The Benefits of Being Cold

December 30, 2014 6:43 AM

The notion that thermal environments influence human metabolism dates back to studies conducted in the late 18th century by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, but only in the past century has it really become relevant to daily life. Cronise believes that our thinking about the modern plagues of obesity and metabolic disease (like diabetes) has not addressed the fact that most people are rarely cold today. Many of us live almost constantly, year-round, in 70-something-degree environments. And when we are caught somewhere colder than that, most of us quickly put on a sweater or turn up the thermostat.
posted by Librarypt (68 comments total)

Just be sure to keep your toes from freezing, that's bad.
posted by sammyo at 7:01 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

When I read that article the other day I figured it would get posted here.

Happily in the winter my job is mostly indoors, but there are always a few weeks where I am entirely outdoors. We bundle up in insulated coveralls and so on, but it's still just plain cold plus a fair bit of physical activity, and starting the first morning it is hard to get enough to eat -- your body really is directly burning the calories for heat. The heated indoors/sedentary diet that I eat the rest of the year does not work in those conditions.

But having said that, I've also lived in an unheated building in cold weather, where you just bundle up in warm clothes and blankets and it did not at all trigger the kind of hyper-metabolism that working outdoors does. You kind of do the opposite, being as inactive as possible and conserving energy (slightly like European peasants basically hibernating for the winter back in the bad old days).

I also have found that being even five pounds fatter makes sitting around in cold weather a lot easier -- a little bit of insulation (and reserve calories) goes a long way. If I had to be in the cold all the time I'd try to bulk up enough for both comfort and safety, at least seasonally.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:04 AM on December 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

Here's the website for "The Cold Shoulder" vest mentioned in the article.
posted by Auden at 7:08 AM on December 30, 2014

Our thermostat is set at a cozy 67 degrees (57 at night) and it's -4 degrees outside right now. I'm going to live forever!*

* that's 19.5, 14, and -20 in real numbers.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:13 AM on December 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

Previously: Babies Who Sleep in the Cold.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 7:17 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

In Massachusetts, you can be sure that most places are colder than 70 IN THE SUMMERTIME because of an apparent air conditioning fetish. And I know a lot of people who keep their houses at 62 or below in the winter even though they can afford not to.

Massachusetts also has a pretty low obesity rate compared to the rest of the nation. Go figure. (I'm mostly joking. )
posted by Sheydem-tants at 7:20 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Nooooooo!!!

(I'm freezing if it's below 75°F.)
posted by Melismata at 7:32 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Our thermostat is set at a cozy 67 degrees

I keep ours at 68F when we are home and awake, which for me is about the right balance where you don't get overheated if you are doing work in the house but it's also warm enough to read on the couch, but I like having the house cool enough that it feels good to have a blanket on your lap when reading or watching a movie. 67 or maybe 66 is about the dividing line for me -- lower than that and my hands get cold holding a book, even when I am wrapped up in a blanket. I do turn the thermostat up when people come over since the norm in the US seems to be keeping houses warmer than that and part of being hospitable is making people comfortable.

How well the house is insulated makes a big difference, though -- drafts and cold areas are no fun.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:32 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

This seems like an oddly Western-centric theory; large chunks of the world only occasionally get DOWN to 70 or below? I'm missing something.
posted by aramaic at 7:47 AM on December 30, 2014 [32 favorites]

The two coldest months of the year in the South are July and August, as you walk in from 95-degree temperatures to a frigid 70 indoors, basically everywhere.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:48 AM on December 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

It's weird how variable temperature perception is. Two months ago I would shiver at 45 degrees F but now in the middle of winter, it's 24F out and I'm just wearing a hoody sweatshirt to work.
posted by octothorpe at 7:49 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

68° in the day and 65° when we're at work or asleep. Works for me, but we also have a super-thick German goose down comforter. The kid sleeps under about a foot of blankets.

