Fat Freezing = Fat Burning?

"Michael Phelps eats 12000 calories per day..." - How on Earth does he do it?

Let's say, a normal person with a weight of 170 ran a 26.2-mile marathon, he would only burn around 2,600 calories, which is just three-quarters of a fat. How could Phelps eat an extra 9,000 calories per day? In order for Phelps to burn those kinds of calories above and beyond what his resting metabolic rate was, he had to burn 860 calories an hour at competitive swimming rates, meaning he would have to sustain more than 10 HOURS of continuous butterfly every day. Obviously, he can't do that.

So how does he burn all those calories? - It is the thermal load of the water. Water is 24 times more thermally conductive than air. Phelps spends three or four hours a day in the water. The effect was the same as pouring hot coffee into a metal cup instead of a ceramic mug; the
former loses calories (heat) much faster. Running a marathon might burn 2,600 calories, but working out in an 27°C pool for four hours could burn up to an extra 4,000 calories, if one considered thermal load.

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SCIENCE ALERT!
(If you are already convinced that low temperatures can increase fat-burn then skip this)

Basically, there are two types of fat.
1. White Adipose Tissue (WAT)
2. Brown Adipose Tissue (WAT)

WAT is what we usually think of as fat, like the marbling on a steak. A WAT cell, an adipocyte is composed of a single large fat droplet with a single nucleus.

BAT, the “fat-burning fat” appears to be derived from the same stem cells as muscle tissue. A BAT cell is composed of multiple droplets that are brown in color because of a much higher volume of iron-containing mitochondria. BAT helps dissipate excess calories as heat. These excess calories would otherwise be stored in the aforementioned WAT and end up in your belly.

Cold stimulates BAT to burn fat and glucose as heat. In other words, cold might help you increase the amount of your “fat-burning” fat.
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Here are a few ways you can experiment with for fat-loss:

1. Place an ice pack on the back of the neck area for 20-30 minutes in the evening, when insulin sensitivity is at its lowest.

2. Consume at least 500 milliliters of ice water on an empty stomach immediately upon waking up. This water consumption has been shown to increase resting metabolic rate at 24-30%. After drinking, eat breakfast 20-30 minutes later. (Preferably the Slow-Carb Diet, one of our earlier posts)

3. Take 5-10 minute COLD showers before breakfast and/or before bed. This is a killer if you are not used to it. Expect it to wake you up in the morning.