Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

is it common for athlete's/body builders to be cold often due to lack of body fat?

I'd say the body adjusts, especially if you listen to it closely and do what it's asking from day to day. You'll work it out. I've always been a spaz and thus naturally warm--thank god for programmable thermostats.

Baby Herc

It makes sense since fat is an insulator. Think whales, seals, polar bears, other cold weather animals. But I would surmise that a higher metabolic rate can also help keep you warm. Movement too like playing sports outside in the winter, you actually generate heat and sweat.

The trick is that the fitter you become athletically, the lower your resting heart rate becomes. That's when you feel cold. The upside is that the colder you run basally, the hotter you can run when you are operating at peak performance. Your body literally burns like a hotter furnace, churning out more power. You gotta eat smart to keep the fire stoked when you perform and you gotta keep yourself warm artificially (sweaters, warmer rooms, warmer climate) when you're not performing but it's a small price to pay for being awesome. I welcome it.

Baby Herc

Yeah it's only when I'm resting that I get cold, obviously not when working out

Yeah, if I could work out all day long, I actually would. It's such a rush. Instead, I built a standing desk so that I never sit down at work and since I work from home, I can switch things up a lot and move around. It's late at night when my body is winding down that I begin to feel a chill. I've learned to take particular heed of that. There's a cut-off when I'm past the point of no return and it's time to go to bed. If I push it, bad things happen.

One time, I was camping in Yellowstone in late September and stayed up way too late talking with some fun people at the campsite next to mine. While we were around their fire, I felt fine. But once I headed back to my frozen sleeping bag at 1 in the morning, I was too cold to warm myself up. I lost the feeling in my lower legs and had to crawl into my truck cab to save my feet. The overnight temperature was 25 degrees. That was before I learned about warming packs. Now, I only camp at hotels.

Baby Herc

yikes!! I wouldve invested in a thermal sleeping bag man.

and thats awesome about the standing office

Thermal, schmermal. Unless the sleeping bag had been heated, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Thermal fabrics are designed to trap and hold the heat you generate. If you're not generating any heat, that's all she wrote. My bags are rated to ten and fifteen degrees and I was inside both of them, slowly becoming frostbit because my body had stopped generating adequate heat.



Thanks. Every word I've typed on this forum was from a standing position. I have photos of the desk I built. I'll get them posted soon to the website below.

Baby Herc

It is also common to be cold if you are in a calorie deficit. When I used to be in one, quite a while back, I used to be shaking a lot. Now I never really get cold, as i am eating a slight surplus of calories.

Being cold is a sign. Your last workout was too long ago, do another one

complex carbohydrates help with body heat. fat is an insulator and you'll see more fat people walking around with t-shirts on when it's snowing.
but if you're having trouble staying warm and it feels unusual, maybe you aren't eating enough rice/potatoes/bread/pasta.

To Nicholas_Weir

I have this taped to my wall for workouts. But I had no idea until now who originally said it. Thanks!

I'm with you on that. Back in H.S. & college I worked construction and other "hard labor" jobs to pay for school. I always looked at it as getting paid to workout.

I was a landscaper/personal gardener in Denver for eight years. Never have I consumed so much junk food and stayed so thin. Outdoors all day, I saw a lot of construction workers on the job. Best days were when it was hot enough for them to take their shirts off. Oh, yeah.

Baby Herc

I am perpetually cold. This was the case when I was 100 lbs heavier, this is the case now. :-/ Working out helps a bit and winter is literally bad for my health.