Thermogenesis is the fancy term for ‘heat production’ and refers to that created by the body and relates to foods, exercise, and activities that encourage the body to increase its metabolic rate by creating its own heat. Being cold helps you burn fat and is healthy stress on our systems.
Meet your Teacher
Brighton, United Kingdom
Transcript
Hello, Welcome to this session on heat creation for fat burning and immunity. When we talk about heat creation, It's actually the translation of the word thermogenesis, Thermo as in heat, And genesis as in creation. And thermogenesis is something that our body is doing continually. We are warm mammals, We are able to create our own heat, Our own energy, And that capacity changes throughout our life. It changes according to the heat that we need. So obviously we need more heat in the winter, So we create more. And it changes according to how we treat our bodies. It's very what we call epigenetic. It can really rely on how we're treating our body, The things that we are exposed to and experience throughout our lifetime. Now thermogenesis in our body, This heat creation, Is like I said the creation of heat. It's that feeling of something is hot, Is heated, There's an agitation of molecules. And if someone like me who had chronic fatigue or had adrenal fatigue or has that thyroid issue that feels quite cold a lot of the time, It can feel like metabolically we're not able to do that. We don't have the kind of vitality and the thyroid function to actually upregulate our metabolism and get that heat going. And how we can do that I will come to, But I want to talk about what that means within individual cells. So thermogenesis is something, I first came to this through the work I did studying under lectures with a man called Leo Primbun who's really big into PNI or psychoneuroimmunology. And that is essentially it's what mind-body medicine is, But it's tuning into the whole of our body as a systemic being rather than reducing us down into parts. And when we look at our body from that whole, From that PNI viewpoint, Then we really start to see how our behaviour, How our food choices are about psychological choices, About how we move through the world really has an effect on our biology and our metabolic processes. And thermogenesis there was something that he was talking about, Particularly in the light of how we store fat in the body and whether we do store fat or we use it for burning for fuel. And a lot of that is down to whether we tend to store fat as white fat, Which is a type of fat that kind of just stays and it's more insulatory if you like, But we don't readily use it as a source for fuel or as brown fat, Which is metabolically more active. It has more mitochondria in it. That's the brown colour of it. Mitochondria are power stations. Each cell has up to thousands of mitochondria in it and cells will have different levels of mitochondria depending on how much energy they use. These things are changeable. I think it's really important to realise this stuff that we are knowing more recently that all of these things are not set, But they are changeable. And this is where epigenetics comes in, In terms of how, What our body is called upon to do in a lifetime. So, You can look at this, Sorry to vegetarians here, But you can look at this in terms of the fat that we might see, The meat that we might see, For instance, In an animal. Like very brown fat has got, Brown meat has got more mitochondria in it, White meat has less. And essentially when we're eating the browner stuff, If you do, Then you're taking in more mitochondria and we can break down more of that genetic material in the mitochondria to use in our own body. But the more that we create heat, The more thermogenesis we have, The more likely we are to lay fat down as brown, As that fat that has more mitochondria in it and then therefore has more metabolic activity. It's more efficient at burning fat as fuel. It used to be believed that only babies had brown fat and that it kind of, It just kind of went as we got older because babies can't create their own heat like we do with this kind of large motor activity that we do. So it used to be believed that when they were quite static, They'd have this brown fat and that's how they'd get their heat creation. But it's understood now more that we, It's something that can change and we can, We have more of a control under. So creating heat and through movement, Through various ways, Having a bath actually creating heat itself, Can change this level. And it can be incredibly useful then for shifting weight that's quite hard to shift, Particularly around the middle where it can just get kind of stuck and stay and particularly that kind of weight gain round there that's very sugar and stress, Stress hormone cortisol related. And there are various ways that we can start to make the body more metabolically active, Come and upregulate our metabolism and have more of that thermogenesis, More of that brown fat expression going on. And one of the ways is to actually, And this is part of the reason I'm doing this talk now, Is that we're coming into winter. So if you're watching this in a cold Northern European climb, In particular, I mean anywhere it might be starting to get cold, But if in that kind of Northern Hemisphere climb, It's starting to feel that real kind of pinch of cold in the air occasionally. And that is something which either you can get that kind of retraction from. So as I said, When I used to have kind of adrenal fatigue and fatigue issues and I was much more at the whim of thyroid issues, That used to feel very severe to me, Painful, Becoming more sensitive to extreme changes and changes in sensation like cold, For instance. So it can feel very kind of shut that door, It has to be done immediately as opposed to a more kind of relaxed, Oh, I'll just put a jumper on. And so learning to be with cold and be with that sensation, Like any other sensation that we might learn to be with, Is something that we can build a tolerance for. So we can start to feel if we have the temperature down a little bit or we don't immediately start cranking the heat right up and put some more clothes on just for the sake of the environment, That we do start to get a tolerance for it. And as we start to get a tolerance for it, Then we start to get a better capacity for thermogenesis. And there was a year that was quite a long time ago, Five, Six years ago, That I started to get a real understanding of this and really took myself through a process where I did kind of teach myself tolerance. And it was interesting at first, But I'm much, Much more easy about the cold these days. And that feels