Too cold out? Shivering can actually help you burn fat

Shiver me thinner!

Forget frostbite, high energy bills and frozen pipes — there’s at least one upside to colder weather.

When temperatures drop, we burn more calories to maintain our internal temperature, a process known as thermogenesis.

Our bodies are storehouses for white and brown fat. White fat is known as “bad fat” because it accumulates when we consume more calories than we burn. Too much can lead to weight gain and obesity and significantly raise our risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Conversely, brown fat is known as “good fat,” as it provides the body with a fuel source for energy and helps regulate metabolism.

Lean people tend to have more brown fat than people who are overweight, and scientists are ever on the hunt for ways to stimulate the metabolization of white fat stores into burnable brown fat.

Researchers say a key way to promote “browning” is through exposure to cold temperatures.

Authors of a 2012 study “demonstrated that brown adipose tissue in adult humans is actually metabolically highly active when it is stimulated physiologically, that is, when human brown fat is on fire.”

A bona fide body bonfire, if you will.

Shivering can activate brown fat to burn calories and generate heat.

A 2014 study in the journal Cell Metabolism reported that shivering stimulates the secretion of the hormone irisin, which induces fat burning.

According to researchers, 15 minutes of shivering in a cold environment is the physiological equivalent of moderate exercise for one hour.

Cryotherapy, which involves standing in a freezing chamber for a few minutes to super-cool the body, has been shown to lower cholesterol and blood glucose levels while also reducing waistline measurements.

Other shiver-forward treatments include wearing a vest laden with ice packs, which is said to aid the chill-curious in burning up to 250 calories per hour.

And a 2017 study found that people who hiked in 15- to 23-degree temperatures burned 34% more calories than those who hiked in 50-degree weather — but not for the reasons that you think.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Cara Ocobock, admitted that the extra calorie loss had more to do with external factors such as moving through snow.

“When you start exercising, your muscles produce heat, which keeps you warm if the outside temperature is cold,” she told The Post at the time.

In other words, a proper warm-up stops the body’s shivering response. That makes you less likely to feel the brrrn.