This article is my introduction to Wim Hof and his cold training techniques for others and to record my own observations as I learn it more in depth.
Last Updated: 20190322
First an Introduction to Wim Hof and his methods is required.
Fantastic stuff, but the part that got me was the note at the end that anyone can learn the method and gain several health improvements from it. However like anything that can shock the body it does come with some warnings. From the man himself:
I first learned of Wim Hof in mid 2017 from Dave Asprey’s Head Strong book, where it was described as one of the best methods for improving overall mitochondrial health through the use of the breathing techniques combined with breath hold exercises to strengthen most mitochondria and kill off weaker ones improving the total output.
This was the more difficult exercise for me to regularly implement as while it requires a slightly less time commitment that a normal workout, I wasn’t making time for any. Most of my successful health work that year involved changes that didn’t take any extra time by replacing other activities, such as fasting replacing eating. So the cold shower aspect intrigued me but it took another video to convince me to really give a try as I really hated cold on my limbs:
Much of my research at the time was focused on improving my mental discipline towards the goal of increasing my capacity for change. This made the argument that the act of choosing the discomfort of a cold shower strengthened willpower with just the simple act of choosing to shift the knobfrom warm to cold. Other proponents of cold showers include Motivational speaker Tony Robbins and Bio-hacker Tim Ferriss.
A Cold Goal
As fate would have it, while exploring the prospect of cold showers I happen upon a radio commercial for the 2018 Maryland Polar Bear Plunge, something I used to think only crazy people did until my research had begun to show me the how and why of the benefits. And so that sealed it. I would sign up to do the crazy thing as another reinforcement. I picked up a book that featured Wim Hof, What Doesn’t Kill Us, by Scott Carney to read more about the benefits.
So began a month of cold showers followed by a month of easing off (Wim Hoffers are warned not to keep up the cold exposure while sick, and it was a long month of fighting off tag-teaming sick family) and two weeks of cold shower exposure before the plunge.
The result? Vastly improved cold resistance despite that my hands and feet still suffering tremendous pain and numbing in the cold water. But with the showers? A fantastic feeling everytime, once the cold shock wore off.
After that I continued taking cold showers every time for almost the rest of 2018, though I will admit that as soon as it warmed up, the coldest my shower would get was 75 degrees. It dropped off as another several rounds of fighting off winter colds were weathered (Having a toddler virtually guarantees it, though I think fared better than others exposed to the same.) and the plunge approaches again.
Plunge 2019
This year in prep for the plunge I actually reviewed the newly updated material on Wim Hof’s website (The aforementioned Mini-Class) and learned some new methods for implementing cold shower training (Warm first, then cold, body part by body part, to avoid shocking the core and give the limbs time to seal in heat.) I am still fighting a mild chest cold with a week to go so we shall see what happens. Wish me luck.
Update 20190126 – Plunge & training success. Despite a 20 degree colder temperature (34 Degrees fahrenheit this year) than my previous attempt I still succeeded in full dunk with far less pain in my extremities and without the need to run out of the water before my ankles stopped working. Can’t wait until the next one!
Wim Hof Training 2019
Update 20190310 – As I find myself doing terribly at prioritizing to get through the online Wim Hof Fundamentals course (Over more pressing Work Certifications) an opportunity presented itself. A family friend informed me that a former co-worker of hers had become certified as a Wim Hof Method Instructor and was holding a class near me. You can read about it here. I’m enrolled and the course is currently sold out, so I’ll relay my experience after I complete the training.
Update 20190324
Great Class with Bob Soulliere of Breathe Your Power. I learned a great deal, enough that will probably require a follow-up article, for the purposes of these article I am please to report that with his guidance I complete my first 3 minute Ice Bath. The fact that I completed it at all given my discomfort with cold was great, but with Bob’s Guidance it was truly a meditative experience. Thanks Bob!
I’ve lost a decent amount of weight about four times in my life. And all but the last were ordeals. If you just want my current successful system, just skip to the forth attempt. What follows is my long journey to find a system that actually worked for me and I hope for life.
My father warned me that at 18 my metabolism would slow and he sure seemed right. I went from a skinny 17 year old, 5’11”, weighing 180 to a 22 year old weighing 215.
First Attempt – Low Calorie Meals – Unpalatable
I probably would have gained more, but at 22 I was still fairly active with yoga in college, and two martial arts classes a week. In any case I could tell I was getting fatter, not just filling in to adulthood, so I decided to try and lose weight, but could not afford any systems (weight watchers, etc). So I chose meal bars. I replaced two meals a day for three months. 400 calories a day before a healthy dinner. Very hard on willpower and depressing. I did lose 15 lbs, and gained it all back within 6 months. So first attempt was calorie reduction and failure.
