Does Cold Water Burn Belly Fat? Yes, It Helps
Is swimming in cold water weight loss easier than swimming in warm water?
Well, that is what we are going to find out in this short post.
In fitness circles, swimming is one of the best aerobic exercises. It helps a lot with the heart rate, and it enhances lung health. Swimming is also one of the best ways to burn calories because it engages many muscle groups.
As it turns out, though, you can nudge your body to burn even more calories with an icy dip. Let’s say that if you want to seriously lose weight with swimming, cold water burns calories.
Research has shown that bathing in cold water can help you burn more calories. Now, if that is bathing only, imagine what swimming several laps every day of the week in cold water can do.
Is Swimming In Cold Water Good For Weight Loss?
Just think about it for a moment. When you swim in cold water, many things happen. The moment the cold water touches your skin, your body senses the need for more heat. Now, there is only one way that the body produces heat. It does this through metabolism.
During metabolism, food materials, or calories, are broken down to produce heat. It also produces the energy that you need to power your daily activities.
When you take a skin dip in cold water, the body needs more heat to sustain its activities than when you swim in warm water. To produce the excess heat, the rate of metabolism rises by a large margin.
Imagine you are taking your cold swim in the morning and have not eaten anything. To produce the required heat, the body will start metabolizing the fat. That is how you lose weight.
But remember, this is not going to happen on the first day. You need to swim consistently in cold water so that you can lose weight noticeably.
While mammals have an easy time staying warm even in very cold weather, metabolism kicks in to enable the body to maintain the core temperature.
Thus, if you have been asking: Does swimming in cold water burn calories? You have seen the answer.
Swimming in cold water weight loss tips
Now that you know that swimming in cold water for weight loss helps, you might be tempted to overspend time in a cold pool.
But still, you need to take precautions. Just because you have watched a YouTube video of a guy in Iceland digging a hole in the ice and diving right in, it doesn’t mean you can do it.
You need to take precautions. First, your body will need time to get used to it. Therefore, take it slow. Let your body get accustomed to the cold water.
Even if you will swim for just a minute on the first day of taking a cold swim for weight loss, it is a good start.
However, you also need to be aware of hypothermia, which can kill you. When your body is exposed to too much cold, its temperature can drop drastically. It can cause your organs to start failing. Hypothermia can cause death fast.
Because the recommended body temperature is 37°C, if it falls below 35°C, that is hypothermia. As you start your swimming in cold water weight loss journey, stay within the recommended temperature.
Wear a thick wetsuit for swimming. Also wear swim cap, swim gloves for keeping your hands warm and swimming socks.
You must prevent your body from losing heat to the surroundings.
How Many Calories Does Cold Water Burn – 41% More
Okay, so cold water burns calories. But just how many does it burn? We will find out next.
How many calories does cold water burn? Remember, in this case, we are seeking to know how many calories swimming in cold water burns compared to not drinking cold water.
So, how many calories do you burn in cold water? When you swim in cold water, you will experience hunger faster than a person who swims in warm water.
The reason for this is that swimming in cold water enhances digestive activity. If drinking water increases digestive activity by 20%, you can guess how much it increases when you swim for a few to several minutes in cold water.
Research shows that swimming in cold water can increase the calorie-burning rate by up to 41 percent. Therefore, if a man swimming in regular water can burn 500 calories in 60 minutes, they can burn 705 calories when the temperature drops by 14 degrees.
Quite impressive!
Of course, this is just a guideline. The calories you can burn from swimming in cold water also depend on your body weight. For example, people with more body fat percentage will burn more calories than slimmer people.
Slim people find it hard to burn fat because all the “loose” fat is gone. The stubborn fat is harder to burn.
To burn more fat, you can increase the time you swim in cold water. The longer the better! To get your body to warm up faster, you will swim harder and even longer. All these things cause you to burn calories faster.
How Long Can You Swim In Cold Water?
Burning calories in cold water is very good. However, it is important to know how long you should swim in cold water to burn fat.
The colder the water, the shorter the time you should spend there. Your body can only take so much cold before your body temperature drops dangerously.
So, if the water temperature is 32°F/0°C, you should not swim in it for more than 7 minutes! It is better to keep it shorter than 7 minutes if it is your first time.
