Last Updated on April 12, 2024 by Fasting Planet
Whew, did someone turn on the air conditioner? It sure feels cold. You layer up with a hoodie or a sweater, maybe a fluffy blanket, but within a few minutes, you’re still shivering. Why are you feeling so cold? Is it time to adjust the thermostat yet again or could your fast have something to do with it?
If you’re cold on a fast, it’s because your blood is centralized at your body’s fat stores to promote adipose tissue blood flow. This ensures fat can get to the muscles so your body has the energy it needs during a fast. Also, your digestive system takes a break, so you lose the internal heat you normally have during digestion. Low blood sugar can also cause the chills. You may feel cold in your toes and fingers especially.
In this article, we’ll take a deeper dive into why your extremities get so chilly when fasting, how long you should expect to feel cold, and what your methods are for warming up. Keep reading!
Are You Cold on a Fast? Here’s Why
As a faster, you anticipate that you’ll experience some side effects. These include exhaustion, moodiness, and one of the biggest ones–hunger. At first, you might not pinpoint your fasting as the reason you’re so cold all the time. You could assume that it’s due to the season (especially if it’s wintertime), your clothing choices, or even that you need to turn up your home’s thermostat so the heat runs.
While sure, those are all good reasons you may feel cold any other time, if you’re fasting and you can’t stop shivering, more than likely, it’s because of your fast.
Why does this happen? Let’s explore the reasons now.
Lack of Heat from Digestion
If you’ve read this blog before, then you know how hard your digestive system works. It’s busy almost 24/7 processing and digesting the foods you’ve consumed. Even when you stop eating, the digestive system is still chugging along. That’s because, for each meal you consume, digestion takes an average of six to eight hours to complete.
So yes, by the time your body has processed breakfast, you’ve had lunch, maybe a few snacks, and dinner. Then you go to bed and your body digests all that for you to wake up in the morning and do it over again the next day.
When you fast, you give your digestive system a well-deserved multiday break. During this time, autophagic processes allow the digestive system to repair its inner walls and other damaged parts.
There is one thing you’re missing when the digestive system stops though, and that’s heat.
You already know that some foods are hotter than others, such as peppers. Even if you’re not eating hot food though, the internal processes your digestive system undergoes as it digests your meal create heat within the body. If you did happen to consume hot food, that’s double the heat.
Since digestion occurs pretty much around the clock, you rely on this digestive body heat for warmth without realizing it. When it disappears on a fast, you tend to feel it, as you’ll be colder.
Redirection of Blood Flow
Another reason you get so chilly on a fast, especially in your fingers and toes, has to do with your blood flow. In a 2010 report published in Clinical Science (London), the researchers noted that during a fast, your blood flow changes. It now moves towards whatever fat your body is storing in what’s known as adipose tissue blood flow.
Adipose tissue blood flow allows our muscles to receive fat, which your body then begins using as the primary energy and fuel source. Some fasters even believe that feeling cold is a sign of fat burning, and this could be why!
Low Blood Sugar
With no food in your system, your glucose or sugar levels drop off. This will affect your blood sugar, causing it to become equally low. According to My Health. Alberta, a Canadian health resource, mild hypoglycemia in non-diabetics can cause feelings of coldness.
Hypoglycemia is low blood sugar. Other symptoms of mild hypoglycemia may include clammy skin, sweating, faster heartbeat, a nervous feeling, or vomiting.
How Long Will the Cold Feeling Last?
If you read our recent post about feeling hungry on a fast, then you probably recall that this sensation drops off after a day or two. That’s because the primary hunger hormone, ghrelin, lessens in the body.
Since feeling cold on a fast isn’t driven by hormones, there’s no magic amount of time to wait until the coldness passes. Once you stop fasting and resume your normal diet, your digestive heat will return and your adipose tissue blood flow allows blood to reach the extremities more readily. Also, your blood sugar will resume where it was, reducing non-diabetic hypoglycemic symptoms.
The next time you fast, don’t be surprised if you feel cold again. Some fasters may get colder than others when going without food, but it’s something you will likely experience on every fast going forward.
How to Make Yourself Warm If You Get Cold on a Fast
That’s why it’s a good idea to have a handy list of things you can reliably do to warm up when you start shivering on a fast. Here are our suggestions.
Drink a Warm Beverage
Sipping a toasty beverage is one way to combat the shaking and shivering. You can warm up water, brew a mug of green tea, or drink hot black coffee. Doing this throughout the day lets you stay hydrated too.
Take a Hot Bath
If you’re not in the mood for a drink right now, treat yourself to a luxurious hot bath instead. You can add your favorite bath bombs or scented bubble bath, then dim the lights, burn some candles, and sit and soak until the water gets cool. Feel free to repeat this a few times a day. You’ll be pampered and less cold on your fast. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Turn on the Heat (or Give the AC a Break)
When fasting during the cold season, feeling chilly is even more unbearable. Make sure your heat is on when you’re home, and that it’s running healthily. You might also want to buy a space heater if you have family members who complain about how hot it is in the house when you’re on a fast.
In the summertime, all you have to do to combat your coldness is step outside. You can also give the air conditioner a rest so your home warms up. If you don’t want to go without any source of coolness in the summer but the AC is too excessive, set up an oscillating fan or two. You can control the airflow and how much air the fan is spreading.
Layer up
Put on clothes that are comfortable and thick to stay warm on a fast. Start with a light shirt, then a heavier one like a hoodie, sweatshirt, or a sweater over top. You can even wear two lighter layers and then one heavier one, whatever works for you.
If your bottom half is cold, long johns under jeans or sweatpants are a great solution, but you can’t wear long johns with leggings.
Snuggle up Under a Cozy Blanket
If you’re a regular faster, it’s not a bad idea to have a bevy of thick, fuzzy blankets you can bury yourself in anytime you feel bone-chillingly cold.
Exercise
Another reliable option you have for combatting the chill of a fast is to get your fitness on! Exercise is great for fasters because it accelerates calorie and fat burning. The Daily Beast notes that your fat-burning may be 20 percent more than non-fasters who do the same exercise. Oh, and you won’t be cold anymore now that you’re covered in sweat.
Make sure you don’t engage in high-intensity exercise on an empty stomach. Also, leave most of the heavy weight-lifting for when you’re not fasting. As always, if you feel dizzy, nauseous, or weak when exercising on a fast, stop what you’re doing, take a break, and resume only when/if you feel better.
Is Being Cold on a Fast Normal?
You may have one more question about being cold on a fast: is it normal? For the most part, yes, but if you have concerns, you should schedule an appointment with your doctor and get those addressed.
You do want to make sure that your blood sugar doesn’t drop too low on a fast. My Health. Alberta says that moderate hypoglycemia in non-diabetics causes symptoms like walking difficulties, a feeling of unsteadiness, blurry vision, confusion, unnecessary fear, and moodiness.
If you have severe hypoglycemia as a non-diabetic, you could experience coma, seizures, unconsciousness, or even death.
Thus, if your coldness progresses to the point where even the measures above aren’t putting a dent in your shivering, you should probably stop your fast immediately. You might also want to get medical attention.
Conclusion
Fasting can cause you to become cold as your body reallocates blood flow, your blood sugar decreases, and your digestion stops, depriving you of that digestive body heat. Whether you wear cozy layers, turn up the heat, or exercise to ward off the cold feeling, do monitor your coldness levels. If you’re chilled to the bone and you can’t get relief, it could be time to stop your fast.