My experiment is going on. Of course, I have no idea if it is really new brown fat that turns me into an oven every time after my daily cold laps in the pool. For all I know, I could have a not-yet-recognized infection or any other disease that makes me burn up. Only thing I know is that I feel terrific – for the moment.
But for the sake of an interesting exploration, let’s stick with my brown fat hypothesis. This is what I have learned about about brown fat so far:
1. It used to be thought that only babies (protecting them from hypothermia) or bears (keeping a reasonable core temperature during hibernation) have brown fat. It turns out that traces of brown fat are still around in adult people. – A little aside: Other ways to increase body temperature are increasing surrounding temperature, moving about, shivering, and eating certain “warming” foods like cinnamon, ginger, onions, garlic, rutabaga, coriander, cloves – interestingly foods often used in the winter kitchen. But there is no hint that those foods increase brown fat. Or a shred of a proof that a so-called "Brown Fat Diet" will increase that precious tissue in your body.
2. Brown fat can help weight loss by increasing metabolism speed.
3. Brown fat also can decrease elevated insulin-resistance (also called pre-diabetes) and a diabetic situation.
4. Brown fat can be induced to increase by cold exposure – be it by swimming in cold water, immersing in a tub filled with ice water, or dancing in a walk-in food refrigerator (don’t you wish you had one of those at home??).
5. Needless to say, there are already pharmaceutical firms are already working on drugs that might trigger growth of brown fat, without going through the ado of cold exposure. The easy way out, I call it. And definitely not an interesting way, if you ask me.
I like to think about cold-induced brown fat as one of the benefits of moderate stress. We all know that stress is bad for you, don’t we? Not necessarily though. Moderate stress might be what makes the body function in the way Nature intended it. With heated dwellings with forgo the winter cold stress – and get sick for it, lacking brown fat. With air-conditioning in the summer, we miss out on the sweating which give our body a good cleanse of all the toxins – and get sick for it. Occasional hunger stress (fasting!) is another beneficial stress mechanism. Not only do we get healthier on occasional fasting, and live longer with less belly ballast, it also seems we get to be happier with fewer pounds – and less depressed.
One estimate is that there are about three million residential swimming pools in California (I am not even mentioning the pools in Florida and all across southern U.S.A.). If these pools are anything like our pool here in La Jolla, all those turquoise eyes should be gazing at the sky, basically unused. All, of course, using up precious water resources. How about using them? If you are in decent health (ask your physician), you start by doing a single lap across your pool. Tomorrow two, and every day one more until you reach twenty-one laps. The brown fat will appear very fast – and will help you lose weight.
Putting on brown fat, however, might mean walking a fine line: You want to increase your metabolism by cold exposure. But you don’t want to get where most winter swimmers end up: with more fat on their bodies. Fat (of any kind) protects against cold, and makes you better able to withstand long swims in icy water. Don’t go there! Read More
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Brown Fat And My Californian Pool
October 31, 2011
The experiment is still on: How long into the winter will I succeed to keep up my daily twenty-one laps in the pool?
So far, so good. The water is much colder now, but the days have been sunny and friendly – the fog lifted while we were at the East Coast.
Truthfully, lately it has been harder to face the pool: I am still battling a minor cold, and every day I have to decide if it is prudent to swim with the cold, or if I should just snuggle up in a warm blanket. But the exhilarating feeling after my daily swim – I seem to be addicted to it. I look full of vigor. My posture definitely is straighter. I am building up muscles where I never had any – on my back and my arms. Plus, the tiny belly I had is getting smoother (not smaller).
On the negative side is my skin. No outright rash or itching yet, but I have the suspicion that my skin looks a bit older, notwithstanding the coconut oil I slab all over me after each bath.
For a few days, I had been getting extremely cold after each swim, and couldn’t get warm at all. If you ever read my water book, you know that staying cold after water exposure is not a good idea. But with my inborn stubbornness (which might just get worse with age …) and medical curiosity, I kept doing what I should not have done: go swimming. And got colder and colder. In spite of the knee bends, blankets and hot tea with fresh ginger. Two nights in a row, I didn’t get warm all night – certainly not a healthy state!
