Dealing With Winter

pboy

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well Lindsay, the cold is just the cold...its never fun at first! It looks to me like youre getting your diet down better, and often thyroid takes a little while to raise naturally...it fluctuates based on your intake over time...so you have to hammer home the point of good diet/calories for it to raise. The first couple days it was cold here I woke up freezing, but now maybe a couple weeks in my body has adjusted and I am able to handle it pretty, surprisingly, easy so far ( a stark turnaround from last year). Even tho the days are shorter, and its harder to get out of bed, make sure you still get in enough calories by day to keep sending your body the right signals. You could get a light thermal or robe that you can wear around the house and take on and off easily, or get a space heater for your bedroom and just turn it on before you sleep, then for like an hour when you wake up to get rolling. Ive been getting as much sun as I can recently, and ive found warming myself in the sun for an hour seems to carry all day...like I become much more resilient to the cold. I don't know if its a vit D or some kind of light benefit, but it definitely helps. Wishing the best...I pheer the winter now due to these past couple years...but this one doesn't seem so bad so far, so I think the fact ive been consistently getting a lot of T supporting nutrients and sunlight has helped. Theres always warm showers that can help shift you for a little while...and get a warm blanket for at night! (im sure you have!)
 
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lindsay

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marcar72 said:
It makes no sense to keep trying MICRO solutions for a MACRO problem.

Lindsay has stated she struggles to get 60 g of protein a day AND she's supplementing thyroid. Ray Peat suggests 80 g of protein a day for hypothyroid people BEFORE they even think about trying thyroid supplementation. Supplementing thyroid is only gonna raise the bare minimum requirement of 80 g of protein a day even HIGHER.

But what the hell do I know, right? Well maybe I had been really struggling with some serious health issues pretty much all summer and tried upping this and upping that. (micronutrients) What I've come to realize most recently is that I was probably protein deficient even when getting 100 to 125 g of protein a day.

It takes protein (macronutrient) to escort a lot of micronutrients around the body. That's why my upping zinc, then vitamin A, then iron... along with B Complex and Magnesium didn't really resolve the issue.

Now that I'm getting 150 g of protein a day or better, I am most definately feeling a whole lot better. (knocks on wood) :2cents

I am very aware of the importance of protein, but I struggle with it because, as I've stated, I was a vegetarian for 8 years (well, I occasionally ate fish). During that time, I ate very little dairy, eggs or potatoes. And I had none of the issues I am having now. Heck, if I outlined my menu for you for the two winters I lived in Russia (and handled it completely fine), you'd be appalled at what I ate. I wasn't having near the issues then as I am now, which is why I think it's hormonal (because since that time in Russia, I've undergone two major surgeries and a lot of stress).

That being said, upping my protein intake to even 60 grams has allowed me to feel the benefits of it, but when I try to go higher, I usually have inflammatory issues. For instance, the gelatin I bought gave me reactions - and it was one of the pricey ones too (although Great Lakes seemed fine). I don't have a gallbladder, so lamb is difficult for me - and sometimes beef too. And they are REALLY pricey. I refuse to eat conventional meat as a rule of thumb. I like chicken and duck, but both are full of PUFA. And ham is fine for me, except it's muscle meat. In general, I'm not a huge lover of meat. Although I really like seafood.

Cheese, greek style yogurt and eggs are the things I CAN eat daily (milk can also be problematic if I drink too much) and if I ate 80 grams of protein via cheese and eggs, I'd likely gain a good amount of weight. I'm going to try more seafood (as I digest it better) and try some more meat in my diet, but it takes a lot of effort, time & money. It would be easy to eat more of all the necessary things if my digestion was better, but I've struggled with bad digestion since way before the 8 years of vegetarianism. In fact, the reason I went vegetarian in the first place was because I had gallbladder disease when I was 23 and I started cutting out all the offending foods.

So I get the protein thing, but it's just not as simple as eat more protein because not all proteins are well rounded in their amino acids. However, in doing some research, oysters are looking particularly phenomenal (although pricey) and scallops too. I think eating shellfish more regularly will be my route because I can afford it and the whole animal is available. Plus, the selenium is very important.
 
