🥶Cold-Natured? 🥵 Hot-Natured? Why We Have The Thermostat Wars

If you've wondered if God has a sense of humor, you need look no further than how those of us who are hot-natured end up living with those who are cold-natured.

Despite the stereotype, I can vouch for the fact that women aren't always the cold-natured ones.

What makes us one way or the other?

​Research indicates that your body size and composition are the determining factors.

Our temperature preferences are directly related to how hot our metabolic fire burns.

🥵 People with more muscle mass and larger bodies tend to burn more calories at rest than smaller individuals. Women tend to report being comfortable at a warmer temperature than the average man since they burn fewer calories at rest.

🥶 Fat is insulating--just ask seals and polar bears--but it can prevent the heat generated at our cores from reaching our hands and feet.

🥶 🥵 Our preferred temperature is related to our activity level and clothing.

A National Institutes of Heath study found that what matters most in determining a person’s ideal temperature is a combination of metabolic rate, body surface area, and body fat percentage.

That explains why people often lose cold tolerance as they get older.

The head researcher said, “If you have a similar metabolic rate, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man, woman, elderly, whatever. You’ll prefer the same environment.”

How temperature affects your body

Temperature extremes require extra energy output.

Generating or dissipating excess body heat is physically stressful.

When you get too warm, blood vessels in the extremities dilate to allow the body to release more heat and you start sweating.

Being cold makes the blood vessels in your hands and feet contract to prevent heat loss. If body temperature drops too low, shivering can help generate needed heat.

While I'm hot-natured, I also have Raynaud's syndrome, regrded as an extreme sensitivity to cold. Having Raynaud's doesn't make you cold-natured, it means that your body overreacts to cold by shutting down the blood supply to your fingers, and sometimes toes, to direct more blood and warmth to your body's core.

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Interestingly, in my thinnest years I was cold-natured. That's when the Raynaud's first manifested.

In those days, I taught aerobics but did no strength training.

I attribute my resistance to cold to maintaining a relatively high level of muscle mass and rarely sitting still.

If you're miserable in cold weather, you have even more incentive to build up your muscle mass and keep moving!