Connection Between Weight Loss & Feeling Cold | Lindora Clinic (2024)

FAQs

Can losing weight make you feel cold? ›

Both fat and muscle mass help keep the body warm. Muscle activity generates heat, and fat acts as insulation. If you have lost significant weight recently or have always been thin, you might be more sensitive to colder temperatures.

Your Body Temperature Changes

Data suggest that a higher body mass index is connected to higher body temperature. If you lose a lot of weight, you might notice yourself feeling cooler.

If a person's body always feels cold, this may be due to a medical condition, such as hypothyroidism, Raynayd's phenomenon, or anemia. Treating the condition can help the body to feel less cold, as well as reducing the risk of complications associated with the underlying condition.

Smaller, thinner, people have a large surface area relative to their body mass compared with bigger, more thickset people. This means that they lose heat and feel the cold more easily than those who are chubbier. It's particularly important to remember this when you're out in cold weather with small children.

When people diet to lose weight, their body temperatures will often drop as a coping mechanism against starvation. When the body temperature drops, less energy is spent by the body on more expendable bodily functions like the production and maintenance of hair, nails, and skin.

It can slow down metabolic syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is the term for a series of conditions, including increased body mass, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar. These are all conditions that carry a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and stroke. Just losing 10 pounds can help reduce these issues.

Vitamin B12 is important in the production of red blood cells and the transport of oxygen. Because our bodies cannot produce red blood cells, the lack thereof results in vitamin B12 deficiency anemia. This lack of vitamin B12 may often lead to chills and feeling cold.

What am I lacking if I'm always cold? ›

You Don't Get Enough Iron

Without the right amount of this nutrient, you can get "iron-deficiency anemia," which can make you cold. It may be caused by blood loss, a poor diet, or because your body can't absorb it well. The best source is red meat, but it's also in poultry, pork, and fish.

These symptoms can be caused by a wide variety of medical conditions, including diverse conditions such as an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism), anemia, multiple sclerosis, and a reaction or side effect of medications. Before stopping any prescription medications, it is important to seek a doctor's advice.

While someone is losing weight through severe calorie restriction, the metabolism may slow down to protect the body's heat-producing store of calories, leading to a cold feeling.

Since feeling cold all the time can be a sign of a more serious medical condition, it's important not to ignore these symptoms. If you feel cold frequently even when you're in a warm place, or long after you've come in from cold temperatures, check with your doctor to find out what might be going on.

If you find yourself still cold under blankets, it could be due to insufficient insulation. Ensure that your blankets are appropriate for the season and consider layering with additional covers.

Low body mass index (BMI)

People who are underweight (BMI of 18.5 or under) due to an eating disorder, such as people with anorexia nervosa, or those who lose body fat due to an illness, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or cancer, may be prone to feeling chilly more often.

People require a sufficient level of calories to maintain a healthy body temperature. Consuming too few calories may cause a person's core body temperature to drop, which can create a constant feeling of being cold.

Thus, thermal conductance decreases and insulation increases as the layer of subcutaneous fat thickens. As a result, as many studies have confirmed, fat persons shiver less and experience smaller declines in body temperature during cold exposure than do lean persons (Toner and McArdle, 1988).

Being underweight, a lack of sleep, and dehydration can all leave you chilly, but other possibilities, such as poor circulation, iron deficiency anemia, and hypothyroidism, are difficult to determine without the help of a doctor's visit. Diabetes may also be a cause, according to Dr. Rohr.