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lindsay

lindsay

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loess said:
I wish there was sort of clothing material available that kept you warm in extremely cold temperatures, but let in the full spectrum of light from the sun. I bet NASA or somebody has already figured it out...
tara said:
Great idea. I bet there'd be a market for it. I'm often having to choose between sun on the skin or warmth.

There is such a material, actually!! I need to go get my hats from my in-laws home (where they are in storage), but these make everything better!! Straight from the motherland, I have two of them and let me tell you, fur makes winter so much more bearable. (the side flaps on this hat come down and button around the chin, making it especially fantastic in winter).
 

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lindsay

lindsay

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pboy said:
well Lindsay, the cold is just the cold...its never fun at first! It looks to me like youre getting your diet down better, and often thyroid takes a little while to raise naturally...it fluctuates based on your intake over time...so you have to hammer home the point of good diet/calories for it to raise. The first couple days it was cold here I woke up freezing, but now maybe a couple weeks in my body has adjusted and I am able to handle it pretty, surprisingly, easy so far ( a stark turnaround from last year). Even tho the days are shorter, and its harder to get out of bed, make sure you still get in enough calories by day to keep sending your body the right signals. You could get a light thermal or robe that you can wear around the house and take on and off easily, or get a space heater for your bedroom and just turn it on before you sleep, then for like an hour when you wake up to get rolling. Ive been getting as much sun as I can recently, and ive found warming myself in the sun for an hour seems to carry all day...like I become much more resilient to the cold. I don't know if its a vit D or some kind of light benefit, but it definitely helps. Wishing the best...I pheer the winter now due to these past couple years...but this one doesn't seem so bad so far, so I think the fact ive been consistently getting a lot of T supporting nutrients and sunlight has helped. Theres always warm showers that can help shift you for a little while...and get a warm blanket for at night! (im sure you have!)

I will definitely need to up my caloric intake for winter - that's for sure!! When it's cold, I definitely have stronger cravings (especially for SFA). And I agree about the body adjusting. I HATED the cold and snow and after a year spent in Saint Petersburg, Russia through two dark and cold winters, I learned to actually appreciate it and enjoy winter. And my tolerance for cold definitely grew. The thing is, the hormonal changes I've gone through since then make me very sensitive to the change in season. But I will adjust!!

And I agree - getting out in the sun, even when it's cold is super important!
 

HDD

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I seem to have a histamine reaction when cold fronts push through. Very weird but it is real. I had allergy symptoms ..itchy eyes, sneezy, falling asleep ...then following a day and a half of that, arthritis type pain and tight, sore neck and shoulder muscle. I took a Benadryl last night and the pain and other symptoms are gone today. Coincidence?

Love your hat Lindsay! Not much opportunity to wear cute hats in Florida. :(
 
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lindsay

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HDD said:
I seem to have a histamine reaction when cold fronts push through. Very weird but it is real. I had allergy symptoms ..itchy eyes, sneezy, falling asleep ...then following a day and a half of that, arthritis type pain and tight, sore neck and shoulder muscle. I took a Benadryl last night and the pain and other symptoms are gone today. Coincidence?

Love your hat Lindsay! Not much opportunity to wear cute hats in Florida. :(

Yes - I had that happen last week. I will have to remember to take some benadryl then! Fortunately, the joint pain has subsided. I think it was partially related to some new walking sneakers that I bought - apparently my knees don't like them.

And thanks! The hat keeps me going through winter - when temps reach like 10 degrees, it is the best.
 
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lindsay

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BingDing said:
Oooooh. Great idea lindsay.

42617chin.jpg

I got my hat from a cheap market in Saint Petersburg, but it's real rabbit fur (I have a fox one too that is more stylish) with leather upper and it was worth every single penny!
 

fyo

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jyb said:
I find that a single 300W incandescent is absolutely not a replacement to sun, in terms of brightness. I say this because often I let the bulb shine on my face for a while before stepping outside. In winter with the sun out, I feel my eyes adjusting to the brightness while stepping outside. I think this suggests that the body was still largly in the dark: the bulb was insufficient.

