Hooray For Cold Weather

Fall came right on time this year. The last couple of days I have opened my closet and looked longingly at my sweaters as I wondered what I could wear that was September appropriate yet still cool enough for the eighty degree days we were having. Then just at the sun was passing over the equator and ushering in fall today I opened my front door to a cool breeze and grey skies and wondered what should I wear today? Hooray, I need a sweater.

After a morning walk with my friends Christy and Mary Lloyd where I was practically cold in my athleta skort I came in the house to get a warm shower and had the TV on as I tend to do while getting dressed. On the Rachael Ray show was a doctor talking about losing weight and activating brown fat as if everyone on earth knew what brown fat was.

Perhaps the explanation on brown fat happened while I was in the shower so this afternoon I went to the answer machine that I carry in my hand at all times and googled “brown fat.” Here is the latest in the fat world. We have multiple kinds of fat, white, the regular grown up kind and brown, the kind babies have. Apparently some really smart fat experts have found we have multiple kinds of brown fat. Now why do you care what color your fat is, your skin conceals it all?

Well, brown fat burns calories at a much higher rate than white fat. White fat is like the storage unit, and brown fat is the burning one. Babies are born with brown fat around their necks to protect them from cold. OK, so we can’t do much about what type of fat we have, especially since we can’t see it, but here is the good news. Doctors have discovered that being cold, like shivering cold, makes the brown fat we do have activate the burning mechanism to the degree that we use as many calories shivering for ten minutes as we would exercising for an hour.

So welcome fall! Hello sleeping with the window wide-open being as cold as possible. How about meeting me for a chat in the cold room at Costco for twenty minutes without our sweaters on – it will be equal to taking a two-hour walk. So long beach spring breaks, I’m thinking Iceland in March is a good idea. Hot Yoga is out and ice fishing is in. With all the fat I have some of it has got to be brown and I’m all about activating it.

I wonder what would happen if I turned my office where my walking desk is into a freezer.  Do you think I could get both the brown fat and the white fat to burn at the same time?