Learn why fitness professionals and experts suggest cryotherapy for weight loss

After years and years of hearing about, and taking, diet supplements, potions, pills, and vitamins, you’re probably tired and frustrated. There is never a guarantee about any of these fads because that’s exactly what they are: meaningless trends that surface for a short amount of time before disappearing into the abyss of other useless remedies. 

All fitness professionals and experts know that weight loss can only happen if you use the body’s natural processes to encourage it. The body has surprising and wondrous ways of self-healing and regulating. This is where cryotherapy comes in.

Fight or Flight

• Once you start cryotherapy, your body enters into a “flight or fight” mode where it thinks it is going to freeze. Once this occurs, your brain starts to hyper-oxygenate the blood with enzymes and other nutrients so it can guard your body against potential threats or harm. Specifically, norepinephrine and endorphins are released into your bloodstream. These are used to maintain your energy levels and metabolism, causing the latter to jumpstart. 

Because your body is striving to maintain its core temperature, it forces blood to your core. This burns around 500 to 800 calories. And this is all in one treatment!

• It doesn’t stop there. Your metabolic rate stays high for an additional 3 to 5 days after the treatment, during which time your body continues to burn a lot more calories. If you sign up for more cryotherapy sessions, your boosted metabolic rate can even become permanent, meaning you will continually burn calories on the go!

The Breakdown

• Essentially, cryotherapy burns your fat through a process called ‘thermogenesis‘. This is your body’s natural process through which it is able to produce heat. When you undergo freezing cold cryotherapy, your body tries to generate more heat to keep itself working. This is thermogenesis and in short, this process allows calories to burn.

Cryotherapy starts off a cellular reaction in your mitochondria, which transforms inactive cells into active cells. This means that white adipose tissue (bad fat) will be turned into brown adipose tissue (good fat). Good fat cells are way easier to burn than their counterparts, meaning the more cryotherapy you take, the more fat your body will burn over time.

• Additionally, long-term usage of cryotherapy has been shown to reduce the number of fat deposits and the appearance of dimpling and cellulite. It also stimulates and encourages lymphatic drainage, elevates your mood, and reduces anxiety.