The spectrum of an incandescent bulb and sunlight are different.
spectral_responses2.png


I think its the blue aspect which most triggers that sort of eye-response. I base that on studies showing how blue spectrum interrupts the natural hormonal process that occur with prolonged darkness (e.g. pre-sleep), while red spectrum does not. Those studies are on this forum somewhere. I also have my own experience in feeling a big difference between looking at a pure red light source (my monitor, tuned to only red output) vs other light sources (like my monitor, with normal/blue color range). Its similar to when I wake up in the morning and feel uncomfortable with light until my eyes adjust.

All this is to say I don't think eye-adjustment to sunlight necessarily means there's something better about sunlight than incandescent. Although there is vitamin D in sunlight and I generally find sunlight to be nicer since its stronger and covers my entire body.
 

pboy

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so ive noticed something interesting in the past week...few days actually. Ive basically been having the same diet every day for a long time, when it was hot until now...and ive noticed some interesting things during the weather change. I consume probably like 80-85 grams of fat, and ive had this inkling that the fat wasn't actually being that well absorbed, not an issue of sorts, but I could tell. I noted this a while back when id consume a lot of cream and ghee, stool would proportionally get larger, and more saponified in nature...slippery like soap. So basically these last few days, maybe a week since its been cold...ive pretty much had little heat on, just dealing with it with clothes on, and I started smelling apple juice smell...im almost certain its ketones, and stools have been same pattern but like half the size or less, so basically I think the body has exact mechanisms to absorb fat only if it needs it for heat energy, and if you don't need it it will pretty likely just get passed out as waste. This further proves to me that fat people aren't actually 'fat' from fat, its almost certainly, almost all, retained water. The PUFAS might make skin thick and greasy but I don't think theyd ever actually cause obesity...considering also that they are laxatives and therefore are controlled in absorption also. Peeps might not believe me, but ive witnessed it myself. I track total fluid/volume intake and out, I did this for a long time and still sometimes do, so I always know if im holding water or not and about how much. Even when I was eating not enough, less or around 2000 calories, if I drank too much water id retain it and I could see how if that went on, like I didn't correct it, it would appear as a bulge. Ive actually peed out over 400oz of water within a week span once, that was 400oz over what I was taking in. If you calculate that in weight, its like 26 pounds, and ive always been really thin...so that should tell you something. I just looked more toned in limbs, hands, feet, face. I think water is a serious, serious issue that isn't talked about. Im surprised even Peat doesn't mention more on it. Water is heavy dead weight that requires energy to move out. As for actual energy sources, the body regulates that extremely easy. I mean think about it, diabetics urinate out sugar...so even if you cant use it it can still just be urinated out. Fat = water retention...at least 90% of it...and this also indicates why restricing calories or trying to 'burn off fat' is useless, and usually harmful. You aren't needing to 'burn off fat', youre needing to give your body a lot of hypertonic energy so it can eliminate a lot or retained water.
I felt like I would share this, because personally im fine weight wise, but I strive to understand the body in all its complexities, and I think a lot of other people might find this useful. I don't make claims like this without rigorous, time tested, intense self experimentation

also to add, ive found dealing with winter easier if I wake up a bit earlier and start taking in calories earlier in the day...get a jump start on it. If I wake up later, the whole day is kind of a struggle to maintain enough calorie intake and still take care of all I need to do
 
