On the Ketohacking MD podcast, Dr. Limansky had Jimmy Moore doing HIIT (20 minutes?) then IR sauna (20 minutes?) then an ice bath (20 minutes?). I don’t think they got to real analysis of data, yet. They were discussing the protocol. I’ve been attempting to take cold showers, but that pales in comparison to real ice.
That’s an amazing blood sugar decrease. During “exercise”, my blood sugar goes up. It’d be interesting to experiment with cold therapy.
You’re exactly right I’m working up to allowing my metabolism to warm myself up it’s just that when I get out of the ice bath. I have been working on suppressing my shivering response and doing calisthenics to try to warm myself up I can usually last like 8 - 10 minutes but I’m just so cold I just need to get into warm water
I’ll have to check that podcast out something to listen to while I’m in an ice bath
The replies here are way better than the advice I’ve heard get from medical doctors and nutritionists.
My own research is here
Cold exposure uses glucose, cause the release of free fatty acids into the bloodstream, and stimulates the liver to produce ketones immediately. The quickest route to keto is in the ice bath, so the experience of the original poster is consistent with scientific studies.
Is that also cold exposure outside, lightly clothed? Or is more intense cold, such as from an ice bath, necessary?
I know I used to take cold(er) showers, but I saw the data for cold showers was not really there. And often in the middle of winter, the last thing I want to take is a cold shower.
One studies I’ve read used 32F air for 90 minutes, dressed in T-shirts and shorts to measure ketones. Another was closer to 50F air, which was enough to reverse Type 2 diabetes in 10 days.
I don’t have 90 minutes to stand around in a freezer, so I use 4 min in 35F water instead. I haven’t done the math, but the argument is that it’s time under temperature that matters. Some equation of minutes multiplied by the number of degrees below body temp might allow us to compute an index of cold exposure that is applicable between freezing and the high 60’s F.
My self observations (autopsy). I’ve been relatively thin all my life. I ate SAD (and drank beer) for pretty much 70 years without serious detrimental effects until my 60s when I started slowly gaining weight. So my guess is that by then my metabolism was beginning to get insulin resistant. This reversed completely when I started keto at the age of 71 four and a half years ago. I’m back to about exactly my weight and comp when I was 18. And I’ll take it!
All those years I preferred cold to hot. Sure, when young I could sun bathe on the beach - for a couple of hours. I spent most of my childhood in Savannah, Ga. But even then I preferred the air-conditioned lounge afterwards. Heat literally makes me melt. Did so all my life and continues to do so. I lived for a decade at Lake Laberge Yukon (the 70s, when the big climate threat was the coming Ice Age!). Summers were moderately warm and short, winters were very cold and long. I thrived in that environment. In fact, I looked forward to the coming Ice Age with eager anticipation.
So I think there are some of us who are genetically preconditioned to being heat radiators, or ‘wasting energy’, as Bikman puts it so succinctly. Maybe my predilection for cold is an indication that I gravitate towards the best place to be - for me.
There are some people who are born with more brown fat and have a genetic predisposition to keeping it. You might be one of those people!
Because brown fat is associated with leaner body composition, and responsible for non-shivering thermogenesis, it could explain your preference for cold.
And Bikman’s book Why We Get Sick is fantastic, I think.
For Bikman’s book is there anything in it to recommend to someone like me, who has read a ton of low carb/keto books (and blogs and articles and…)? Was thinking of getting it, but haven’t bought a book in this area for a few years (other than Jen Unwin’s book, but it’s more about carb addiction).
Bikman’s book has good info about which low carb sweeteners are alright (e.g., Stevia) and which are not.
I had forgotten about this series of posts. Thanks for reviving it and bringing it back to my attention.
Adding to my autopsy above. A fairly typical fall in Vancouver has turned into a beast of a year-end. I posted the following the weekend before Christmas:
This had been ongoing for a couple of weeks by the time I got around to making the photo and posting it. Although uncomfortable, the temps never got below freezing, just close to it, but the persistent rain made it feel worse. Just to the left of the doors pictured is another set of non-closing doors and the Customer Service Desk. In front - from where I made the photo - are 8 Self-Checkout Scanners. Immediately behind the scanners are 6 cashier lanes. All of these areas are directly exposed to the incoming inclement weather from these non-functioning doors. Consequently, the indoor temp only gradually increased as you advanced deeper into the store.