There's a lot in the article that makes sense, but beware of anyone selling anything, and beware of journalist's interpretation of science. Despite best efforts it is hard for a journo to get the details right, and most journalists don't necessarily know the well-regarded researchers from the quacks.

I've done a few small studies on brown fat. My take-home message is that having cold exposure can help - BAT (brown adipose tissue) thermogenesis is a great way to turn stored energy into heat - but it isn't going to be enough to counteract a desk job. You're better off getting a standing desk than turning down the heat. Or, do both. Non-shivering thermogenesis (what BAT does, uncoupling metabolic burn of calories from ATP production to generate heat) will use energy, but it will only work if you have significant BAT depots. People who live in warm areas and never get exposed to cold don't have much BAT. It takes multiple exposures to cold to build it up. But you can also burn energy right now, by in increasing other forms of thermogenesis. Non-exercise thermogenesis is the energy burned by your muscles doing small things, like engaging muscles of posture or fidgeting. It encompasses standing, walking, etc. - the things you do when not intentionally exercising. It adds up. We're getting obese because we live in a world with sedentary jobs and escalators, air conditioning and central heat, where the cheapest food is the worst for us, and the portion sizes are immense. All contribute, none are likely the sole reason. Which means changing any one of these will help, but isn't going to be a miracle cure.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:52 AM on December 30, 2014 [10 favorites]

Perhaps an inversion of the premise; Fascinated, Cronise began a regimen of cold showers and shirtless walks in winter.

"Many of us live almost constantly, year-round, in 70-something-degree environments." This is describing a person that works in an office. People that work in climate-controlled environments enjoy work that requires less caloric expenditure [Though perhaps an equal amount of stress] A constuction worker, working in the same temperature environment as an office worker [I've done both] is going to consume more calories. Nevermind the cold and the hot.

Captain obvious/
The [human] body is not a car where there is a "gas" tank where you fill it up when you are down to a quarter tank and reach the next gas station. Some bodies metabolisms [informed by who-knows-what, and diet starvation] need to store more fuel and hence you will be thick in the middle. Some less so.

Captain guessing/
I'm pretty sure my knees inform my level of hunger and say to my stomach that I should maybe eat a little less.
posted by vapidave at 8:01 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Every year when winter rolls around I miss the 50lbs I lost. Fat is wonderful insulation from cold.
posted by srboisvert at 8:02 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, this is why I keep my house at 65F in the winter.

... not because I'm cheap.
posted by recursion at 8:03 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is the first thing that sprang to mind when I read this article yesterday.

"You ask me to explain why I am afraid of a draught of cool air; why I shiver more than others upon entering a cold room, and seem nauseated and repelled when the chill of evening creeps through the heat of a mild autumn day. There are those who say I respond to cold as others do to a bad odour, and I am the last to deny the impression. What I will do is to relate the most horrible circumstance I ever encountered, and leave it to you to judge whether or not this forms a suitable explanation of my peculiarity."

"Cool Air" by H. P. Lovecraft

posted by starbreaker at 8:11 AM on December 30, 2014 [6 favorites]

I don't like being cold, but I'd much rather be cold than hot. I'm super happy to live in cold country because I get to wear lots of cozy sweaters. I also like the lack of indoor creepy crawlies in the winter. Cockroaches are TINY where I come from.
posted by Gor-ella at 8:12 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

Its difficult reading this thread and all the temperatures are in F not C. For some reason they changed from F to C in the UK many years ago, so in recursions comment above, 65F in the winter, it is difficult to say how hot or cold this is.

