Hot Trend: Tapping the Power of Cold to Lose Weight

I became interested in this cold therapy

really as a self-experiment.

It was an act of desperation.

I really wanted to lose weight and nothing else had worked.

At the end of the very first six weeks,

I had lost 30 pounds, so I knew something was going on.

Steven came into my lab and the idea was for him

to really see how the body works.

So in my lab we have a COSMED Quark Calorimeter.

What this indirect calorimeter does is

breath by breath, measures CO2 and O2 very accurately.

I had Steven do a series of things.

I had him do kettle bell swings, and running on a treadmill,

and swimming, and then just cold immersion.

And we tracked the amount of carbohydrate or glycogen

his body was burning, to the amount of fat he was burning.

Just doing the immersion ended up not only burning fat,

but continuing to burn fat for 30 or 40 minutes

after Steven got out of the water.

So I'm working with some other scientists

to look at, how does this work with caloric restriction?

How does this work with the kind of environment

that humans evolved in?

How did we really get these genes

that allow us to take advantage of cold stress

or caloric scarcity for longevity?

(fast rhythmic music)