Hot and Bothered

[corndog]

Okay, this is a strange one but here goes... Why am I so warm all the time? eg my hands are always hot, I can get away with summer gloves in winter on the bikes. My girlfriend likes the way I can keep her warm in winter (with our clothes on!) but now its summer I just want to do something about it.

Im 6 foot tall and 175 pounds, exercise every day and have a lousy diet. Is there any food I should be eating that helps the body control its temperature better? If I get any informative replies to this crazy request I will eat one of my socks!

 

[TwistNShout]

If I get any informative replies to this crazy request I will eat one of my socks!

:rotfl:

 

[Shig]

Socks go down better with Ketchup

Athletes who are conditioned will begin sweating earlier and more profusely than non-conditioned people. I don't know any foods you can eat to slow down sweating, but drinking coffee always makes me run hotter.

The average woman is about 25% to 30% body fat, while a typical man is about 15%. Someone your build is probably less than 10% fat. Muscle is denser than fat, so muscle holds heat better than fat. For example, heat a cup of water (dense) and an equal sized piece of bread (less dense) in the microwave for one minute. In five minutes, the bread will be at room temperature and the water will still be hot. That's one reason why women run cooler than men on average.

Even though obese people have a high percentage of body fat, they sweat alot because their core is so well insulated. A woman has more body fat, but her smaller body size doesn't allow her to hold heat very well.


Just like cooling fins on a 1978 YZ 400, your skin is responsible for regulating body temp. Women have greater surface area relative to their lower body density, increasing their ability to stay cool.

 

[tedkxkdx]

Do you drink enough? If you are so hot maybe you are dehydrated. Do you sweat buckets?

 

[corndog]

I drink a few pints of water a day, I also have a few can of coke and a few beers on the weekend. I would say that my water intake is higher than average.

 

[nephron]

There's nothing wrong with you, corndog. You're normal. She's normal. You both are normal. Seems like a normal situation to me? :think:

At any rate, cutaneous heat loss or retention, sweating, piloerection, etc. are all controlled by the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Remember those? When the sympathetic ('fight or flight') dominates, you've got cold, clammy skin (surface vasoconstriction), piloerection (hairs standing up/ or on end--eggagerated eg = cat's back hair standing up), and sweating (eg, nervous sweating). If the parasympathetic predominates, you've got warm, flushed, peripherally vasodilated skin (increased conductive loss), no sweating, no piloerection.

These 2 are always in 'tonal' argument, in the sense that the balance between the systems determines the final status.

Most men tend to have warm, flushed, peripherally vasodilated skin and 'feel' warm, as a result. Women tend to have a higher sympathetic tone than parasympathetic, feel cold, a bit sweaty (particularly palms), etc. This situation tends to hold true until extremes of hot or cold are tested.

One tidbit, is alcohol causes a chemical vasodilated state (flushed, warm to the touch). Under conditions of severe, chronically reduced temps, Etoh can accelerate death due to freezing, since there's increased conductive heat losses, and core temp drops as a result. ie, it's really easy to see how someone could be out riding a snowmobile, or whatever, get soused, fall asleep, and freeze to death. Happens.

 

[corndog]

Cheers Nephron, Which sock, Left or right?

 

[acold7dusta]

im always freezing lol