As a slim man with virtually no fat and a fast metabolism, winters suck. I have to eat a ton of food just to stay warm. Fortunately I can eat loads of food - people are often surprised how much I can eat, although not my family, they are used to it.
posted by marienbad at 8:12 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

My husband won't let me turn down the thermostat below 68 in winter. He hates cold weather, but also doesn't carry much body fat. To me, who would bulk up like a bear if I didn't watch myself, cold weather is sometimes oppressive but also invigorating. Clearly I am meant to live further north, but then I'd have to get a divorce.
posted by emjaybee at 8:14 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

On the flip side from this cold vest, it's more energy efficient to actively heat your clothes than it is to heat your house. (Irrelevant to any discussion of health or weight, though.)
posted by wormwood23 at 8:16 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

The F also messes me up. I used to have an air conditioner set to 68 for sleeping, but growing up it was much colder in my house. I can't imagine being able to sleep in the 50s without a blanket. My nose and feet get super cold - It makes you feel miserable and poor to be in a cold environment. I've been sent home from work when it dipped below 15 C and waiting for permission to leave was miserable.
posted by Gor-ella at 8:21 AM on December 30, 2014

As a person currently going through The Change of Life and the hot flashes it entails (I've had salespeople in stores worriedly offer to adjust the thermostat because I look so flushed and miserable -- no, no, don't bother, it's all me and it will pass) I might have to look into this.

Of course, we all know that the weight loss is almost entirely due to the low calories diet, right?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 8:25 AM on December 30, 2014

God, the northern-latitude-centricness of some of these evolutionary biological biohacking theories really sticks in my craw. I mean, yes, even for a primitive human in tropical environments there may be that occasional rainy 65 degree night that was uncomfortably cold. But for modern humans in the tropics that's no longer true, and yet we don't see U.S. levels of obesity in places like Brazil or Singapore.

I guess one of the reasons I'm a little cheesed about it because cold thermogenesis is one of the many biohacking ideas that my husband has glommed onto recently and was suggesting cold showers to my 78-yo mother who has atrial fibrillation, among an assortment of other lesser infirmities. None of the bloggers or podcasters my husband had listened to mention the risk of cold shock for people with heart conditions, but fortunately my mother had specifically been warned about it by her cardiologist and so gently deflected the suggestion.
posted by drlith at 8:27 AM on December 30, 2014 [12 favorites]

So cold weather is not only pleasant and enjoyable, but good for us? Wonderful!
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:27 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

i want to be cold
and i want it to snow so bad
i hope your flames don't grow
i want to be buried in snow
posted by filthy light thief at 8:28 AM on December 30, 2014

If your house is very cold it may have ghost.
posted by colie at 8:30 AM on December 30, 2014 [22 favorites]

Librarypt: "Many of us live almost constantly, year-round, in 70-something-degree environments. And when we are caught somewhere colder than that, most of us quickly put on a sweater or turn up the thermostat."

Do these people run the furnace by BURNING MONEY? I keep my house at a balmy 62 in the winter. 55 at night.

Oh, you're cold? Jimmy Carter called, he said to PUT ON A SWEATER.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:32 AM on December 30, 2014 [15 favorites]

I'm with Eyebrows - 62 when we're home and awake, 55 when we're not. Only exception is that we turn the heat up to 64 on Sunday nights when my inlaws come by, because I'm tired of my MIL wearing her coat during dinner.

And yet, of course, I'm very fat. One day one of these "this is the cause of obesity in America" things will resonate with me, but once again today is not that day.
posted by anastasiav at 8:52 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

So I should be ordering iced bullet-proof coffees then?
posted by Kabanos at 9:05 AM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

So I should be ordering iced bullet-proof coffees then?

Apply directly to back of neck. Apply directly to back of neck. Apply directly to back of neck.
posted by maudlin at 9:14 AM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

You can also lose weight by chasing down antelope, eating lots of tough, fibrous roots, and by hosting a wide range of parasites on and within your body. But a long time ago everyone jointly decided that living like that is really unpleasant.

