How cold water burns calories
How Cold Water Burns Calories
The answer to the question of how cold water burns calories requires wading through a number of knowledge spheres such as body temperature, body metabolism, cell activity and type of food as well as the functionality of water in the human body. The body is a far-more complex machine that we might ever comprehend. It exists at a level of functionality that is incredibly intricate and wide-ranging. With respect of the body temperature, the body has to both raise as well as lower heat as and when it is required. When you shiver in cold temperatures, it is a way of working up heat to make you warm. The temperature of the body in normal conditions is 37 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When the body temperature goes down or rises, you are bound to be impacted and the body will do all it can to bring the temperature back to the normal range.
A drop in temperature will get the body to redistribute the available heat in the body to those regions which are feeling the effects of cold. The fingers are always the first to start to feel the cold. This makes it necessary to rush blood to the fingers and toes so that they can absorb the heat from the blood and stay warm. In the same way, water is needed to be distributed to every cell in the body. Both of these essential requirements of controlling the temperature of the body and distributing water to the body are at the core of raising the query of how cold water burns calories. When you drink cold water, it will lead to an additional job for the body, that of lowering its temperature, in addition to distributing the water. As a result, you are making the body work when you drink cold water and cold water burns calories for you.
To look at metabolism, it consists of a number of processes which can be divided into two types of activities. One is the conversion of energy into the essential substances that the cells of the body need. And the other involves the respiration of the cells of the body. One of the components of this set of processes is digestion which is the work that is done on the food that we eat before distributing it via the blood to different parts of the body. Chemicals are secreted by the body to carry out this process. It is accomplished in a number of areas of the body beginning with the stomach and passing on to the small intestine. The chemicals that are required for the process are secreted in the stomach, pancreas and the liver. The length that is traversed by food spans a distance of around 9 meters which will sound implausible for us. It begins to illustrate to us what a great machine the body is.
The process of digestion begins when we smell the food itself. This sets in motion the processes that are required to digest the food. After undergoing the different processes in the stomach and the small intestine, food is headed to the large intestine where the separation of water and waste material from the processed food is carried out. Some parts of the food such as certain vitamins are needed whole and should not be broken down. The body takes care of these parts of food by sheathing them with a protein so that the digestive enzymes do not impact them.
Some parts of food are broken down and then taken into the cells where a further breaking down takes place. At the end of this process of releasing of the stored energy in the food, the next process is that of construction of the different substances that the body needs. In this second process of metabolism, all the energy that has been released is then used for constructive purposes by the body. Now, to return to how cold water burns calories, what we set out to do is to kindle these two processes of metabolism, first by the release of energy and the second by the utilization of energy. It is the latter part of the process that we are concerned with as this process of construction of essential molecules requires energy. In this second phase of metabolism, the body’s organs and tissues are built up. Your bones and muscles are built up and bolstered in this phase. The body has various triggers to achieve these processes, one of which is the onset of day and night. As we go about deviating from the routines of humans in previous centuries which mostly involved manual labor, we also need to understand the way that our habits can impact the way the body functions.
When we look at how cold water burns calories, we return to the requirement of the body to maintain the temperature of the body at the optimum level that is suitable for the occurrence and consummation of all of these bodily processes. As we deliver more work to the body, it will use up some of the energy that is stored in the cells to carry out moderation of the internal temperature. This way, it does not matter whether we are stationary for much of the 24 hours. We can ensure some activity within the body at all times when we intake cold water. This is why the question of how cold water burns calories is a very important one.
Now, to get down to the numbers! When you drink a glass of cold water, the body takes eight calories of energy in the job of raising the temperature of the water even as it moves into the processing system to be converted into urine. A glass of water at room temperature will not involve this expenditure of calories. As a result, it seems obvious that as you keep drinking cold water during the day, you are making use of calories all the time. This might not be nearly enough to make use of all those calories that you have partaken but it surely is a way to ensure that there is no static situation when it comes to the burning of calories. In addition to this benefit, there is the real benefit of feeling better when you drink cold water which is all about a psychological feeling of goodness. With two beneficial aspects, the argument for drinking cold water acquires a very sound footing.
