Does a cold shower really help with fat burning?

It sounds nice and easy: cold shower and boom, you lose weight. Does it really work? Do we have to struggle under that icy stream to fit snugly into our party dresses?

How does that work? Well, look: cold it always contributes to fat burning. I recently read in the news the sentence: ‘A cold shower every day and after a week you lose half a kilo.’ What also works is to be colder for a longer time, for example by turning your thermostat down in winter.

Away fat
It has everything to do with brown and white fat. That sounds a bit gross and it might be, but in short, your body has brown and white fat. Research from Maastricht now shows: those who spend several hours a day in an environment of about 15 degrees produce more brown fat and lose white fat. ‘When it's cold, your skin registers that, a signal goes to the temperature center in your brain, and brown fat is activated via nerves,’ explains Mariëtte Boon, who has been researching the function of brown fat at the Leiden University Medical Center since 2011. ‘So I can recommend everyone to lower the thermostat or take a cold shower daily.’

You should see it this way: cold makes your body work harder, which improves your metabolism. So you burn more fat even when sitting still because your body is countering that cold. Now I prefer to be in a cozy warm house at 21 degrees by a fireplace, but well, I also don't wear size 34 and I don't want to.

So much lost
How much weight do you lose from the cold? It obviously depends on whether you are a man or a woman and how tall and heavy you are, but it has been researched in men. They had to endure the cold for days: their bodies were placed between mats through which icy water flowed. Not really pleasant, but well, all for science. It turned out that their metabolism had increased by about two hundred kilocalories per day. Boon: ‘This way you can lose a kilo of fat every 45 days, and 9 kilos annually. That doesn't sound like much, but these kilos can really make a difference.’ So does the cold shower work? Yes, but you have to take very long cold showers. I would lower that heater a bit, that also saves on your energy bill. Are you after that winter just a few kilos lighter, without doing anything. Life can be that easy, right?.