Does Drinking Ice Water Burn Calories?

When you drink cold water, your body exerts an effort to warm up the liquid and, in doing so, burns calories. So does that make drinking ice water an effective weight loss strategy? Find out in this episode of BrainStuff.

Whether the topic is popcorn or particle physics, you can count on the HowStuffWorks team to explore - and explain - the everyday science in the world around us on BrainStuff.

[lebronwytch]

It takes 30 min of cardio to burn on average 300 calories, so if a person drinks one gallon of freezing water, he could burn 120 by just drinking the water. Thats not too bad..

[KNOWHOPE]

Drinking ice cold water is not a weight loss program in itself, but it definitely contributes to a weight loss program and should be incorporated into one, since 75 calories may not be that much per day, but per week that equals to 525 extra calories effortlessly burned, or almost an extra 60 grams of fat (equivalent to about a palm full of fat) effortlessly burned per week. And after one month that all adds up to a quarter kg of fat effortlessly burned. If you are very overweight a quarter kg of fat lost from your body is outwardly not noticeable. However if you are slightly overweight it is noticeable. So one cannot say that it does not contribute to a weight loss program.

They should have also mentioned that freezing your ass off in cold weather, is an excellent (albeit uncomfortable and flu-risking) way of burning additional calories. This is because as mentioned in the video, the body has to keep its core temperature at a constant 37C. So in order to do this when you are freezing, the body has to hike up its metabolism in order to burn extra calories in order to create extra heat in order to maintain its core temperature of 37C (phew, that's a mouthful).

That is why I have read that Arctic and Antarctic explorers and adventurers reportedly burn 10, 000 calories per day. The Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps claims that he eats a 10, 000 calorie diet when in training. This would then mean that long duration training in the pool boosts his daily calorie requirements to 10, 000 calories. Its likely that he burns that amount of calories when in training (much more than a marathon runner) due to the fact that water is an excellent conductor of heat (much more than air) and therefore the metabolism of a long duration swimmer has to constantly work overtime to maintain the core body temperature of 37C, since the water surrounding his body draws out the body's heat much more effectively than air. If he was not burning 10, 000 calories per day during training then there is no way that he would not gain weight from eating 10, 000 calories per day, since you gain weight when you simply eat more calories than you burn per day.

And this would explain why you always feel so damn hungry after a good swim in the pool.

[Infamousdoyle]

True fact, this works better on a empty belly :), dont do it even you eat greasy food!!

[pinkpastelhearts]

i was in the hospital after surgery for 2 weeks, i was literally drinking ice water everyday (i didnt mind that) & i had lost 15 lbs. so yeah drinking ice water does work.

[joelvand]

Also, eastern cultures drink a lot of tea even in hotter climates, being it alkalinizes the internal body temp so the end result is on warm/hot days it will make you feel cooler. Actually drinking cold stuff on a hot day can make feel hotter.

[georgemiller]

Gotta love that 8 Ball music in the background

[regnoshan]

From now I'm gonna eat food from frozen straight into my mouth.

[stardude]

Doesn't jogging for 20 minutes burn about the same amount of calories?
Most exercise burns similarly small amounts of calories unless you do them for a long time.

[irregularmana]

Eat right, (not less), work out and have a cheat meal (not day).

[BariumCobaltNitrogn]

Ice water with a meal makes it harder to digest food, room temperature is best.

[abhishekjain]

Guys what you saying is completely wrong....It takes 1calorie to raise the tempreture of 1gram of water by 1 degree celsius not 1litre of water...

[garysnow]

It makes sense, I always seem to lose more weight in the summertime and that's when I drink colder water.

[OTTBsme]

 cal) is the approximate amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius NOT LITER

[GEAUXFRUGAL]

I will pump iron and sit down and drink all the ice water I can. I have to go pee all day long and that is additional exercise. Pumping iron heats your body up you get short of breath quickly when you lift weights and you need to cool your body off. Ice water will help remove that heat and make your body able to pump more iron. Thing is you don't count your reps you just do what you can till you feel the burn. When you feel that burn stop you are done.
When you are able to lift again you do. Now if you never lifted weights before you may sieze up you will barely be able to move your arms. I had this happen when I first started. When was this? Around age 15. I went with a friend to the gym with him and he said he was just doing his warm up and I tagged along doing as he did and I had this problem.

He was a fake friend he was making fun of me because of my disability and I should have seen him for what he was then and left him alone but no I did like most people do and stuck with the friendship. He ended it when I was most venerable that is after he used my information to steal from me yes in the 1980s I was a victim of identity theft.

Back then I may have weighed 145 lbs or less. I am 6 ft tall. I was that thin until I quit smoking and took up weight lifting for real. Age 19 I went from 145 lbs to 185 in 6 weeks time. I took a job in construction and gave my employer every calorie I had to give I thrived on hard labor. I was to 220 lbs in no time. I found my ideal weight around 250 lbs. Sadly I am now 350 lbs after a tornado broke my back but I am just getting back into weights. I can only do exercise that does not hurt my back, I will probably not be balanced but so be it I need to burn this fat weights is the best way so I will do weights as much as I can I know I will be injured and will have to recoup but that is called life.

If you are healthy all I can say is stay healthy best thing to do is simply walk min 20 min straight if you want to walk here and there do 20 min blocks as many as you like I find I start to warm up around 8 min that is when my heart rate goes up. That elevated heart rate is called cardio you are in that range it is when you are burning the most and walking is way less impact than running. Get some walking poles to walk with for a number of reasons. You can attach lights to the poles and if you walk where there are cars they can see you. If dogs come to attack you can hold them off with the stick until you get out your spray and render them crying babies. The poles help you to keep from falling and you also work your upper body do this take a picture of yourself before and after walking with poles and you will see the difference.

[jaimie]

The 8 glasses of water thing is a MYTH. It actually stems from a misconception that ignores the water content of the food we eat. Scientific American did a great "Fact or Fiction?" article on this a few years ago.

[TheNerdReport]

Hey guys,
This was an awesome video on an interesting topic! With that being said, there is one error that I noticed. At 0:33, when Cristen mentions "1 calorie", the C in "calorie" should have been capitalized. (Due to the fact that the "calorie" being referenced was actually a Kilo-calorie). Regardless, the error didn't take away from the video at all because it was very clear what you were talking about. Great vid and keep up the good work!
-Jon  

[goldstud]

What I would like to see in an upcoming episode is. is Pizza considered a well balanced diet? because you have vegetables with the onion, bell peppers and tomatoes, dairy with the cheese, grains with the bread,  meats with the pepperonis and sausage and sugars with the pizza sauce.

[pinklemon]

Dont drink cold water after eating that's the main rule

[shao]

But as you drink more cold wayer, your body will respond as if it is put in a cold invironment under survival conditions, thus instinctively tries to put on more fat on your body so you don't die. So the long term resolution would be drink more hot water

[oggyreidmore]

So I could get a vat of frigid water with a temperature sensor in it, set up some kind of chilling apparatus, and then submerge myself in the water. As my body heat warms the water, the chilling device would cool the water to maintain the original frigid temp. I could calculate calories burned by the amount of energy needed to keep the temp the same?