Heat stays on.
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:18 AM on December 30, 2014 [48 favorites]

Does this mean that our global footprint can be loosely correlated with our global fatprint via our thermostat setting?
posted by clawsoon at 9:29 AM on December 30, 2014

I'm switching to iced coffee.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:34 AM on December 30, 2014

Yeah, the key to keeping warm in the winter is to have a insulating pelt and layer of blubber, as I do.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:37 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I decided to rtfa before commenting and now i wish I hadn't. the Atlantic used to be better than this.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:47 AM on December 30, 2014

My workspace (a classroom) is 61F/16C (Hey! Reversed numbers!) and I'm a skinny old guy and as the day progresses, if it's not an active day, I feel chilled to the bone. A good expression: chilled to the bone. I felt that way once in Phoenix at a cult convention when I has to sit in an air-conditioned room on a concrete basement floor for three hours and when I went outside to sit on a park bench in the 110F/43C sun I was the Happiest Man in the World. I hate cold. Although hot and humid is worse: ain't nothin' you can do 'bout hot and humid.
posted by kozad at 9:48 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think I may have mentioned this before, but a few years ago one of my medical providers and I calculated how many kilocalories a night my new-to-me-that-season heated mattress pad provided. Between 3-500kcal. And very efficiently as I had a 6" duvet. I also had no control of the temperature in my apartment, which was about 70-72F. No wonder I was gaining weight without altering food or exercise, about 3/4lb a week. That's almost 40 lbs in a year!

I now keep the house below 60, pre-heat the bed, turn it off when I get in, and have a light wool blanket and 1.5" duvet instead. Yeah, I sometimes have wear a hat as well as a sweater during the day, or wake up in the night a bit chilly, but I haven't gained any more weight. It's tempting to wear my motorcycling heated vest, or chaps in the house, but schlepping carrying the MC battery around is too much work.

Unfortunately, now that I'm barely mobile after being hit by a car 2 months ago, I have to keep my food intake down below 1000kcal/day. It's miserable - getting the right macronutrient balance while having any culinary pleasure is a bear. I'm continually unsated as well as experiencing the accident damage, but I cannot get any heavier or healing will take even longer (I have foot and leg injuries).
posted by Dreidl at 9:51 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I guess one of the reasons I'm a little cheesed about it because cold thermogenesis is one of the many biohacking ideas that my husband has glommed onto recently and was suggesting cold showers to my 78-yo mother who has atrial fibrillation, among an assortment of other lesser infirmities.

Yeah, people who insist being cold indoors is healthier are welcome to my constant neverending fucking arthritis pain that is made about 10,000 times worse by relentless application of the AC, ideally with nails hammered into each of their individual vertebra. Fortunately the Very Terrible Coworker who decided that their comfort was more important than 25 other people's suffering has been sacked and we all put away our space heaters and blankets and wool tights and winter overcoats in July.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:53 AM on December 30, 2014 [15 favorites]

Hang on, hang on. People leave their central heating on overnight?! *opens another window*
posted by fallingbadgers at 10:02 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hang on, hang on. People leave their central heating on overnight?!

Heh. Spoken as someone not living in Canuckistan, I'll wager.
posted by bulgroz at 10:16 AM on December 30, 2014 [8 favorites]

For me the house thermostat chilled to the bone boundary is at 63 deg F/17 C.

So, 62: cold. 64: comfortable. But the point about context effects is right on. The season, the locale (inside, x is cold; outside x is warm), the proximal comparison. Cold? Go outside and walk around the block, come back in.

Right this minute, it's 25 deg F/-4 C outside. Not too bad. "I'm going to die" thoughts start below 10 F or so (or higher, with wind).
posted by lathrop at 10:20 AM on December 30, 2014

Yeah, the key to keeping warm in the winter is to have a insulating pelt and layer of blubber, as I do.

Hear, hear.
posted by arcticseal at 10:27 AM on December 30, 2014 [18 favorites]

Right now I'm sitting in my kitchen sipping coffee, wearing a t-shirt, sweatshirt, sweatpants, shoes and socks, and the (refrigerator) thermometer hanging on a wire shelf about a foot above my head reads 45F. That's a little too cold for just sitting, and I'll have to plug in the tiny 100W radar dish heater I keep under the table within the hour if I want my feet to stay warm.