As long as the outside temp remained above freezing I was not particularly uncomfortable. Although, I felt cool and did wear a long-sleeved T-shirt under my Walmart short-sleeved shirt and vest. Most of my co-workers were very uncomfortable. Admittedly, this was not a productive nor safe environment for folks to work in hours each day. I suspect the BC Labour Relations Board might agree.
I think it was Monday of Christmas week, however, that the temp dropped to -5 -10°C daily. The temp has remained well below freezing to this day and no sign yet that it’s going to get warmer any time soon. Those open doors have rendered that part of the store almost unbearable even for me! In fact, the week preceding Christmas I contracted pneumonia, bronchitis and strep throat one after the other in quick succession! I’ve managed to throw them all off one by one very quickly, but the stress of dealing with the cold and wet for hours on end was too much. Fortunately, I had 4 consecutive off-days beginning on the 25th, so I had lots of time to rest and recuperate. My co-workers are wearing their outside winter clothing in that area. They’re all years or decades younger than I am, but I’m sure they’re feeling very stressed by it as well. I may thrive in cooler temps, but even I have my limitations!
I actually found this thread through reading your original article on this topic; thanks so much for sharing your experience with the community!
My experience is so much more different than yours and everyone else and I wanted to see if anyone else is similar to me. I’ve been fully keto for about 3 weeks now and just recently I’ve been able to record blood ketone levels consistently for 5 days straight between .6 and 1 (this data is from my readings taken at around 10:30/11:00 a.m. before my first meal at noon and I usually fast for either 12 or 16 hours). I’ve taken a few blood ketone readings upon waking up and after my cold shower (temperature between 53 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit, water pressure on high and I stay in the water for approximately 5 minutes and never less than 2 minutes, spinning around to make sure everywhere gets wet. And this is done in the early morning after a HIIT or light cardio 20-30 min exercise) and they have always been between .3 and .5. This, based on some articles I read, made sense because cold showers cause an increase in insulin to help shuttle more glucose into the tissue. But I’ve become confused after reading your experience and others in this thread. Lastly after my cold showers, when I take my blood ketone reading at around 11/11:30a.m. (which is about 4-5 hours after the cold shower and I’m still in my fast), my readings are back at .8/.9.
You’d have to take morning ketones before your shower, then sometime after the shower, to see what happens. I typically have lower ketones in the morning, higher in the evening, so without knowing a “normal” day ketones, it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
I’ve taken my morning blood ketone level readings upon waking up and they are always low and never above .5, which makes sense based on what I’ve read. And since they increase to between .7 and 1 when I take more readings at around 11 a.m. an hour before my first meal of the day it further perpetuates what I’ve come to understand about the early morning rise in glucose levels.
My issue is having low ketones after a cold shower when everyone else is getting high(er?) blood ketone readings under the same experience.
For those with good blood sugars, a cold shower causes your liver to release glucose into your bloodstream, and your white fat cells to release lipids, in preparation for thermogenesis. So your brown fat cells are burning everything they can get: glucose, lipids, ketones, to maintain body temperature. Those in ketosis prior to cold exposure could very well see a temporary drop in ketone levels because the liver will replenish blood sugars faster than it will replenish blood ketone levels.
and ice bath for fun! One poster said it it all----CAN NOT COMPUTE!
old thread but too funny and wow on that experiment, takes guts and glory I don’t have 
Ahh I see. Thanks for the insight and if I have anything else to add through noticing something out of the ordinary from my personal experiments, I’ll be sure to share them with the community.
Like pretty much everything I suspect there’s at least some genetic predisposition as well. Those of us with the ‘predisposition’ burn everything available to keep the temp up via thermogenesis. My experience is that I will get hungry before feeling cold. When I start to feel cold it’s because I didn’t eat soon enough to refuel. I suspect those without the ‘predisposition’ tend to add insulation rather than ‘turn up the heat’.
I don’t have the science on the genetic predisposition, but what you’re saying makes sense to me. My ancient ancestors are from the North Sea in Europe, and I live in Phoenix AZ. I’ve become convinced that I need cold exposure to maintain metabolic health because (for whatever reason), I’m not built for the desert climate.