Second Attempt – Exercise – Unsustainable
At 23, I decide to join the Army to straighten out my career, I was still 215 when I prepped in November of 2003. I joined a 24 hour gym and went three times weekly, trying to build up my running speed which was below the needed Army fitness test requirements. I should have worked on my push ups as well, as I barely made that as well. Not sure of the actual reason, but at the time I believed it had been due to the earlier caloric reduction diet. We had a friendly push up contest a year early before that diet and I did 60. When I finally got into the Army I could barely due 20 in the initial assessment and had trouble breaking 35 until a couple years later. Science says I was not low enough in body fat to begin muscle loss so the true reason is unknown.
But back to the weight. Three months training and I’m at 210 in April of 2004. That was still too high to join and I still had to sit in a sauna for a day to drop to 206 to actually be allowed to join. Fast forward 4 months, despite several medical setbacks (Leg fractures, summer pneumonia, terrible exercised induced asthma) I graduate a svelte 202. The extra muscle mass helps my frame carry the weight as it slowly climbs back to 210 over the next year. A year in Korea and I over 220. All gained despite daily hour long workouts and annual fitness tests. I’m stronger, healthier, and carry the weight well, but still heavier than I have ever been.
Over the next 7 years I fluctuate between 230 and 220 with a couple drops to 210ish depending on whether or not a recurring knee injury affected my workouts. Nothing ever breaks below 208 until my weight gain is officially listed as an issue and I get placed on a special program to combat it. That program was two 1.5 hour workouts a day, 7 days a week for almost a year. I get down to 185 for the first time since high school in late 2012. But to paraphrase Dr. Fung “All diets work… in the short term. But most will also fail usually within a year” The army enforced 3 hours a day of exercise was untenable, especially once I separated from the Army in mid 2013. By late 2013 my weight is creeping back up despite calorie control. Following a huge superbowl feast I literally gain 12 lbs overnight that does not come off despite a return to good eating and continues to climb from there. So second attempt with exercise and calorie control, another fail. I thought maybe if I could just find the time to exercise like I did, I know I could bring it back down. But millions think that way with little success, and I was no exception.
Third Attempt – Poor Biohacking – A New Path
By 2014 I have reached 240 but manage to stabilize around 225 by 2015 and hold during my wife’s pregnancy, this time by trying to make use of new techniques involving types of food, my blood type, and min-maxing exercise. Biohacking. I encountered the term a couple years before in Tim Ferriss’s “The 4 hour body“, but finally was on my own to try and make use of its principles in 2014. I credit that book with helping prevent further weight gain during that time, but utterly failed to properly apply it after the birth of my child. The techniques involved attempt to eat the right combinations of food (mostly spinach, eggs, and beans for me), restricting high caloric foods to cheat days once a week, and working out big muscle groups in short timeframes a couple times a week. Easy right? When I started I lost 10 pounds quick, but then plateaued for several months, maybe losing a pound of two in and there only to gain it back on cheat days. A slow stumbling path towards even five more pounds.
I would consider the system a failure, results wise, but it did lead me into the world of biohacking and to“The Bulletproof Diet“ and its follow up “Headstrong“ by Dave Asprey, which, in addition to helping me recognize the inflammatory issues certain foods present, and the importance of mitochondrial health, introduced me to the mechanics of Intermittent fasting.
Forth Attempt – Finally a working solution, Fasting
So the forth major weight loss attempt begins in Oct of 2017 with me at my near highest of 245. I begin with a 5 day fast (my first ever) and then with skipping eating for 2-3 days a week and by the new year, I am down to an average of 210. Impressive early results, but I begin to plateau there for several months. I didn’t see this as a complete set back at the time for one critical difference.
Unlike all previous diets, I was in no way changing what I chose to eat. I wasn’t exercising extra either. So I had lost weight while still eating high caloric meals regularly. However by May I wanted past the plateau and thus began a 7 day fast, followed by a more structured daily fasting of at least 16 hours. This brought my average weight down to 200 by late July. I figured I was right on track to be 180 by the end of the year but that did not happen. Despite another 5 day fast in November bring me down to a new low of 190, the best I could manage by the end of the year was a new average of 195. Not a complete failure as even keeping your weight stable through the sugared holidays could be considered a success, However in January 2019 I decided to further investigate the mechanics of intermittent fasting to figure out where I could improve to avoid another six month plateau.
