Philip Pape 0:00

Hey everyone, this is another bonus episode of the Wits and Weights podcast where I'm experimenting with different formats, so today is something I'm calling weird Q&A. I'm going to answer three offbeat, oddball, weird questions related to health and fitness that are nonetheless highly relevant and you may have thought of them yourself. I'm going to answer these as a kind of a rapid fire. I'm not going to spend too much time. There's no music today, nothing special, just giving you the goods. And if you love these episodes, let me know. Send me a text message using the show notes. Let's get into it. All right, the first question is is it possible to lose fat while eating pizza every day? The technical answer is yes, yes, absolutely you can lose fat while eating pizza every day. The technical answer is yes, yes, absolutely you can lose fat while eating pizza or donuts or Twinkies or anything with calories every day. You can definitely lose fat as long as you are in a calorie deficit. It really does come down to energy balance, however. However, even though that affects weight loss, the fat loss itself is going to be affected by how much protein you have and whether you are strength training and if you are able to fit your pizza into your daily calorie targets, sure you're going to lose weight. What's probably going to happen, though, is because it is so calorie dense with all of that oil and cheese, those delicious pepperonis and sausage and all of that good stuff. You can tell I love meat pizzas and not a huge fan of veggies on my pizza as much as I love vegetables. Sorry, it's going to, you know, taste great in the moment, and then you're going to be hungry like an hour later we know it's true or you're going to have to cram down three, four or five slices of pizza. It's also pretty high in saturated fat. It doesn't have many nutrients, unless you pack it with a bunch of veggies. Then you might have some in there and some fiber. It's usually pretty low on protein, even when you do get a meat pizza, because they're all small pieces spread on this giant, you know, carb plate with fat in the form of cheese. So, in theory, of course, it's possible, and you've heard of people experimenting, eating just fast food or just processed food or just this and that to prove a point. And the point is that energy balance works. The problem is, you're not going to like how it feels. Your digestion is probably not going to be great. And guess what? All of that, biofeedback, the hunger, the digestion and everything and the lack of variety at some point is your body telling you that's not exactly what you need to be optimal, to not even be optimal, but to be generally healthy. So, yes, it's possible to eat anything and lose weight, slash fat, but for variety, micronutrients, macronutrients, protein, digestion, all the other things a more well-rounded, balanced plate is probably going to be more sustainable, all right.

Philip Pape 2:49

The second question is does drinking water actually help you burn more calories, or is that just a myth? Now, when I was younger, I experimented with a lot of weird diets, in my 20s especially, and one of those involved me keeping a large bottle of water and I put a bunch of ice in there and kept it really, really cold, because I thought I was sure that drinking a bunch of water what it would do is cause your body to have to heat up the water and you would burn so many calories that the fat just melts right off. And it's something called water-induced thermogenesis. And guess what it does happen. But unfortunately, the effect is tiny, it is minimal. Yes, your body uses it to warm it up, but you know, the body's also good at compensating and adapting right, and if you drank, say, a half liter of water, it might burn I don't know 15, 20 extra calories, maybe I don't even know the exact numbers. I looked it up and I can't find a straight answer. The point is, if you're relying on cold water to lose weight, you probably have a different issue going on. Now there are benefits of staying hydrated, right, it helps with your cells, with your digestion, it helps control appetite, and so all of these things probably support weight management, fat loss and things much more than any calories you might burn from drinking cold water.

Philip Pape 4:14

And then the final question today is does sleeping in a cold room help you burn more calories or lose fat? And this is an interesting one, because I'm often recommending to people that they want to keep the temperature low when they sleep, because sleeping in a cooler environment will be more comfortable, it will increase sleep quality. And also there is this corner of the Brown fat. Right, you've heard of brown adipose tissue, brown fat which effectively is metabolically active, brown fat tissue that generates heat to maintain your temperature, so it's like involved in homeostasis. And so then you would say well then a cooler temperature is going to activate these more right and burn fat. Now there are studies that show sleeping in a room around like 66 degrees Fahrenheit or 19 degrees Celsius can enhance the activity of those types of fat cells. But then again, the actual additional calories burned are so insignificant and nominal, unlikely to lead to anything on their own. That really what we care about with sleeping in a colder environment is the sleep quality from the comfortable temperature, and that's going to regulate your hunger hormones and that will much more significantly lead to improved outcome in terms of your, you know, sustainable eating, not over consuming, and keeping your metabolism humming.

Philip Pape 5:39

So that's it for my first edition of weird Q and a. For the next one, I've got a few questions already lined up that I know will be in the episode, so follow the show to get those we're going to be talking about. If I could choose one macro to eat the rest of my life, what would it be If I could? Does spicy foods boost your metabolism enough to aid in fat loss and can you train yourself to need less sleep and still maintain optimal health? If you want to hear those on a future bonus episode, hit, follow right now and you will get those when it comes out. And again, this is Philip Pape. You're listening to Wits and Weights and I'll talk to you next time.