Burn Calories? Ice Ice Baby.

Back by popular demand is Afternoon Frosting's resident hottie, Dan, with another simple calorie burning freezing revelation. Intrigued? Read on.

We've all been caught in a situation where we probably should have been wearing an extra layer or packed a sweatshirt, and as much as we've cursed ourselves for not thinking ahead, it didn't put an end to our night of miserable shivering. Aside from the bitterness of the winter (especially this year's) you can actually take something positive from it (and I'm not just talking about cuddling up for body heat). 

Being cold, yes, being cold, burns calories!

Many people are led to believe that spending time in warmer temperatures (cue saunas and bikram yoga) is effective because you're sweating out the cals. In reality, you're just sweating out a whole lot of water and salt, and not burning many calories. But, when you're cold, your body actually must "burn" calories to keep your body at, or close to, the ideal 98.6 degrees.

Now, I know many of you are thinking about throwing your bikini on and sitting on top of the nearest mound of snow, but let's be serious for a second: the whole sit-outside-in-your-bathing-suit-all-winter-diet? Yeah, that one's not available at your local Barnes and Noble. So what can you do to freeze off your calories? Start by turning down the heat in your house (your parents/you can thank me later when you get the bill). Over a mere 24-hour period, your body will burn a few hundred more calories. What?! Drinking an eight-ounce glass of ice water burns 8 more calories than a glass of room-temperature water (nope, that wasn't an urban legend), so a few ice cubes in your drink and you could be burning an additional 64 calories a day, 448 a week, 23,296 a year -- no sweat! What kind of difference does 23,296 cals a year make? Six and a half pounds, people! Those are like gimme pounds. Not too shabby for drinking your ice water, right?