Do you burn more calories exercising in a warm room, as opposed to one with the air conditioner on?

That's something I've heard in the past. Seems to be true (I guess) judging by my heart rate monitor (Polar F4). I went and worked out Wednesday and burned about 350 calories with the elliptical, bike and weights over 35 minutes, then today without the AC on, I did the same things in the same amount of time...412 calories.

Maybe my intensity was higher today, or just lower the other day. Just curious!

Well, I would imagine that the "hot" part of that "hot yoga" people talk about here must play a role in making it more intense. I dunno, though. I'd love for other people to chime in.

I think the main reason for more calories burned is that your body has to work harder to cool itself in a warm environment. The reason for the hot room in Bikram yoga isn't to burn more calories, though. It is to provide deep heating to your muscles and joints which relaxes them and allows for deeper stretching. Of course, the result is a hugely intense and challenging workout!

This explains the reason far better and more coherently that I ever could!:

from http://ezinearticles.com/?Do-You-Bur...mer?&id=116807

You burn fewer calories when you exercise in cold weather than you do when it's hot. The hotter it is, the more extra work your heart has to do to prevent you from overheating. More than 70 percent of the energy produced by your muscles during exercise is lost as heat. So the harder you exercise, the hotter your muscles become. In hot weather, not only must your heart pump extra blood to bring oxygen to your muscles, it must also pump hot blood from your heated muscles to your skin where heat can be dissipated.

On the other hand, in cold weather, your heart only has to pump blood to your muscles and very little extra blood to your skin to dissipate heat. Your muscles produce so much heat during exercise that your body does not need to produce more heat to keep you warm. So your heart works harder and you burn more calories in hot weather

Kira

Fact, but fairly negligible (I'd bet your increased calories burned had more to do with intensity, rather than room temp). You do burn some extra calories to keep cool (or to warm up ice cold water, if you drink it) but that increase is so minor that, to me, it's disregardable. I'd never exercise in discomfort just to increase a calorie burn (especially since, if you're too hot/uncomfortable, you're going to be more likely to tire out earlier, more likely to get dehydrated, etc).

My husband is a runner and often works in the "pain zone" like the other competitive runners in his age group do...Sometimes, pushing your boundaries and challenging your "sacred cows" is a good thing...



Kira

Pushing your limits is good. It's how to effect change. But exercising in a hot room burns negligible more calories (muscle relaxing effects aside...speaking strictly to the OPs original question about burning more) and may cause you to dehydrate and/or burn out more quickly, or view exercise as so uncomfortable that you don't want to do it, neither of which are going to encourage you to keep going.

Well, I don't intend to exercise in an unbearably hot room...I just want to avoid turning on the A/C in the little workout center I've been using unless I have to...

Thanks for the answers!!!

But it might inspire you to continue, when you find that you actually won't die from doing hot yoga, and you surprisingly and unexpectedly CAN withstand hot rooms, even when you thought you couldn't. Or that it IS possible to run in the winter. Or that extremes can be overcome. But hey, like my motto says, if one fights to hold on to their limitations, they get to keep them! If you believe that you can't get "too hot", then you probably will be stuck in an air-conditioned gym. If you believe that you shouldn't push yourself aerobically, then you probably won't see alot of aerobic improvement. If you believe that you must be comfortable while exercising, you will get exactly that out of your session. If you believe that too much stretching makes your muscles sore and that isn't good, you get to keep your inflexibility. So those people win! And get to keep what they fight so hard for...
And that is their path that they choose. Who am I to say?
But I choose a different path.
Sometimes it is good to challenge our "sacred cows"...
Kira

I have nothing against hot yoga, I think it makes sense in terms of helping warm the muscles but I wouldn't do it because it 'burns more calories'. If I had a choice of being in a cooler room and burning fewer calories versus being in a hot room and burning a few more, I'd choose the cooler room.

I go for cooler activities in general because I get hot so fast and it makes me not want to do it.

It sounds like you've never pushed yourself further than you should have, Kira, if you're claiming that limits are all psychological and cannot be physical. Ask someone who's gotten heatstroke running in July how much it's all about pushing yourself and believing in yourself.

I certainly don't mean that one should be FOOLISH about pushing yourself!
Good heavens!! LOL!!!
Of COURSE we all have physical limitations! I certainly don't mean that a person can get up tomorrow and run a marathon! But if they think that running a marathon is impossible, they'll never even try it. Even if they COULD do it. They just think they can't, so they WON'T.

My Dear SIL God Love Her has a significant weight issue. She has decided that she can't break a sweat until she becomes fit. I know, wtf? She refuses to push herself because she has decided that she is unable to until her fitness level improves (again, wtf??). Result: she won't step out of her self-imposed box and just try to move from a comfortable stroll on a treadmill to actually breathing hard. And she won't do this UNTIL her cardiovascular conditioning improves!!!

