96: Cold Showers and the Four Hour Body

Its always been a funny thing to say to someone to "Take a cold shower," but it may be one of the best tips that you have ever been given. There are many benefits of taking a cold shower if you can handle it. I have been doing it for about three weeks now, and in addition to diet, have seen a pretty nice drop in body fat. I recently started reading the 4 Hour Body and have tried a bunch of the crazy experiments to see exactly how they work. I have found many positive results in my body and will continue to experiment and see exactly where this rabbit hole leads.

• Cold showers burn fat:this is initially what attracted me to them. In the 4 Hour Body, Tim Ferriss speaks about a massive increase in body fat burning. He started by looking at swimmers and why they can consume such a massive amount of calories and not go up in body fat. Their massive amount of swimming, 3-4 hours daily can contribute to this, but they still do not swim enough to burn the massive amount of calories, such as the 12,000 taken in by Michael Phelps a day. When looking at it, they found the high level of heat of the pool really magnified calorie burn, but to an extreme. So a NASA scientist, looking to make himself a bit skinnier and not willing to sit in a pool for 4 hours a day, checked out cold exposure and found that it burned more calories in significantly less time; 10-20 minutes. So Ferriss looked at this and started taking ice baths for 20 minutes a day, I'm totally not doing that because of the immense amount of pain it can potentially create. Then, there was a break through in types of fat that the human body carries. We have two types of fat in our bodies, white and brow. The brown fat is actually a fat that burns other fat, like the type in muscle milk, is stored in the back of your shoulders and activated by extreme cold or extreme heat. So, set your timer for ten minutes, clean yourself quick, then turn the water cold. Make sure to focus all of that shower on the back of your neck and upper shoulders and let the body fat burn!
• Cold showers boost workout recovery:Ever heard of pro athletes sitting in an ice bath for 20-30 minutes to recover faster? Well, not you can have most of those results in a significantly shorter and less painful time. Cold showers stop lactic acid build up as well as removing inflammation that may be starting in a muscle or the whole body for that matter.
• Cold showers can enhance mood:your heart rate increases from a cold shower and thus your body process speed up a bit. Therefore, they wake you up and make you feel a bit better by catching your groggy body up with the rest of the world.
• Cold showers enhance immunity:Remember since cold showers are speeding your metabolism, they are actually speeding up your total metabolic rate. With that comes a greater sense of wellness and a greater ability to fight off disease.

You may think I'm bit crazy, but remember to put on a timer. Also, go back and reference the first reason: you only need to do it for ten minutes a day and it only needs to hit your neck and shoulders. Your body will actually really appreciate your new found sense of adventure. Now, go take a cold shower.

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