Do you burn more calories when you’re hot and sweating, or when you’re cold and the body tries to keep you warm?

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  1. Iocnar Avatar

    Your body literally cannot “try to keep you warm” other than shivering etc which yes burns more calories. Our bodies can cool us down but not heat us up. I don’t think anything can heat itself up in the same general sort of way that we can cool ourselves down.

  2. Worried_Director7489 Avatar

    A calorie is a measure of energy. It’s the energy one needs to raise the temperature of one litre of water by one degree Celsius.

    When you’re cold, your body is actively heating many liters of water inside your body by many degrees Celsius, to maintain body temperature.

  3. Desperate_Owl_594 Avatar

    I googled it.

    Turns out, hot weather causes a greater calorie burn than cold weather. “In general, you burn more calories when you are hot (or in hot, humid weather) because your cardiovascular system has to do more work to pump blood

    There is also this Reddit post.

  4. nevermindaboutthaton Avatar

    All I know is that military rations for Artic weather have about double the amount of calories as the standard ones.
    Never heard of hot weather rations being any different to standard though.

  5. BriefVeterinarian567 Avatar

    I believe I saw a video showing that if you are shivering it burns more energy than if you were doing a workout.

  6. Happy_Concept_7381 Avatar

    Calories are heat. You either sweat, breath or pee out your calories.

    If you are in the cold the body works harder to keep you warm which burns more calories.

  7. suhaib_sh7 Avatar

    Tried Ai, this is what I got

    At rest: Cold burns more calories.

    During moderate workouts: Hot might burn a bit more due to cooling demands.

    During intense workouts: Cold may win, since you can often perform better and go harder without overheating.