# Can you lose weight by keeping the thermostat turned down? May 2, 1986 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [February 14, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down-may-2-1986/528914 "2010-02-14T01:49:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gominuthe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecd19e/32.png) [@gominuthe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gominuthe)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down-may-2-1986/528914/1 "2010-02-14T01:49:34Z")
(I can’t find another on this topic, so I’ll start one.) > **[Can you lose weight by keeping the thermostat turned down?](https://www.straightdope.com/21341710/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down)** > [@](#): > > Now for the specifics. You do burn up calories faster when it’s cold, although after a while your body adapts and the effect is reduced. This reads like “it’s a fundamentally worthless idea”, but I don’t see why. Maybe the effect is higher in the first few minutes as your skin adapts to prevent heat loss, but it can only do so much. If you go out in the cold, you don’t stop shivering after a while. You continue shivering as long as you’re in the cold. > [@](#): > > Not that it matters much. Unless you exercise at the same time, you’re not going to be burning the right calories. When your metabolism is in “rest” mode, you burn mostly glucose, the simple sugar that’s found in your blood. Your fat cells remain untouched, and you don’t lose any weight. What’s the source for this? Your body generates heat microscopically inside cells by converting fat into heat energy, and macroscopically by shivering muscles, which I don’t see as being any different from exercising skeletal muscles. > [@](#): > > To some degree, all cells of endotherms give off heat, especially when body temperature is below a regulatory threshold. However, brown adipose tissue is highly specialized for this non-shivering thermogenesis. > [@](#): > > The recent study could lead to a new method of weight loss, since brown fat takes calories from normal fat and burns it. > [@](#): > > When the core body temperature drops, the shivering reflex is triggered to maintain homeostasis. Muscle groups around the vital organs begin to shake in small movements in an attempt to create warmth by expending energy. > [@](#): > > One method to raise temperature is through shivering. The heat results from friction between muscle elements (the same as during exertion) > **[Thermogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermogenesis)** > > Thermogenesis is the process of heat production in the metabolism of organisms. It occurs in all warm-blooded animals, and also in a few species of thermogenic plants such as the Eastern skunk cabbage, the Voodoo lily (Sauromatum venosum), and the giant water lilies of the genus Victoria. The lodgepole pine dwarf mistletoe, Arceuthobium americanum, disperses its seeds explosively through thermogenesis. Thermoregulation is an important component of a homeothermic animal's resting metabolic r De... > **[Shivering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivering)** > > Shivering (also called shuddering) is a bodily function in response to cold and extreme fear in warm-blooded animals. When the core body temperature drops, the shivering reflex is triggered to maintain homeostasis. Skeletal muscles begin to shake in small movements, creating warmth by expending energy. Shivering can also be a response to fever, as a person may feel cold. During fever, the hypothalamic set point for temperature is raised. The increased set point causes the body tempera Located in ... > **[Brown adipose tissue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_adipose_tissue)** > > Brown adipose tissue (BAT) or brown fat makes up the adipose organ together with white adipose tissue (or white fat). Brown adipose tissue is found in almost all mammals. > Classification of brown fat refers to two distinct cell populations with similar functions. The first shares a common embryological origin with muscle cells, found in larger "classic" deposits. The second develops from white adipocytes that are stimulated by the sympathetic nervous system. These adipocytes are found intersperse... > **[Thermoregulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoregulation#In_cold_conditions)** > > Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibri... ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down-may-2-1986/528914/2 "2010-02-14T03:22:59Z")
> [@gominuthe](#): > > If you go out in the cold, you don’t stop shivering after a while. You continue shivering as long as you’re in the cold. Only if you are inadequately dressed for the conditions. Otherwise you shiver to generate heat from your muscles, and stop when you have warmed up. If you are inadequately dressed, or conditions are extreme, you will lose heat as fast or faster than your shivering can generate it, so it will continue. But that’s your fault, for going out inappropriately clothed. ---
**Author:** ![signal11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@signal11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signal11)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down-may-2-1986/528914/3 "2010-02-14T23:52:27Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Only if you are inadequately dressed for the conditions. Otherwise you shiver to generate heat from your muscles, and stop when you have warmed up. If you are inadequately dressed, or conditions are extreme, you will lose heat as fast or faster than your shivering can generate it, so it will continue. But that’s your fault, for going out inappropriately clothed. You’re missing gominthe’s point. If the temperature is below a given threshold, shivering will continue. The body doesn’t “adapt” to all conditions/environments, as it could be implied by the section gominthe pointed out. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down-may-2-1986/528914/4 "2010-02-24T17:25:58Z")
Adaption - If your body is frequently chilly, perhaps after a few months or years you add fat for insulation and to ensure you have the stored energy to generate that heat? I guess the opposite question would help resolve this… Do people in hot climates (who don’t live in air conditioning) tend to be lighter, less fat? I had read something once that suggested the lack of championship-level African swimmers was due to their lower body fat level which made them less buoyant. Or maybe it’s just the lack of clean swimming pools in Africa or inner-city America? ---
**Author:** ![eastcheap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@eastcheap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eastcheap)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down-may-2-1986/528914/5 "2010-03-05T06:27:00Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Adaption - If your body is frequently chilly, perhaps after a few months or years you add fat for insulation and to ensure you have the stored energy to generate that heat? Dunno. I keep the thermostat significantly lower than average in the winter and higher in the summer, and there’s no doubt that I lose a good deal of weight during the winter months (I only have to compare the labels in my woolly trousers and cotton shorts to confirm this). This despite a considerable increase in caloric intake during the winter. Note that I’m not talking about a few degrees here. A thermometer on my desk currently reads 63.9 degrees, and I’m sitting here in shorts and a T-shirt enjoying the relative warmth (thanks to the ballooning cost of propane, February has been irritatingly chilly, even for me). Now, is it down to homeostasis? Maybe. It’s also equally plausible that, during the summer (East Texas), it’s just too freakin’ hot to move. > [@](#): > > I guess the opposite question would help resolve this… Do people in hot climates (who don’t live in air conditioning) tend to be lighter, less fat? I rather suspect that people who live in hot climates sans air conditioning are more physically active than the Western norm. Even taking that into account, who do you look at? Africans? Pacific Islanders? There are some really striking morphological differences among different populations in tropical climates. > [@](#): > > I had read something once that suggested the lack of championship-level African swimmers was due to their lower body fat level which made them less buoyant. Or maybe it’s just the lack of clean swimming pools in Africa or inner-city America? I can’t help but think of the Simpsons episode in which Homer is watching the '84 Olympics: “You have to remember that many of these competitors come from countries where there are no swimming pools.” ---
**Author:** ![gominuthe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecd19e/32.png) [@gominuthe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gominuthe)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-by-keeping-the-thermostat-turned-down-may-2-1986/528914/6 "2010-07-03T19:07:47Z")
Here’s an actual study on it. 😃 > [@](#): > > The thermoneutral zone (TNZ) is the range of ambient temperature in which energy expenditure is not required for homeothermy. Exposure to ambient temperatures above or below the TNZ increases energy expenditure, which all other things being equal, decreases energy stores (i.e., fat). This effect was shown in short-term controlled human experiments > **[Air-con and lack of sleep promote obesity](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9416-air-con-and-lack-of-sleep-promote-obesity/)** > > Obesity is just as likely to be caused by lack of sleep and too much air-conditioning as it is by a sedentary lifestyle and aggressive marketing by the food industry, according to a research article that challenges the conventional wisdom. David... [http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v30/n11/full/0803326a.html](http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v30/n11/full/0803326a.html)