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lindsay

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pboy said:
so ive noticed something interesting in the past week...few days actually. Ive basically been having the same diet every day for a long time, when it was hot until now...and ive noticed some interesting things during the weather change. I consume probably like 80-85 grams of fat, and ive had this inkling that the fat wasn't actually being that well absorbed, not an issue of sorts, but I could tell. I noted this a while back when id consume a lot of cream and ghee, stool would proportionally get larger, and more saponified in nature...slippery like soap. So basically these last few days, maybe a week since its been cold...ive pretty much had little heat on, just dealing with it with clothes on, and I started smelling apple juice smell...im almost certain its ketones, and stools have been same pattern but like half the size or less, so basically I think the body has exact mechanisms to absorb fat only if it needs it for heat energy, and if you don't need it it will pretty likely just get passed out as waste. This further proves to me that fat people aren't actually 'fat' from fat, its almost certainly, almost all, retained water. The PUFAS might make skin thick and greasy but I don't think theyd ever actually cause obesity...considering also that they are laxatives and therefore are controlled in absorption also. Peeps might not believe me, but ive witnessed it myself. I track total fluid/volume intake and out, I did this for a long time and still sometimes do, so I always know if im holding water or not and about how much. Even when I was eating not enough, less or around 2000 calories, if I drank too much water id retain it and I could see how if that went on, like I didn't correct it, it would appear as a bulge. Ive actually peed out over 400oz of water within a week span once, that was 400oz over what I was taking in. If you calculate that in weight, its like 26 pounds, and ive always been really thin...so that should tell you something. I just looked more toned in limbs, hands, feet, face. I think water is a serious, serious issue that isn't talked about. Im surprised even Peat doesn't mention more on it. Water is heavy dead weight that requires energy to move out. As for actual energy sources, the body regulates that extremely easy. I mean think about it, diabetics urinate out sugar...so even if you cant use it it can still just be urinated out. Fat = water retention...at least 90% of it...and this also indicates why restricing calories or trying to 'burn off fat' is useless, and usually harmful. You aren't needing to 'burn off fat', youre needing to give your body a lot of hypertonic energy so it can eliminate a lot or retained water.
I felt like I would share this, because personally im fine weight wise, but I strive to understand the body in all its complexities, and I think a lot of other people might find this useful. I don't make claims like this without rigorous, time tested, intense self experimentation

also to add, ive found dealing with winter easier if I wake up a bit earlier and start taking in calories earlier in the day...get a jump start on it. If I wake up later, the whole day is kind of a struggle to maintain enough calorie intake and still take care of all I need to do

Pboy - that's really interesting and I think there is a lot of validity to what you are saying. I think essentially, for women it's the estrogen that causes the water weight to come on in the first place. Menstruating females who have PMS will often notice that prior to "that time of the month" they gain water weight and feel bloated. Once that time has past, the body goes back to normal. I think RP's remedy for water weight gain in general is always just eat more salt, but I'm sure it's not that simple.

What does your diet look like at this point in time? I'm just curious, as you said your digestion is much better. For me, learning to control digestive upset is what keeps estrogen in check.
 

Zachs

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I see what your saying, pboy and I think generally when you are at a pretty lean weight, almost all fluctuation in weight is water. I wouldn't say that someone weighing in at 300lbs just has 150lbs of water retention though. That person is obviously metabolically broken and fat is being accumulated as a sort of safety mechanism.

Personally at 10% bf~ I see immediate changes in water retention if I don't eat enough calories or do something over stressful like not get enough sleep. Face and body look body, abs disappear, vascular it's disappears, etc. sometimes the most defined I look is after a huge meal and a restful sleep, showing that water can be moved and excreted extremely fast.
 

jyb

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fyo said:
All this is to say I don't think eye-adjustment to sunlight necessarily means there's something better about sunlight than incandescent. Although there is vitamin D in sunlight and I generally find sunlight to be nicer since its stronger and covers my entire body.

Great graphs. And intuitively I think you're correct about eye adjustement being tied to blue light and not necessarily a good thing: the adjustement protects against something that could harm, and the harm in light comes from the lower end.

Maybe a little bit of blue light the morning does help to schedule the internal clock, however? If you stayed in your house all day with lights from incandescents only, I wonder if it wouldn't mess up the clock, start delaying the sleep onset by a bit each day.
 

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- The Prehistoric Development of Clothing: Archaeological Implications of a Thermal Model

"Of our three fundamental behavioral adaptations—the use of fire, shelter, and clothing—it is the acquisition of portable personal insulation that ultimately determines whether humans can occupy cold environments on a sustained basis."

