Are you standing in front of the refrigerator looking for something yummy? But you had lunch an hour ago! Have you thought about it? Are you surprised yourself? And this is not surprising – in cold season uncontrolled hunger strikes us. And it is during the coldest months of the year many people gain extra weight. Why? There are many reasons for this, and we will try to understand them in more detail. And we will also tell you how to avoid extra pounds.
About ancestors
How did our ancestors live? Yes, those who lived in caves and ran after mammoths. Do you know? And we’ll tell you. They ate intensely in the fall, before the onset of the cold, and by all available means were gaining fat that would allow them to survive until the spring. This is because winter products (those that grow on the earth and those that run on it) were unavailable. So, they had to stock up. We inherited the mechanism of fat deposition for the winter and the tendency to unquenchable appetite in the cold season. This is normal and natural because it is unknown to nature that today we can warm up in warm apartments and get all the nutrients we need from our products in stores. Nature still thinks that we are poor, we will remain in the cold and hunger. Our nature trying to force our body to store any extra calories in fat.
Need for warm
Yes, we can easily warm ourselves by the radiator, put on animal skins (that is, of course, fur coats) or even warm jackets made of high-tech synthetic materials. But the air temperature in the street is falling, and so our body will spend more calories on self-heating. When the air temperature drops below 10 degrees Celsius, the body begins to burn calories from the deferred reserves to warm itself and the air around. That`s all increase appetite – calories are consumed, and therefore they need to be replenished.
You must try to keep warm in all possible ways and deceive the body. You can warm up the room, don’t go out in the cold, get warm when walking outside. If you need to spend a long time in the cold, put on a few layers of clothing. The ideal option is to have thermal underwear sewn from such fabrics that can remove moisture from the body (even if you sweat) and retain heat. You can put on something warmer on the thermal underwear – for example, fleece jacket. The final layer is outerwear, especially, if it’s waterproof (something like a ski suit). If the body is warm, the increased appetite will recede.
Metabolic slowdown
The metabolic processes occur in every cell of our body. And in winter, they slow down. No, of course, we are not bears that are hibernating. But precisely because we are warm-blooded mammals, inhibition of functions of all systems and metabolism in the cold season is laid. You need less activity in winter because you do not have to run after a mammoth or build a house! And yet the body adjusts to the “energy saving mode”. All this is a cause of increased appetite because slow metabolism is not able to control the level of the hormone hunger – ghrelin, which increases without the presence of physical activity.
Continuation is in the next article.