very much more kind of robust, Much more resilient. And actually, I enjoy going out having that sense as well that it's something that's actually a healthy thing to do. It turns around that attitude of, Oh, The cold is something to be contracted against. It needs to be, You know, I need to protect myself against it. But rather relaxing into it means that, You know, There's that sense of, Oh, Actually, This is it's a crisp sensation as opposed to it's a painful sensation. So this is where kind of mindfulness and looking at things without a good, Bad, Pleasant or unpleasant attitude starts to change how we are with that. And there's lots of research been done on people who kind of even gone and lived with Norwegian fishermen and really increased their intolerance up or got to live in the wild. And the effects that has had not only on fat burning, But also on things like chronic fatigue, On changing gene expression for things like obesity and diabetes, Where it might have been switched on to being able to kind of turn that off again. And also, You know, Our immune capacity in the winter. And I don't mean boosting the immune system. That's a really kind of clumsy phrase in terms of the body and the immune system. What we want is immune modulation, Our immune system responding appropriately for the appropriate response, The appropriate stimulus coming in. So that is an ability to regulate in that way and not be over responding, Over sensitive or having intolerance. So what we often have in modern society is the immune system directed inwards, Directed into the mind, The brain and the belly and not very much getting out to the periphery, Which really is where it's designed to do. So we were designed to be in contact with nature and to have nature continually creating a response on the periphery, Out to the skin. So, You know, We would have like scratches, We would have insect bites, We would have air, Change in temperature directly on the skin. And that is a good stress, A eu stress, Eu stress, Is the kind of challenge that the immune system most needs to be able to direct itself in the way that it was designed. So getting that level of cold also really helps that redirection and that appropriate balance of the immune system between what often gets called Th1 and Th2. Very, Very, Very simplistically speaking, It's kind of between our inflammatory responses and our responses that fight off invaders. And we want those in a good balance to be able to have inflammation at appropriate point, But not too much inflammation. And when we get stuck in too much inflammation, Then that's when we get a little less or we get more compromised at dealing with invaders. And that's one of the things that kind of winter immunity tends to suffer from. So getting cold really helps to bring that balance back. Foods that are thermogenic, That raise metabolism, That raise heat, Our green tea, Protein, Which is particularly why making sure you have adequate protein in the winter is really important to keep us going. It's why often vegetarians can feel they might suffer a little more in the winter. Heat creation becomes a little more difficult if we don't have the really good levels of healthy fats in the diet as well. So vegetarians might kind of crave things like cheese and chocolate for the healthy fats come February. So it's really worth if you're vegetarian, Particularly if you're vegan, Making sure you get levels of really good quality, Dense fats in there as we come into winter to keep up that ability to create our own heat. And yes, Keeping ourselves warm. So someone's put here. Hello, Julie. How do I have any views regarding saunas versus infrared saunas? Yeah, Well, I'm talking about him more. I mean, I completely agree. Keeping up heat is a good thing in terms of the body, But this is really how we create our heat ourselves from inwardly. So saunas and infrared saunas definitely have their place in terms of helping us detoxify and helping on many levels. I'm going to cover that another time. My preference is for steam, I have to say, By the way. That's a very personal preference. But yeah, I mean, I agree when we need to get warm, You need to get warm. But how we kind of turn on that ability and turn that tolerance is really helpful, Particularly coming into the winter. And that said, In terms of that kind of outer skin, Outer level tolerance and increasing that tactile, That very more natural good stress on the outer boundaries or outer barriers. We can tap like doing kind of tai chi, Qigong, This kind of tapping, Slapping, Tapping of the head just helps to wake up those nerve endings and bring circulation and attention out to the periphery. And the same with dry brushing. So that really helps bring circulation. And again, The harder you can do that dry brushing, Dry brushing up to tolerance and again build it up to tolerance. Then the more that you are getting that really good challenge, A good stimulation on the outer body. And just actually mentioning back to saunas, This building up ability to come to cold is really useful in terms of things like spritzing after saunas or spritzing where you have heat in the shower and then you turn it to cold and heat and turn it to cold. So that you change the blood flow moving in towards the core of the body when things are hotter outside. And then when you turn it to cold, There's that sudden rush from the core out to the periphery. And that really helps to just wake up the circulation and get our ability to create our own heat and that vitality and that lymphatic movement. So again, Back to the immunity, Lymphatic movement, A lot of which is directly under the skin and needs that stimulation, Gets that flowing as well. So those are really good ways to get us starting to come into winter and really feel that we're not just kind of crouching away from it, That we don't get smaller in the face of cold. But we can expand out to it, Meet it, Even enjoy it and still feel that we occupy our space and occupy our full potential through the winter. So do let me know if you've got any more questions about that and any other topics that you'd like me to cover in future as well. And enjoy the cold. Goodbye.
4.4 (42)
Curt
August 24, 2022
Very helpful
Angelique
December 11, 2020
Thank you very much for this information. Is there a way to experience this by meditation?
Eliza
October 29, 2020
Very interesting, I'll be listening again to take notes.
Kyle
June 13, 2020
This was very interesting. Other than green tea and protein, are there other thermogenetic foods? And do certain proteins have higher thermogenetic effects in the human body? Thank you!
pauline
June 3, 2020
Thank you, very informative!