"The principles and experimental findings relating to human responses to cold exposure have been detailed in an extensive literature over the years (e.g., Newburgh 1949; Burton and Edholm 1955; Fanger 1970; Hensel 1981; Collins 1983; Clark and Edholm 1985; Young 1996; Jessen 2001; Parsons 2003; Golant et al. 2008). Physiologically, primates in general are better adapted to tropical rather than temperate climates. The thermal “comfort zone” for nonhuman primates is similar to ours, although mild cold exposure is better tolerated by monkeys (Myers 1971). Unlike adult humans, other primates have brown fat which can be metabolized for heat on exposure to cold. Nonetheless, even when protected by a substantial layer of body hair, primates (including humans) possess—by mammalian standards—a limited physiological capacity to cope with cold."

"While humans have vigorous and effective cooling responses to heat, of which sweating is the most evident, our physiological adjustments to cold are sluggish and ineffective (Hardy et al. 1971). The role of reduced hair cover in our greater vulnerability to cold is shown by the fact that cold tolerance among warm-blooded animals is largely a function of body fur thickness. The cold limit for rabbits, for example, is around −45°C, but the limit rises towards 0°C when their fur is removed. The feathers of birds are similarly crucial to their tolerance of cold: doves can exist at −40°C for days, but freeze after only 20–30 min at this temperature without their feathers (Hensel et al. 1973)." @LucH @Birdie

"Optimal thermal conditions for unclothed adult modern humans are indeed tropical: the body begins to react to cold once the temperature falls below 27°C (Edholm 1978, p. 26). As the ambient temperature falls below 20°C, physiological defenses become pronounced (Clark and Edholm 1985, p. 156). These include raising the metabolic rate as well as reducing blood flow to the skin, especially over the exposed limbs where surface area is greatest in relation to body volume. For an unclothed human standing still in wind-free conditions, shivering begins at around 13°C (Hardy et al. 1971); this contrasts with the Arctic fox, which does not shiver until the temperature falls below −40°C. If there is any wind, the wind chill index means that the effective temperature and duration of safe exposure are reduced (Siple and Passel 1945, pp. 181–187; Quayle and Steadman 1998). With moderate wind velocities of 10 m/s, temperatures below 0°C are dangerous to unclad humans in the open, and high wind speeds render fire and shelter less effective."

"The adult human body core has a temperature around 37°C :pray, and death occurs if it falls below 29°C. Once the core temperature drops below 35°C, hypothermia begins and can lead rapidly to death if not reversed. Nowadays, this results mainly from exposure in mountainous terrains and at sea, but it can occur even in urban areas, especially among the homeless and the elderly, as documented in medical reports (e.g., Pugh 1966; Tanaka and Tokudome 1991; Koljonen et al. 2004). Exposure can also cause localized tissue injury, the most well-known being frostbite in which freezing of tissue fluids leads to permanent damage. The result is gangrene, unless the area involved is rewarmed and circulation is restored in sufficient time. Frostbite affects mainly the fingers, toes, ears, and the nose. It can occur with short-term exposure to temperatures no lower than −10°C and with prolonged exposure to temperatures even a little above 0°C (Frazier 1945, pp. 252–253; Burton and Edholm 1955, p. 231; Smith 1970; Murphy et al. 2000). A milder form of cold injury is chilblain (or pernio), associated with painful swellings, which, although rarely progressing to widespread loss of skin tissue, may develop into serious ulcers (Golant et al. 2008, p. 706)."

"Cold tolerance can be improved through acclimatization, seen especially among routinely unclothed populations (e.g., Wyndham and Morrison 1958; Steegmann 1975; Mathew et al. 1981). Other biological adaptations can arise in the longer term, including morphological changes such as altered body proportions that reduce heat loss, seen, for instance, among Australian Aborigines living in cooler southern areas (Gilligan and Bulbeck 2007). However, acclimatization and other biological adjustments are “of little use during intense and continuous exposure” and the human thermoregulatory system is, in its capacity to respond to cold, “definitely inferior to that of other mammals” (Jessen 2001, p. 152)."

"Humans can adapt to cold, but only down to a “critical level” (Hensel 1981, p. 220). Air temperatures exist below which hypothermia begins within a few hours, and more rapidly with even a slight breeze. While many variables influence cold tolerance and clothing requirements (e.g., Steadman 1984, 1995) and there is no single temperature point that can be termed a fixed “limit” as such, the short-term safety limit for modernday humans without clothes occurs at around −1°C. For habitually unclothed humans who are fully acclimatized, cold tolerance can however extend to around −5°C."

