internal thermostat: movement, chemicals and shivering. Movement we’ve talked about but it always bears repeating. If you turn down your thermostat one degree lower than normal and you start to get cold, get up and march in place for a minute or chair boogie! You should be fidgeting anyway and therefore producing more surface internal heat. Let’s not counteract that by cranking the heat so we have to do less thermoregulation!

There are also chemicals that increase your internal thermostat. That’s how caffeine works to help you lose weight as does capsicum, ginger and ephedra. I’m not a fan of caffeine as it does many other things especially to those of us already prone to diabetes or heart disease.

Moderate negative effects of caffeine include:

* Headaches
* Irritability
* Increase in breast tenderness
* Restlessness
* Mild insomnia
* Increased heart rate
* Increased blood sugar
* Difficulty concentrating
* Mild stomach upset

Severe negative effects of caffeine include:

* Panic attacks
* Irregular heartbeat
* Sleep deprivation
* Continuous stomach problems
* Prolonged depression
* Sleep disorders

Nor do I advocate ephedra because, you know, it’s a drug and I’m trying to avoid taking drugs by losing weight.

Possible Side Effects of Ephedra

* nausea
* headache; dizziness
* irritation of the stomach; diarrhea
* anxiety; psychosis
* kidney stones
* tremors
* dry mouth
* irregular or rapid heart rhythms; heart damage
* high blood pressure
* restlessness; nervousness; sleeping problems
* decreased appetite
* flushing; sweating
* increased urination

Use of ephedra has also been associated with stroke, seizures, psychosis and death.

Ginger and capsicum (spicy component of hot sauces and peppers) I use all the time though because they enhance my culinary experience! Whenever I make tea I toss in a dash of ginger and I warm up not just from the heat of the drink but also from the effect of the ginger.

Shivering is great if you’re going to freeze to death but I’m not advocating turning the heat down that low. Really, that would be too uncomfortable to become a lifestyle for most people. I’ve dropped the temperature to about 63 during the day and 57 at night for the general house and it’s 2 degrees F warmer in here because of all the electronics and the large aquariums and ponds. If that’s too cold for you, just turn it down one degree. Go on, you know you want to. What’s one degree? 1 degree can reduce your carbon footprint and cut your heating bills by 10 percent and help you lose weight.

Babies (and hibernating mammals) have a fourth way called brown fat which is actually a form of muscle and which has a lot more mitochondria (leading to the brown color). Remember when two decades ago they said you could produce more by eating brown rice or whatever they were advocating that day and create more brown fat. Well, not so much. We have what we form as a baby and that as they say is that, for now. They are working on genetic therapy ways to stimulate the formation of more brown fat in adults but we won’t see that for a decade or longer.

I don’t know about you but I can’t wait that long to lose weight! By then I might be just bones! Additionally I wonder if producing a bunch more brown fat cells won’t lead to feeling hot all the time or at the worst moments I might start sweating. Oh wait, we already have that it’s called menopause.. blech!

Additionally, you burn calories to cool yourself off. But this is a lot trickier. Most of what you lose when you’re really hot is just water. This is especially true for women, while men actually sweat fats and oils (and toxins!), darn them! It is critical that you drink water and compensate for the salts and minerals that you lose through sweating. Frankly I’m not the least bit concerned about water gain, but I do worry about water loss. Remember on that first day when I talked about wanting to be more water than fat? I still do. But, turning that air conditioner up a degree is good for the environment, your heating bill and can make a small difference in calorie usage so why not?

Today’s weigh in is falling in line with my weight loss goals:

226.0 lbs 99.2 lbs fat 92.4 lbs water and 34.4 lbs other. GO WATER GO! Fat.. just GO!
That is 7.4 lbs lost in 3 weeks plus those inches we chalked up yesterday. I’m happy!

Today is my breakover day so expect a bounce up tomorrow and Sunday as processed foods hit my system. I wish there was better food at the tavern!

Oh, yeah what about that EAT portion of thermogenesis? We don’t say the E word here. More movement is great though! In fact, why don’t we all get up and boogey to the kitchen and get a cup of three of ginger tea? I know I’m going to.

Image Credits to:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2045/2105724861_de303117e5.jpg?v=0
http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/YL/watch-thermostat-tip-2-lg.jpg
http://pro.corbis.com/images/42-17343563.jpg?size=572&uid={793d7a0a-f05c-44ab-956f-32c5b2b6bbfb}

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.