I've always loved the cold, and after a tremendous battle with my mother when I was six, I was finally allowed to continue sleeping in our house's glassed-in unheated sun porch through the winter (in Colorado Springs), and I often woke up to beautiful patterns of rime ice on the windows nearest my head. I had to go back to a more conventional bedroom when we moved up the street five years later, but I look back on the winter sleep of those years as the best I've ever gotten, and it's probably where I learned the trick of sleeping hour after hour without moving a muscle -- which still causes my partner to feel the need to shake me awake ~twice a month to make sure I'm not dead -- because moving a foot even three inches when it's that cold in the rest of the bed is really startling when you're half asleep.
posted by jamjam at 10:41 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I live in an apartment with radiator heat that I don't control. The landlord waited as late in the year as possible to turn it on. The state mandates that landlords must keep residential dwellings at 67 or above, and I actually bought a digital thermometer for proof in case I had to call him on it. (Maddeningly, the thing would stop at 67.1.) I have extremely low body fat (genetics, not effort) and I was freezing.

Anyway, I opened the radiator valves all the way in prep for the heat being turned on. It happened overnight in (IIRC) late October, and when I woke up it was 84 degrees inside. Now it's about 71-73 during the day, which is fine with me. I turn off the bedroom radiator valve at night or I'll overheat.

I wonder if there's any correlation between metabolism and humidity. Hot & humid is uncomfortable for most people and seems to lessen physical activity. What's the difference in obesity rate between, say, Mississippi and Arizona, apart from confounding factors like race and poverty? Or Maine (cold/humid winters) and Montana* (cold/dry)?

* I loooooooooved Montana winters. I'll take 0 degrees and dry over 20 and humid.
posted by desjardins at 10:49 AM on December 30, 2014

(OTOH, there's definitely such a thing as "too dry" - it was 19% in my apartment when I woke this morning and the humidifier is struggling to bring it up to 30%. My sinuses are in revolt and I keep shocking the cats.)
posted by desjardins at 10:52 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

58 at night, 63 in the daytime, warm showers only in Dec.-Feb. I used to wake up with snow on my blankets from the open window, back in the cheap heat days. I was a bear in my last life, now I am barely the slave of my skin temperature.
posted by Oyéah at 11:44 AM on December 30, 2014

whoa calm down satan
posted by poffin boffin at 11:51 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I once read a short story where future people had developed a way to hibernate and ever since then I've dreamed about being able to just use up all my excess fat in sleeping. It appeals to my thriftiness; that stored fat would suddenly have a purpose, not just be something you had to burn off so it wouldn't kill you.
posted by emjaybee at 12:06 PM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

Hang on, hang on. People leave their central heating on overnight?! *opens another window*

I'm guessing that you either live somewhere where it never freezes or you don't have indoor plumbing.
posted by octothorpe at 12:18 PM on December 30, 2014

Yeah, this is why I keep my house at 65F in the winter.

... not because I'm cheap.

Me too. 65F. Because I'M cheap. And I'm try to do my part as the owner of a total electric house to keep the coal burning pollution down.

I really do believe that if you suffer through being a bit chilly in the fall, you can deal with colder temps in the winter. But it's snowing and 20F outside and it SUCKS be old and wimpy and not to want to go out and ride!

I keep the bedroom at 56F, and I have a love/hate relationship with the electric blanket. It's wonderful not to get into a cold bed, but I hate waking up and it's either cooking if on, or freezing if off. There's no in between for me.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:22 PM on December 30, 2014

Okay but heated mattress pads are even better because the warms are under you and the coolness of the room can remain pleasant above you.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:29 PM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am one of those people for whom an insulating layer of blubber has done nothing to keep me feeling warm. I am the highest BMI person in my household and yet far and away the least cold tolerant of us all. I am pretty much cold year 'round, and I especially get myself into trouble in the winter where I do sweat-generating activities and then don't always get a chance to change out of damp clothes before the chill starts to set in. There just gets to be a point of no return where I need external heat input in the form of an electric blanket or a super hot bath to get back to normal. And I have spent so many sad Christmastime roadtrips with my husband driving in a t-shirt and me wearing my coat, hat, mittens, his coat on my legs, and a blanket, and still being cold.

