Use Ice Packs For Fat Loss

I was 5 minutes into a meandering diatribe about how cold therapy affects fat loss with regard to Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) vs. White Adipose Tissue (WAT) when one of our campers politely gave me a concerned look and said “Tim, why don’t you boil all of this down, and put it into an email which we can read when we aren’t supposed to be working out?!”. My response: Squat Thrust Deadlifts, 30 seconds….GO!

Here is that email, and I’ll do my best to give you the Cliff Notes version. This is interesting stuff…that you can use to burn fat today. Read on…

During training, Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories per day. Calorically speaking that’s just over 20 Big Macs per day. Twenty Big Macs. For a caloric perspective in terms of “normal” human activity, if you call running a  marathon normal, a 160 pound person only burns approximately 3,300 calories when running 26.2 miles.

Michael Phelps isn’t fat. So what gives? Even if running a marathon per day, how is he able to eat an additional 9,000 calories per day and stay so incredibly lean?
Even if he trains 3 to 4 hours per day in the water (which he does) at competitive swimming rates he still only burns around 860 calories per hour. For a 4 hour workout that means he burns 3,440 calories above his BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate = the rate at which you burn calories when doing nothing. Avg female BMR is 1300 to 1500. Avg male BMR is 1600 to 1800). 3,440 calories burned swimming + 1,700 calories for BMR = 5,140 calories “burned” for the day, which leaves 6,860 extra per day that are eaten but not “burned”…at least not in the conventional sense.

Here’s the secret. The thermal (heat exchange) load of the water. Water is 24 times more thermally conductive than air. Phelps spends 3 to 4 hours per day in the water. Think of it as pouring a hot beverage into a metal cup (training in water) vs. a ceramic cup (training out of water). The metal cup will lose calories (heat) from the hot beverage quickly. The ceramic mug wont.

There is more than one way for your body to burn calories, which is often over looked. Remember the law of conservation of matter from elementary science class? Energy can neither be created or destroyed. It can only change forms. Your body “burns” or better said “exchanges” calories with the environment through exercise (i.e. boot camp…or running a marathon), heat exchange with the environment, or matter (excretion i.e. sweating, #1, #2).

Running a marathon might burn 3,300 calories for a 160lb person, but working out in an 82 degree pool for four hours can burn an extra 4,000 calories. If one considers thermal load (i.e. heat exchange). Kinda’ makes you want to go jump into Barton Springs doesn’t it?

In case you don’t have time to train like an Olympian for 4 hours per day in an 82 degree pool, you can still recreate the same thermal load effect of 82 degree water. Filling your bath tub with ice and water and jumping in for 20 minutes per day is an option.  Though not for the faint of heart. As a guy, lowering myself into icy water for 20 minutes is offensive to parts of me to the point that I won’t even do this…not even for the sake of lean body mass. Here’s an easier solution.

The key is to stimulate your Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT). BAT is found in the upper chest and neck areas of your body. BAT is different from White Adipose Tissue (WAT). WAT is found in the areas on your body that make your skinny jeans not fit the way that you would like for them to. BAT is referred to as “fat burning fat” and seems to be derived from the same stem cells as muscle tissue. BAT derives its brown color from a much higher volume of iron containing mitochondria. Going back to elementary science again, the mitochondria are the powerhouses in your cells and responsible for energy production (Adenosine Triphosphate or ATP) and fat oxidation. Stimulate brown fat, burn extra calories as heat. Calories burned as heat = calories lost = weight and fat lost.

In a nutshell, cold stimulates BAT to burn gluclose (derived from the food you eat) and stored fat (derived from the excess food you eat) as heat.
Here’s your 5 step BAT stimulating fat burning regimen:

1. Test your body fat and take circumference measurements on your chest (widest part of the chest), waist (around your belly button) and hips (around buttocks). You’ll want to retest this in 4 weeks.
2. Place an ice pack on the back of the neck or upper trapezius area for 20 to 30 minutes in the evening while reading or watching TV. You can use a towel on your shoulders under the ice packs.
3. Consume 16 ounces of ice water on an empty stomach immediately upon waking. This can increase resting metabolic rate 24 to 30% for up to 60 minutes post consumption. Eat breakfast 30 minutes after consumption of cold water.
4. Take 5 to 10 minute cold showers before breakfast and/or before bed. You can use warm water while getting into the shower, then turn with your back to the shower with the water hitting your upper neck and shoulder area and slowly adjust the water to cold. Slowly dialing the water to cold will help you to acclimate better. Stand there for 3 minutes.
5. If you are brave and want faster results, please feel free to buy two 10 lb bags of ice and create one giant bathtub cocktail out of yourself. 20 minutes is the recommended soaking time up to your chest and neck if you can stand it.

If you want to read more about why this works Google “adiponectin”. Please feel free to send me a book report when you have concluded your research.
If you prefer to go the more traditional route of high protein, clean, consistent eating here are this weeks meal plans: Meal Plans Mar 28th to April 1st
Let me know your thoughts about this posting below. Thanks!

-Tim Kaderli