Can being cold burn fat?

[Aquapod770]

Your body almost exclusively burns fat at rest. How much is dependent upon your resting metabolism. Only when you start to move does your body start burning carbs.




This is a very simple graph representing Respiratory Exchange Ratio and its relation to what fuel your body is using for energy. If the normal population the "halfway point" is about 65% of your VO2 Max. Untrained individuals are much lower than that. For example, a morbidly obese person would start burning more carbs than fat pretty quickly as they started exercising. With training you can push that intersecting point to the right and utilize fat stores for energy at a much higher intensity.

When you're cold you start to shiver. Which is basically your body trying to warm itself through muscle heat. So yes, you would be burning more calories. Whether those calories are from fat or carbs depends on how trained you are.