Tolerance of heat and cold.

[Gearoidmuar]

I'm Irish, living in Ireland but we have an apartment in the South of Spain, next to Portugal. We go out there often, and I cycle with some Spanish men when I'm out there. They're perished with the cold when I'm fine. When I'm there in the summer, I'm roasted alive and they're not.
I always wondered about this but the other day I came across an explanation of it on the internet.
They're discovered that Brown Fat, the type which generates heat, increases in amount when you've been in a cold environment for a time, and vice versa.
Isn't that interesting? It is to me, at least..

[Mark1978]

Yes of course. You adapt to the situation you are in.

I was cycling in Mallorca last October. It was 8am the sun was hardly up and I was out in shorts and short sleeves. I was completely roasted, sweating a lot and struggling for power.

On the way back there was a sportive starting in town. Most of the riders had arm and leg warmers on. They thought it was chilly when I was dying in the heat.

[Mick F]

Many years ago, we lived in the east of Scotland. We were there for over six years, and in Jan 1980 we moved south to near Plymouth. The following day we went shopping and it was a glorious January day. We drove to the carpark near the shops and didn't bother with coats.

We were amazed that all the shoppers were wearing thick coats and looked freezing cold, whilst we thought it was nice and warm.

[MartinC]

Ah yes. Brown Adipose Tissue. It burns fat, keeps you warm and thin. G - perhaps this is why your diet works so well for you - you've got lots of BAT? I believe during the war workers in munitions factories were in contact with chemicals that stimulated the body's production of it and the became emaciated.

[iviehoff]

I think you can general acclimatise to warmer places if you give yourself time, and don't protect yourself too much from the conditions, eg, avoid using aircon places in warm countries - just suffer till you get used to it. On the other hand, exposing yourself excessively to the conditions too quickly is a route to heat-stroke or exposure.

I think of myself as being a cold-country person, happy to ride in shorts most days on Icelandic tours. But when I was in Malaysia I eventually utterly acclimatised myself to the place, to the extent I was getting cold at night and needed a blanket when the temp fell below about 26C. After riding in temps of up to 37 and high humidity, (mid-winter) Burma with daytime temps of 30 or so, was very pleasant. Then I got home to England and shivered for a fortnight.

[CyberKnight]

Of course if like me you have reynauds your ****** no matter how much you try to acclimatize.