I read the Cronise/Sinclair/Brenner article mentioned in The Atlantic piece, and I am not enough of an expert on medical physiology to say for sure, but it seems really disjointed and poorly argued and internally contradictory. (If "increased sleep in cool environments and long nights of winter in the absence of excess artificial light and warmth may work synergistically to promote the conservation of valuable calories ..." then why would inadequate sleep in hot environments in the presence of excess artificial light be a cause of obesity?) This illustrates a big issue I have with people who are trying to link all sorts of primal lifestyle "hacks" to weight loss specifically, which is: successful human and prehuman ancestors evolved to NOT lose weight.
posted by drlith at 12:45 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I moved to the US south from the northeast 10 years ago and I noticed something that struck me as strange: in the winter a lot of people here keep their houses near 80, and in the summer they keep them near 60. There does seem to be more obesity down here.

I, as a good northerner, keep the heat in the winter in the low 60s and the ac in the summer in the high 70s. I am not overweight.
posted by mareli at 2:39 PM on December 30, 2014

I don't even own a thermostat.
posted by Hypatia at 2:42 PM on December 30, 2014 [10 favorites]

When you are old, circulation is poor and you need heat you did not require when you were younger
posted by Postroad at 3:03 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I suppose this explains why on the coldest days during Ranger School, they would supplement our two daily meals with a cup of soup. I could still count my ribs halfway through the course though.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 3:46 PM on December 30, 2014

Always disappointing to see such an article with so little research behind it. If you're going to spout theories and look for effects, it behooves you to see what came before and what science has determined so far.

Here is an old experiment from 1986 that addresses these questions in very interesting ways, of which the weight effect is only one of many.

Holloszy JO, Smith EK.
Longevity of cold-exposed rats: a reevaluation of the "rate-of-living theory".
J Appl Physiol. 1986 Nov;61(5):1656-60.
PMID: 3781978

"Abstract
It has been postulated that increased energy expenditure results in shortened survival. To test this "rate-of-living theory" we examined the effect of raising energy expenditure by means of cold exposure on the longevity of rats. Male 6-mo-old SPF Long-Evans rats were gradually accustomed to immersion in cool water (23 degrees C). After 3 mo they were standing in the cool water for 4 h/day, 5 days/wk. They were maintained on this program until age 32 mo. The cold exposure resulted in a 44% increase in food intake (P less than 0.001). Despite their greater food intake, the cold-exposed rats' body weights were significantly lower than those of control animals from age 11 to 32 mo. The average age at death of the cold-exposed rats was 968 +/- 141 days compared with 923 +/- 159 days for the controls. The cold exposure appeared to protect against neoplasia, particularly sarcomas; only 24% of the necropsied cold-exposed rats had malignancies compared with 57% for the controls. The results of this study provide no support for the concept that increased energy expenditure decreases longevity."

Upshot: at least for rats, it seems that cold exposure slightly prolongs life span, lowers rates of cancer, allows them to consume more calories without deleterious health effects or weight gain. This is interesting in several ways, as caloric restriction is the only proven way of slowing down aging in mammals. Here we have an example of increased caloric intake without a corresponding drop in life span or health span. This is quite fascinating. There really should be more followup on this research, but not mentioning this study is a serious omission for those who want to write about the effect of cold treatment, or worse, who want to sell products like the ice vest based on cold-treatment effects speculation.
posted by VikingSword at 4:00 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

