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Comment by giardini | Hacker News Reader

Knew a fellow from Texas sent to manage a business in Russia for 6 months. He was in excellent cardiovascular health when he left. 6 months later he returned with 15 extra pounds of weight.

His story: arriving in Moscow he found it brutally cold and began to drink under friends' advice. He later reported back that "you need to drink vodka and eat like crazy to keep warm and keep you body weight up" in that cold climate.

Anyone else heard this? Does alcohol perhaps keep all the bad stuff(lipids et al) in your blood in solution better in cold weather?

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I find that hard to believe. I spent a winter in Helsinki, which is roughly 2 to 4 K warmer than Moscow, and you barely spend any time outside below -15°C (5°F), why would you do that? It's probably dark anyway.

What probably did happen is that he spent a lot more time indoors and not doing sports if he's not an avid gym rat.

> Anyone else heard this? Does alcohol perhaps keep all the bad stuff(lipids et al) in your blood in solution better in cold weather?

No, but it sounds like a great excuse for alcoholism.

I lived 2 years in Sweden, I just bought a good winter coat. Somehow that an a few good sweaters/base layers were enough to keep me warm without hammering my face every evening. But that's just me I guess.

Two questions:

1. what would be "a good winter coat" in that environment? I'm curious b/c I once found myself in upstate NY in winter with Texas clothing and it was near-fatally inadequate.

2. I've heard the phrase "get hammered[drunk]" but not "hammering my face". Searching for that sent me down a rabbit hole, i.e.,

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hammering+my+face&t=operav&ia=web

I assume you intended the former meaning, that is, "getting drunk"?

1. You don't know how to pick clothes? Just make sure you pick something wind and water proof that covers your junk. Clothes are often rated for specific temperatures.

2. Legit can't tell if you're serious here? Yes I took the idiomatic "getting hammered" and made it my own with "hammering my face". You really couldn't infer the meaning based on the context of this thread where we discuss alcohol consumption?

Alcohol actually lowers your body temperature slightly, making you feel more comfortable in the cold. The big problem is that the alcohol metabolises straight into the citric NADH, which means your body converts the rest of the food you eat straight into fat.

The eating part is as you can see above relates but it has been demonstrated that the mitochondria in your brown fat burn significantly more energy after cold exposure, so it makes sense you would be hungrier.

As others have alluded, alcohol is a vasodilator. Your blood vessels dilate so you end up with more blood flow to extremities and the surface of your skin. So you feel warmer, but you're actually cooling your body off faster. Vasoconstriction is your body trying to keep your core body temperature up, so drinking alcohol is weakening your body's defenses to the cold.

Alcohol is very caloric. A single shot of vodka can have 100 calories. Also it can increase blood flow to the skin, making you seem warmer than you actually are, at the expense of your internal body temperature.

> A single shot of vodka can have 100 calories.

Using the standard 7 calories per gram of alcohol, the alcohol content of a 12 oz 5% beer (equivalent of a 1.5 oz 40% shot) is 117 calories (12oz x 28g/oz x 5% x 7 Kc/g).

That’s just the alcohol and an average beer would have been more from the additional carbs.

If your vodka shot has only 100 calories, that’s either a weak pour or some weak vodka!

Counter-argument:

[0] https://www.fitbit.com/foods/American+Vodka/740555260

[1] https://www.greygoose.com/faqs/how-many-calories-are-there-i...

If you look at any 40% vodka, you'll find a 1.5 oz shot clocking in at 96-98 calories.

That’s using the metabolized estimate of about 5.8 calories per gram which assumes about 80% of the caloric content is extracted.

No, but it makes you feel warm and has a ton of Calories, both of which jive with your fellow's observations.

Alcohol makes you feel warm, but crucially it doesn't make you any warmer and by bringing blood closer to the skin makes you get colder faster.

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