Forth Attempt refined – The basics of Fasting
So the mechanics as I already understood it was this:
When you eat, the food gets converted to glycogen in the liver and this in turn is what is used to fuel the body. Should you run out of glycogen, then, and only then, the liver will switch to burning fat as fuel source. This take an average of 12 hours since your last meal to occur. So every time you eat you reset the clock on how long it takes until you actually burn fat. So my current schedule of waiting 16-20 hours between eating windows meant I should be burning fat for an average of 4-8 hours a day. Further I also learned that the liver can only process so much sugar at once so eating too much at once and the liver will have the excess shunted into new fat.
However after reading the full text of “The Obesity Code” by Dr. Fung, the author who was cited so often for intermittent fasting I learned this was incomplete.
Forth Attempt refined further – The Real Culprit of Obesity
It is true that the fasting is required to allow time for the body to switch to burning fat, but that process can take as long as 24 hours to occur. Furthermore the main point of the fasting (And all effective diets) is not just fat burning, but the reduction in insulin levels. He points out the main culprit to obesity is insulin resistance which as two major effects in the body. First is the vicious cycle of increased insulin resistance causing the body to create more insulin. This can lead to type II diabetes and possibly worst (if a trim figure is your goal) the alteration of the body set weight in the brain. There is an actual mechanism in the brain that determines what your body composition is supposed to be, and high amounts of insulin and insulin resistance change that level to make you fat, even in the face of reduced caloric intake. It will simply reduce body energy expenditure to match the new reduced intake. This is the reason calorie reduction fails so often.
So his recommendation is the reduction of foods and eating times to reduce insulin in the body. Sugar and refined grains of course raise insulin levels more than healthier foods, but the food timing he argues is more important. Snacking he says is the worst thing one can do to lose weight. In the older three meal cycle, we got an insulin spike with each meal and it dropped before the next, never allowing the body to adapt a resistance and thus keeping normal insulin levels low. So when we snack we keep the insulin levels elevated the whole day raising our resistance and thus requiring more and more insulin as time goes on. This was probably my first major mistake as I maintain my eating windows. Once I opened my eating window, say at lunch, I would continue to snack until it closed after dinner. So rather than a window with two insulin spikes I had an eight hour raised level, probably keeping it higher longer during the fasting window. So add reduced snacking to new plan.
The second tip I gathered is to focus on keeping the insulin response lower overall if I want to bring the body set weight and my own weight down faster. To that end I’ll try and add more whole foods or at least fiber (Which binds to the carbs to reduce insulin response) and add apple cider vinegar daily with meals and after (Vinegar also binds to carbs, hence why it’s served with carb heavy foods in other countries’ diets, malt with English chips, or vinegar with Italian breads) and apparently can help bring down insulin in the bloodstream after meals.
My Dieting Systems:
The following is the tracking of the successful dieting systems I employed, their results, and their pros and cons. For all diets I weigh myself daily in the morning to see where I’m at (especially if I have eaten heavy the night before), but track weight loss on a monthly basis.
Oct 2017 to April 2018 – Short Fasts and Cheat days
Weight dropped from 245 average to 208 average.
2-5 day fasts followed by 2-3 eating days with with no restrictions on foods eaten during eating days. Most successful routine was 5 day fast followed by Fri-Sat eating days.
Pros: Easier to maintain fasts than initially considered, especially with a spoonful of Bulletproof Brain Octane Oil on fast days. No food restriction made for great feasts on eating days. Successful fasting gives feeling of mental strength and willpower. This also taught me my best lesson for successful weight loss:
“I find it takes less willpower to eat nothing, that it does to eat healthy. – Brent Reitze”
Cons: Difficult to schedule with social events, which meant skipping lunch meetings or dinner invites if it did not fall on an eating day or shortening the fast and not losing any weight that week. Very easy to wipe out gains made during fasts if eating days went longer than 2 days, meaning only a average progress of couple pounds a month with several setbacks. Also to be frank, bowel troubles often occurred if the fast went on longer than a day or two leading to discomfort once eating began again. It just seemed like my system needed food to keep things moving and without it, stuff got backed up. Might just be me as I have been diagnosed with IBS after a bad infection overseas. Could also just need more fiber on eating days.
May 2018 to January 2019 – Daily Intermittent Fasting
Weight dropped from 208 average to 195 average.
Daily intermittent fasting consisting of eating window of 4-8 hours (Depending if I have lunch meetings) with no change in type of foods eaten. Most successful routine was 2 hour eating window for dinner.
Pros: Super easy to maintain and modify on the go for lunch meetings. No real feelings of missing out and could easily maintain indefinitely. Many others simply consider this a way of eating rather than a diet and I agree.