If you have been swimming in cold water for some time, you can try to go for the whole 7 minutes.
Of course, if the water is warmer than that, you can swim longer. If it is colder, you should swim for a short time.
It is not only hypothermia that can kill you when you swim in very cold water. There are other things. For instance, there is cold-water shock.
Sudden immersion in very cold water can cause serious responses from your body, including sudden death.
Cold water shock is far more dangerous than hypothermia because the latter is gradual, you know, the body loses heat to the surroundings, gradually.
During winter, it is advisable to spend just a few minutes, say, a maximum of two in the water. Even then, do not get straight out of bed and into the cold swimming pool.
Stand in the cold air for some time to acclimatize your body to the cold. That is going to help prevent cold water shock.
Overall, if the water is colder than 32°F, spend just a little time in it.
Calories burned in cold water bath
There are those very cold days when you will find it impossible to swim in cold water. Therefore, you might ask whether a cold water bath burns calories.
If yes, you can take a bath instead of swimming in the ice-cold water of the pool in winter.
Does bathing in cold water burn calories? This is a very common question. And the answer is yes, it helps a lot. This is why today, ice bath therapy has become so popular.
In your body, there are brown fat cells. These ones can be burned down to produce heat to keep you warm if you are exposed to cold showers and baths. Getting in a tub of cold water for about 15 minutes can help.
While we cannot say the number of calories that you can really burn from bathing in cold water, it helps. When you want to lose weight, every little thing you can do that leads to burning fat can help quite a lot.
Is it harder to swim in cold water?
It is definitely harder to swim in cold water. But that is where the entire benefit lies. You will have to put in more effort, spend more energy, and lose weight faster.
When you swim in cold water, the body goes into overdrive mode to metabolize calories to provide energy and heat. If there are no calories, that is, if you don’t eat before swimming, the body will raid its fat reserves. It will burn them for energy.
Swimming in cold water also requires one to wear the right clothes. A wetsuit for swimming would be most appropriate because it helps the body retain warmth. While it fits like a second skin, it’s also heavier, thus requiring you to do more work.
Why is it harder to swim in cold water?
Swimming in cold water is tougher because you are battling many things. First, there is the cold and the risk of hypothermia. Your body will lose heat to the surroundings.
Because of heat loss, your body can go numb faster. Therefore, you feel less energy, so you work three times as hard as someone swimming in warm water to cover the same distance.
It is recommended that you don’t swim too long. Usually, a maximum of three minutes in the cold water should be enough.
If you must swim in the winter, get a heated swimming pool. If not, just prepare your above ground pool for winterization and wait for the swimming season.
Does cold water make you swim faster?
In cold water, you might become numb faster and your energy levels drop. Swimming experts say that you could possibly enjoy better results when you swim in warm water.
Cold incapacitation will make you swim slower in cold water than you would swim in warm water. If you are working on building your swimming speed, try warm water.
There is a way that taking a dip in cold water helps. It forces you to work harder, so when you get to warm water, you will be faster.
If you have a condition like asthma, swimming in cold water is not advisable at all. It might make your ways constrict, which would start a serious coughing fit.
Does swimming in cold water make you tired?
It will make you more tired than swimming in warm water. The reason for this is that your energy is not going to power the limbs. Rather, it is going to maintaining the required heat levels so that you do not become incapacitated by the cold.
The heart has to work extra hard to pump more blood with nutrients and oxygen to various parts of the body and to make the limbs and skin warm. Therefore, most of the energy that would be going to swimming is used to run various body functions.
Not only will you feel more tired, but you will also feel hungry. Once you start experiencing the smallest waning of your energy level, get out of the pool as fast as possible.
Conclusion
Swimming in cold water weight loss is a real thing. However, take caution so that you do not expose yourself to the risk of hypothermia or cold water shock.
If you have been asking, can cold water kill you? The answer is yes. Cold water shock can kill in under one minute. Sudden immersion in ice-cold water can kill you.
Also, remember to take your safety in your own hands. For instance, if the water is ice cold, you should swim for one or two minutes only.
Finally, you cannot pin your entire weight loss journey on swimming in cold water alone. You have to change your diet and engage in other exercises outside the pool.
For the best effect, swim in the morning before taking breakfast. Since swimming in cold water requires more energy, your body will burn the fat cells for heat and energy.