My first two apartments were spectacularly beautiful disasters on the top floors of 1910-20 buildings with a boiler and radiators and no a/c or thermostats. I used to roast all winter long (I famously held a Tropical Night in my first apartment in January during a snow storm. My friends arrived in parkas and snowboots. I greeted them with barefoot in a sundress with a pitcher of rum punch and calypso on the stereo because it was approximately 85 inside) and regularly slept with the windows wide open and ice crystals blowing across my face even as I slept virtually naked to avoid the heat. Said apartments were even warmer in the summer. I wasn't noticeably fatter in those days. Maybe schlepping groceries and books and myself up and down multiple flights of stairs to get to my apartment(s) every day mitigated against the heat-induced weight gain. The summers were awful, but I seeing as how I never lived in a house with air conditioning of any kind* (including my parents') until I was twenty-six years old, I kind of got used to it. These days I actually prefer the heat and (no joke) humidity does great things for both my hair (it actually kind of curls when it's damp out!)and my sinuses.

I do keep my thermostat in the middle 60s in my house these days, mostly because my house is charmingly ramshackle and remembers the great depression and is therefore drafty as hell. I would basically always rather sleep with the windows wide open, regardless of season and/or outdoor weather conditions. This, I find, annoys many roommates, which is one of the many reasons I am happy to live alone.

*I'm southern, but I grew up in old houses in the mountains
posted by thivaia at 4:09 PM on December 30, 2014

I have the unfortunate luck to be both chronically cold, yet unable to breath well in warm rooms.

I live in sweaters, fuzzy socks, flannel jammies and heated blankets year round in my 62F (day) and 50F (night) apartment.

But my electricity bill is nice and low.
posted by dotgirl at 5:41 PM on December 30, 2014

I can't find it right now, but this week or last, I could swear I read a study of keeping exercise rooms cold that found that this *did not* increase weight loss because it increased appetite more than it increased energy expenditure.
posted by Maias at 6:11 PM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Come to Japan! Rent one of the many many empty, insulation free, drafty houses that dot the countryside. Get reacquainted with the cold. Learn of the wonders of the KOTATSU! Japan!
posted by snwod at 6:11 PM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty sure I'd rather be fat and die of cancer than spend 4 hours every day standing in cold water for the rest of my slightly extended, cancer-free life.
posted by drlith at 6:29 PM on December 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

keeping exercise rooms cold that found *did not* increase weight loss because it increased appetite more than it increased energy expenditure.

Oh Jesus, yes, the swimming pool ravenings.
posted by drlith at 6:31 PM on December 30, 2014

Yeah, people who insist being cold indoors is healthier are welcome to my constant neverending fucking arthritis pain that is made about 10,000 times worse by relentless application of the AC, ideally with nails hammered into each of their individual vertebra.

poffin boffin, I will cheerfully and gleefully hold them down while you hammer.

Seriously, arthritis makes cold weather a tortuous pain you can't get away from.
posted by culfinglin at 8:47 PM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

i'm heating my house this winter with scavenged wood because i can't afford propane. the coldest it's gotten inside has been 38 deg. F, it's rarely above 50... and I've gained 20 pounds.

fuck you science.
posted by ennui.bz at 8:51 PM on December 30, 2014

Come to Japan! Rent one of the many many empty, insulation free, drafty houses that dot the countryside. Get reacquainted with the cold. Learn of the wonders of the KOTATSU! Japan!

The UK has you beat. They have all of that plus they throw in damp and miserable gits for free.
posted by srboisvert at 9:44 PM on December 30, 2014

I sleep with the window open and the radiator vent off until well below freezing. I also have every crack between my room and the rest of the house insulated because there's no reason to freeze the folks who don't like the cold or risk harm to the pipes. Until my mid thirties I was a personal furnace and if I ever felt chilly it was either truly cold or I was ill. Discovering what being cold feels like was terrible. Even now a brisk ten minute walk will buy me a couple hours of cold proofing. The colder the weather the more I move, and this has done bupkis to make me less fat.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:48 PM on December 30, 2014

Come to Japan! Rent one of the many many empty, insulation free, drafty houses that dot the countryside. Get reacquainted with the cold. Learn of the wonders of the KOTATSU! Japan!

Surely you mean the traditional American kotatsu!
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:49 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]