Cons: After an initial success of 10 pound average drop over first few months, I plateaued fairly quickly. Not sure if this was simply due to increased confidence in diet and thus overly heavy meals or simply the increase in sugary foodstuffs October through December. Possibly both, but after reading The Obesity Code, I would put the culprit at the body set weight that needs another reduction in insulin levels to reduce further.
Jan 2019 to Mar 2019 – Extended Intermittent Fasting
Weight starting at 195 Average.
36 hour fasting (Meaning skipping every other day) with a reduction in refined sugars and carbs (Or at least increased fiber along with them) and daily doses of Apple Cider Vinegar, both with meals and at night.
I’ll document how this turns out, but I can already see the 36 hour windows will be more difficult to schedule, so will only be used for a short time to reduce body set weight before returning to Daily IF (Intermittent fasting).
Pros: Nice willpower boost and clarity of mind when actually in full keto (30+ hours in). Not sure if directly related, but positive body composition changes have continued despite no change in the scale.
Cons:It turned out to be even more difficult to schedule that my attempts last here. In part due to the increased number of social meetings (I have successfully quadrupled the number of social circles I regularly meet with, and have family visiting more often), meaning a lunch or dinner meeting practically every day. And while I keep those eating windows within 8 hours, they usually heavy and have a high number of carbs, meaning no weight loss.
Mar 2019 to Current – Intermittent Keto Fasting
Weight still at 195 Average.
If my I did not want to further limit my social interactions (though i have sat through a number of water glass lunches without too much awkwardness) I needed to reexamine the ways to improve both eating and fasting effectiveness. On the eating I began to understanding how I might achieve a more effective weight loss if I stayed in keto. In the past I’ve focused on the autophagy aspects of fasting, but I don’t think I’m normally fasting long enough to really see those benefits, just long enough to keep insulin levels from averaging higher. So perhaps if I focus on just the fat burning aspect, meaning I don’t eat anything that break ketosis (such as carbs), I can get the fat burning benefit of the 36 hour fasts while still eating daily.
We shall see.
Other Info:
Video overview of what Intermittent Fasting does to the body:
The IF (Intermittent fasting) is done daily. No food for at least 16 hours, (after dinner until the next day’s meal). That means nothing until dinner most days (You already went 8 hours not eating while sleeping so just keep it up.), and that’s usually a big meal, as you don’t need to reduce the daily calorie intake, the fasting time is doing the burning, not the reduced calories (see linked fitness guy who eats 4000 kcal a day.) some days I’ll start eating at lunch (say lunch meeting or weekend outing meal), but then the cutoff has to right after dinner (Instead of my usual snacking until 10) to maintain a 4-6 hour eating window, though I find it harder to stop eating once I start so waiting until dinner makes it easier to keep up.
*They key is maximizing the time between eating windows to allow time for the liver to run out of glycogen and switch to burning fat (ketosis). Typically takes 10-12 hours since last meal.*
Once you are burning fat, energy levels are usually not a problem as you are getting a steady stream of energy production. Just keep up water, black coffee, and maybe salt if you shed electrolytes quickly. Usually people don’t need the salt unless doing a longer fast (3 or more days no food, I’ve done 7 for the experience) but if I am feeling light headed (perhaps a low salt meal the night before), a salt packet is usually the answer. It also helps prevent constipation.
If you want an additional boost I also use Brain Octane Oil, which is a coconut oil derivative that does not break ketosis (no carbs) and helps boost ketone production (main product of ketosis). It also helps to control hunger and willpower issues (2 tablespoons a day is what got me through the 7 day fast with little issue). I have some at my desk if you want to try it. You can read on it here:
Fair warning, ketosis is warned to have some possible side effects (but the health benefits greatly outweigh them) which can include irritability ( I have not noticed this after I got used to it and the brain oil helped a lot there), ketosis breath and smell (you are burning fat which smells different, but it was not a big issue for me.), possible hair loss (some have complained of this online, possible related to testosterone boost many get from ketosis, though it is supposed to be temporary, My hair was already thinning before but I can’t say it was acerbated.) and possible diarrhea or constipation (the first as your body gets used to ramping up and down digestion and/or breakdown of toxins that have been long term stored in your fat, treat with activated charcoal. The second same, but you can offset with water, salt, magnesium and potassium) and keto flu (A feeling sick or down as your body gets used to it).
Pretty much all the symptoms go away as you get used to the new way of eating (This is not really a diet but a lifestyle change).
So most people just start by establishing an 8 hour eating window and reducing as they get used to it. Or you can pick up and get used to the Brain Octane Oil to help through the transition (Order online or it might be at whole foods).