Until yesterday. Shortly after I went swimming, had taken my short cold shower to get rid of the chlorine, had done my exercise, had rolled up in my blanket and imbibed the tea, I got really warm. Even my hands felt tingling with warmth. This lasted all night, and is still going on. I suddenly had the feeling that, for the first time in my life, that I was getting on the warm side in life. Like, where my husband always is.
Looking around for an explanation, I stumbled onto brown fat. Brown fat gets activated by cold. Brown fat is supposed to be healthier than yellow fat that just stores superfluous calories. Babies have more brown fat because it protects them from hypothermia – a constant threat for newborns.
Brown fat is not so much fat but is related to muscles. Brown fat is brown from the mitochondria and their iron contents; mitochondria are tiny energy factories. Brown fat has also more blood vessels for better oxygenation and is metabolically more active than yellow fat – it actually burns calories instead just storing them.
So, by swimming in the cool pool, I must have tapped into my brown fat – I can’t come up with any other explanation. And did you know? Brown fat is implemented in weight loss. Yes! Brown fat can make you lose weight – IF you have enough brown fat.
Sebastian Kneipp, the father of the Kaltwasserkur (Cold Water Cure) is famous for jumping into the wintry Danube River to cure his tuberculosis. Later, he modified his approach because he observed that some weakened patients were not able to withstand the bitter cold he himself had applied to his body. One could say he watered down his original approach … I had always repeated what I had been taught: that too much cold might be hazardous to your health. Which still might be true for frail people.
But I might be onto something here … I will let you know how this will work out.
P.S. After today's laps, I have very warm hands. Read More
Always Make Sure Your Tank Is Full, And Your Bladder Is Empty
October 5, 2011
That was a billboard advice in Pasadena yesterday. Certainly excellent advice. But I doubt I would ever had found that kind of slogan on a billboard in Massachusetts. With endless, confusing highways – freeways they call them here – and huge distances one has to do with every mundane task, full tank/empty bladder are imperative.
California is different, I am finding out. It never rains in southern California – and I am finding that is not true, either.
For one thing: The supermarkets: At home, we have a huge natural health food store where I live. Here it’s the size of a railway station. One of the differences in the products is that frozen foods, ready-to-eat-meals and prepared dinners are much more common. Three aisles full of frozen foods alone!
I tried to find rice and lentils. As in rice. and. lentils. Not precooked. Not in a fabulous sauce or in an exotic recipe. Just red lentils and rice. At home, I can choose between about half a dozen kinds of rice: long, short, basmati, jasmine, brown, forbidden, wild (which is not really rice and should not be eaten by people with gluten problems) – you get the idea. Here they have a thousand pre-boiled, prepared, mixed varieties. And a single uncooked variety: long. Happens that I want short, for my congee in the morning.
To cook rice is one of the easiest tasks in the kitchen: You measure a cup of rice, add two cups of water and a pinch of salt, bring it to a boil, cover it with a lid, and let it simmer on low flame until all water has been used up. While the rice cooks, you prepare other dishes. I doubt it is much easier to scrape precooked rice from its plastic wrapping, put it into a bowl and microwave (yuck!!) it. Not to mention that your rice is made in a way you have no influence on: You don’t know the kind of water they use. They might have done the “cooking” via microwaving. And agents from the plastic wrap might have seeped and contaminated your rice. All that for a doubtful gain in “less work.” - Joy of cooking – where did it go?
The one thing I really enjoy so far: the pool. Today it’s cold for San Diego – in the low sixties – and it was drizzling a bit when I did my daily laps. Nobody else dared this kind of weather and took a swim with me. The chlorine smell is but light – I hope my skin will not scream after a while. Rain here is needed of course. It fills the reservoirs and reduces fire hazard.
Red lentils I haven’t found yet. Although I am sure I will find a store that carries red lentils. It’s only a question of more miles, more energy wasting on the freeways. And of course a question of an empty bladder. Read More