As for hot yoga, I thought I could NEVER do it. I don't like the heat. I get heat prostration symptoms very, very quickly. I've bonked on bike rides. Not fun, trust me! I have to take cool showers as soon as I have GI distress due to heat, else it is downhill from there. But I thought, what if I just test my preconceived notions about not tolerating the heat. Suppose I CAN work with the heat, instead of against it? So I read up about how to prepare for a hot yoga class. I learned about pre and post yoga hydration. I learned about electrolytic replacements. I learned about the etiquette of the yoga studio and practice. I warned my instructor before EVERY class for the first week that I didn't think that I tolerated heat well, based on my previous experiences. She told me to acclimatize myself by taking things easy and not to push myself for the first while, and that I should take at least 4 classes close together in order to best prepare for future practice. And then I just threw caution to the wind and with my bottle of Gastrolyte, I started to do just that.

I prepared, I challenged my assumptions, and I DID IT! I didn't throw up. I didn't pass out. I had to lie down alot and couldn't do most of the poses. And sometimes I still have to do that. But I TOOK THE FIRST STEP. I stepped out of my comfort zone, challenged my preconceptions and just. did. it.

Since I took the plunge outside of that self-created box, I have lost 30 lbs, resolved my chronic back pain, I can touch my toes, and my skin has never looked better ALL as a result of doing something I thought was impossible for me to do. During the same time period, my dear SIL-God Love Her has refused to break a sweat, has had to up her bp medications, has gained 5 lbs and complains about her back and her poor cardiovascular conditioning. And she goes to the gym 5 days a week and strolls on the treadmill. I wonder where she would be now if she just challenged herself to push just a bit harder. SO, she gets to keep her limitations. I have moved beyond mine to new ones that I will challenge in the future!!!

I think people tend to stay in their comfort zones. Only if you go beyond them will you truly know what you can and cannot do...

Kira

The physician given advice I have received has always told me:

If it hurts (not muscle ache, actual hurt...the difference is usually pretty obvious), stop.

If you get lightheaded, stop.

I basically go by those two rules. This means that certain exercises are off limits to me due to injury. No matter how much I want to do them (and I've tried), I end up injured when I do, and then I'm severely limited in all forms of exercise until I recover...not conducive to weight management! So those limits are firm. They're not self-imposed mentally, they are imposed by the very real physical limitations of my body.

Workouts definitely shouldn't be comfortable...one of my yoga instructors once told me that you should always be somewhere in the middle of the spectrum from comfortable to uncomfortable. But they shouldn't be UNcomfortable, either, from pain or lightheadedness or what have you. So I always aim to be somewhere in the middle.

My original point is that making yourself uncomfortable by working out without AC, or even less-than-comfortable, for the sole purpose of burning more calories, is foolish...for one, there's no evidence that it actually DOES burn a significant number more calories. And for the tiny increase you MAY get, you substantially raise your risk of burnout, of not enjoying your workout, and of dehydration. Doing it for other reasons (muscle/joint flexibility, because it's more comfortable for you, whatever) is a separate thing, but in terms of calorie burn, it seems counterproductive.

Interestingly, there are rat studies which indicate mammals may actually have more muscle/fitness gains when they work out in a cold room, as it appears that workouts that do not raise the core body temperature (ie, a workout in a cold room) stimulate the biogenesis of more mitochondria in skeletal muscles (previously the only known factors affecting mitochondria in muscles were training intensity and duration...at least in rats, now temperature can be added to the list).

And I would definitely follow your MDs instructions. This isn't an issue of mind over matter, for sure! And I understand your point about calories burned in hot environments vs colder ones. And I agree that exercising in extreme conditions to lose weight is ridiculous -- ever see the MMA guys on stationary bikes in saunas while wearing rubber suits? The HEIGHT of stupidity.
All I am saying is that:
1. There is some evidence that hot weather exercise may result in more calories burned than in cold weather.
2. A person may be able to tolerate warm conditions better than they think that they do.
3. If you don't challenge your assumptions, you may become stuck in the same-old same-old with the same-old results.
and
4. If you don't push your boundaries, you'll never know what you are truly capable of.
Thats all...

Kira

I would say that kira DOES have a point. When I started working out in December, I thought an elliptical machine was waaayy too hard for me. Now, not so much, small steps and challenging yourself to try new things. Don;t do it if it hurts, but definitely try new things. I prefer to work out at a comfortable temperature. It's just all work. Work out, get the weight off, make it maintainable, that's how I do it!

This discussion is very interesting to me because, just this week, my gym turned up the temperature by five degrees as a cost saving measure (higher temperature setting=lower air conditioning costs). It is noticeably warmer in there. Even at the lower temperature I get super sweaty when I work out; at five degrees warmer, it's just brutal. I'm going to try to focus on the fact that I'm theoretically burning extra calories working out at the hotter temperature...