Weight Loss - a milestone!

I know that my blog is supposed to be about cold water and running and stuff like that. However, one of the side effects of all this cold and exercise is that I have lost weight. I know that it is not just the cold water and the exercise - having a balanced diet; eating less, but more often so you feel sated all the time; and not eating like a pig or snacking heavily between meals nor drinking excessively has also helped.

Over the course of the past year I have lost around 10Kg. It has been a very gradual process as you can see if you trudge back through my posts over the past year. It was one of the goals to lose weight and get fit - which has been proven now. I am definitely healthier and fitter than I was, you can even see my muscles under the skin and the body fat% is definitely a lot lower than it was a year ago. Even the semblance of a 6-pack that was lurking underneath my stomach is starting to show through!

I have a few theories as to why cold water training and running shirtless have helped:-

1. When you get cold your body works harder to generate heat. It gets the energy to do that from your fat reserves. So exercising, swimming or just plain cold bathing/showering helps the process.
   
2. If you are cold your metabolism speeds up to compensate. So when you run shirtless in the cold your metabolism peaks for longer - and continues well after any exercise to bring your body back to its "normal" state. Just running elevates the metabolic rate even without the effects of cold. Again, this raised metabolic rate needs energy and so the fat gets burned. The colder you were at the end of whatever you were doing, the longer it takes your body to get back to normal.
   

At the weigh-in after my shirtless run at 3C (37m45s for 7.1km) this morning I stepped on the scales to see 65.3Kg. The lowest weight I have been since I was at college, many moons ago.

Quite a milestone!