Let us now return to the metabolic processes to obtain further insights into the process of cellular respiration that we noted earlier. Here, we take a look at how the required chemicals are transferred into the cells of the body. One of the minerals that aids in this transfer is phosphorus. It is a part of a molecule that conducts this transfer of chemical energy into the cells of the body. This molecule goes into the cell and the energy that it contains is used to build different substances. Among the building blocks of these substances are amino acids. These are made of nitrogen and hydrogen in a molecule called an amine and carbon and oxygen together in a molecule called carboxylic acid. Next are the monosaccharides which are results of the breaking down of carbohydrates. These are made of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. These monosaccharides are what sugar is made of. There are other molecules which represent combinations of carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus and oxygen called terpenoids and combinations of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus called nucleotides. All of these building blocks are used within the cells to make up newer molecules.
Remember that these substances were broken down from the food that we consumed and have been transferred into the cells to begin the construction process anew. The carbohydrates that we eat are themselves made from plants by utilizing sunlight and carbon dioxide. The process of breaking down of the carbohydrates and other parts of food into these building blocks that are used by cells is the first part of metabolism that we encountered in the beginning.
Cells use these broken down building blocks to build newer molecules or to break them down further before thereby creating waste. Among these wastes that are returned by the cells is carbon dioxide. All of the chemicals that are required by the cells are taken out and these wastes also include energy in the form of heat. This energy does not have any chemical component in it. The cells retain some of this energy to be used in the construction of the newer molecules. Hence, we see that energy is continually being created, transferred and lost in the processes carried out by the cells of the body.
One of the original destructions that is carried out by way of the first part of metabolism is glycolysis wherein glucose is converted to Pyruvate. This Pyruvate will be used to construct an amino acid as well as converted back into a carbohydrate. As we saw earlier, glucose which is a type of sugar is a carbohydrate. So, there is a lot of back and forth in the way that the body functions. There are some compounds which represent energy itself rather than any of the building blocks. One of these is called ATP. When glycolysis takes place to break down glucose to pyruvate, some energy is released which is then packed to form ATP. The process of cellular respiration that we saw earlier involves the creation of ATP. So, in the initial stages of metabolism, building blocks are delivered to the cells as well as energy to work and build with these building blocks in the form of ATP. Inside the cells, heat is created as well as carbon dioxide and many other wastes. Among the wastes other than carbon dioxide are a couple of acids, ammonia and urea. Let us now take a look at carbon dioxide which is needed to create carbohydrates and which is released when cells undertake their construction activities. It is released by the body when we exhale.
We close our look at the metabolic processes by paying attention to water. It is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. It covers about 70 percent of the globe and our bodies are also composed of about 70 percent of water. This brings us to the question of dehydration which can impact you when you are undertaking a physical activity or immersed in your work. The refreshing nature of cold water will inevitably make you feel better and help you to carry on with your physical activity or with your work by adding the crucial element of refreshment. You will be able to undertake all of your daily routines with work and exercise with more enthusiasm and the concomitant energy when you dip into cold water. While we have been focusing on the efforts that the body will need to apply to raise the temperature of the cold water, there is another aspect to the subject. When you are engaged in strenuous activities in conditions where the mental or physical environments can cause your body to heat up, cold water is the best way to help your body cope with the conditions, since cold water burns calories. This covers those activities where you might be striving to finish a project within a deadline or when you are pushing your limits in physical exercise. To help you achieve the best with these types of conditions, you can count on cold water burns calories.
With a stainless steel bottle filled with ice cubes and water, you have the best ally to keep your physical side of the body and the mental perspective as well at the top most of their functional efficacy. There is no other drink that can single handedly achieve calorie-burning, physical replenishment, mental exuberance as cold water can do. Of course, for when cold water burns calories it is just a part of the overall physical regimen that you will be setting up and following up on. But, it is surely a very positive and fulfilling part of your work out towards a healthy body and a stress-free mind.
