Easy, effortless trick activates fat burning (it's so easy you can sleep through it)

You'll be shocked by just how easy it is to trick your body into burning more fat.

Chances are you've made more than a few resolutions to lose weight or live a healthier lifestyle, but what if you could give your body a serious competitive edge by doing almost nothing different at all? That's exactly what some doctors and scientists are suggesting, and in the long run, it may result in heaps of extra calories burned without additional dieting.

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It may be as simple as turning your thermostat down, skipping the blanket, or foregoing the extra cozy layers while you're lounging around the house. Simply put, feeling a bit chilly can help activate thermogenesis, or fat burning, in some of our most active fat cells.

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How exactly can fat be tricked into working harder when I'm cold?

By activating the 'brown' fat each of our bodies already has. Our bodies have a few different types of fat, though most people seem most familiar with the blubbery white stuff typically depicted in health-focused news content. The reality is that brown and beige fats also exist, and play a tremendous role in our ability to regular body temperature, provide energy, and yes -- burn calories.

"Brown fat is considered 'good fat,'" explains Kevin Farmer, MD, a sports medicine professor and team physician at University of Florida, and an advisor to PTPioneer, a service that helps personal trainers get the right certifications to succeed. "It is a type of fat that is more metabolically active than the typical fat, also called 'white fat.' The brown fat has more mitochondria, which are the drivers that allow the fat to burn more calories and produce heat, and also gives the fat its brown color. Brown fat burns blood glucose, or sugars, and fat when the body is cold to produce heat."

"Human newborns have an estimated 30 grams of brown adipose tissue (BAT), representing 1% of body weight. As children leave the first decade of life, the wide distribution of BAT declines such that the more peripherally situated areas, such as interscapular and abdominal wall depots disappear."

This special fat-burning powerhouse was was initially thought to be primarily in babies, but more recent studies demonstrate that adults have some brown fat interspersed among white fat -- and that's good news for people looking to trick their bodies into added slow, steady weight loss.

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What is beige fat? Do I have that too?

"Beige fat is a cousin to brown fat," says Farmer. "Beige fat comes from white fat, and it does have some of the same calorie-burning properties as brown fat." This almost-magical type of body fat is dispersed throughout the body though, whereas brown fat is primarily stored in our neck and shoulders. Scientific studies suggest that the process of developing brown and beige fat cells largely occurs before we're born, but we can actually encourage the browning of white fat cells to beige with certain environmental triggers and behaviors.

"Harnessing the thermogenic, fat-burning power of BAT is clearly an attractive new therapeutic target."

Brown fat, which produces 300 times more heat than any organ in the body and so burns off calories very quickly, is plentiful in babies but levels drop to almost zero as people become adults -- beige fat is a close second and an eye-opening contender in the fight against obesity.

How long will it take to turn my white fat into beige or brown?

"Exposing the body to cooler temperatures over a period of time can lead to activation of the brown fat, and thus more fat and calorie burning," Farmer says, echoing what we already know about brown fat helping regulate body temperature when exposed to cold. "Sleeping in a cooler environment may help increase the activation of these cells, and may increase calorie burning while sleeping."

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In a study conducted by the US National Institutes of Health, researchers found that sleeping in a notably colder room can help the body lose weight. The research involved several male participants who dozed off under different room temperatures: one month at 18 degrees Celsius, two months at 23 Celsius and one month at 27 Celsius. The findings showed that the metabolism of the participants sped up because of their increased amount of brown fat when they slept at cold temperatures.

A pound of mostly white fat tissue from an adult, Instagram

"Rooms between 60 and 68 degrees, or about 18 degrees Celsius, encourage the body to produce melatonin. In addition to promoting sleep, melatonin is also a powerful anti-aging hormone," the study concludes. "In addition to the phenomenon of beige and brown fat increasing in cooler temperatures and causing your body to burn more calories, it also increases insulin sensitivity, which lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes. Colder sleeping temperatures also promote glucose disposal, another indicator of type 2 diabetes risk."

Will this really work?

If it seems too good to be true -- the idea of burning extra calories while you sleep or simply lounge around, it's important to keep in mind that mild activation of additional brown and beige fat cells is hardly a replacement for a healthy diet and exercise. It's merely an added edge that can pay off over a period of time, and may even rely partially on being activated by healthy exercise habits.

"Scientists are investigating ways of increasing brown fat, and preliminary studies demonstrate that exercise may have a role in upregulating the amount by converting white fat to beige fat, the so-called 'browning of white fat.' Additionally, recent research suggests that a protein called irisin could be key to developing brown fat. We also produce this protein," details Farmer. "People who live less-active lives produce far less irisin compared to those who exercise often. It appears that levels are increased when people do more intense aerobic interval training."

He stresses that the process is hardly an overnight miracle, and research is still very-much ongoing, and that scientific and medical communities are excited about the potential brown and beige fat activation may hold.

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"This is not a process that occurs overnight, and it’s not as simple as taking cold showers or sleeping in cooler temperatures will suddenly cause you to lose weight without other lifestyle changes. Much more research needs to be done, and exercising regularly and paying attention to individual nutritional needs and goals will continue to be of vital importance."