"The thermal insulating properties of clothing are documented in studies of clothing physiology (e.g., Siple 1945; Newburgh 1949; Fourt and Hollies 1970; Hensel 1981; Watkins 1984). It is not the material of clothing that diminishes heat loss as much as pockets of air trapped next to the skin. The natural fur of other mammals works in the same manner, trapping warm air between the fibers."

"Heat loss within [] layers can be minimized by having garments properly shaped or fitted. Any movement of air, even within the layers of clothing, reduces its thermal effectiveness. Besides wind, the other aspect of air movement is body motion. Just as wind reduces [thermal resistance] values dramatically, so can physical activity. Insulation is reduced by up to 50% when walking briskly; activity also creates a “bellows” effect that disrupts the air within clothing and increases sweating (Fourt and Hollies 1970, pp. 42–44), with sweat accumulation being a major limitation on the thermal effectiveness of clothing during outdoor activity (e.g., Huang 2006)."

"While it may seem incongruous to be concerned about sweating in ice age environments, any physical activity within the warm microenvironment of the clothed body generates considerable heat and sweating. This can result in clothes becoming wet with perspiration, diminishing thermal insulation due to evaporative cooling (Forbes 1949) and exacerbating the chilling effect of wind up to 16 times (Fourt and Harris 1949, pp. 310–316)."

"The heavier the clothing, the sooner sweating begins and the more profuse is the sweating that accompanies physical activity (Jeong and Tokura 1989), as early European explorers in the Arctic soon discovered (Buijs 1997, p. 17). Indigenous clothes made from caribou skins, for example, are comparatively light and are less prone to absorbing perspiration than woolen garments (Stenton 1991, pp. 7–9)."

"Moisture (whether derived externally from rain or snow or internally from perspiration) also displaces the trapped air in clothing, reducing insulation, so clothing must remain dry as well as permeable, despite the risk of wind penetration (Burton and Edholm 1955, p. 69). Shelter becomes important—from rain and snow, as well as wind. Closely fitted garments provide superior protection from wind chill, but then degree of permeability becomes more of an issue. Animal furs differ in their resistance to wind penetration: the coats of kangaroos, for instance, are more resistant than those of deer (Cena and Clark 1978, pp. 581–582). In general, garments made from woven fabrics are more “breathable” and hence more tolerant of perspiration. Except in extreme wind chill conditions, woven textiles confer a real advantage compared to hides and furs (e.g., Wang et al. 2007b). It is noticeable that textiles became the preferred material for clothes in temperate and tropical regions after the ice age, during the warmer and more humid climatic regimes of the early Holocene (Gilligan 2007b, p. 14)."

"The most obvious aspect of our cold susceptibility is a reduced mass of body hair compared to most other mammals. Birds and mammals maintain high and relatively constant body temperatures by endothermic (heat-generating) methods and reduce heat loss by means of feathers or fur. The monotremes (platypus and echidna) and marsupials (e.g., possums and kangaroos) tend to have lower body temperatures and metabolic rates and can tolerate lower environmental temperatures (Dawson 1973). Aquatic and amphibious mammals, ranging from diving otters to polar bears and whales, are more tolerant of cold than land mammals, and many are protected from the severe thermal stress of water by thick water-proof fur (Fanning and Dawson 1984). Those that are hairless, such as whales and porpoises, are adapted for cold by having very high metabolic rates and thick layers of insulating fat (Irving 1973). The hippopotamus is a special case, being a large naked land mammal that uses amphibious habits to keep cool in the tropical heat. The naked mole rat of eastern Africa is also unusual in this regard, but these ectothermic, eusocial rodents live in warm underground burrows with a stable ambient temperature of around 30°C. They rarely need to cope with cold, which they achieve by basking in warmer soil and huddling together in groups (Alexander 1991; Sherman et al. 1992)."

"Although some other mammals are hairless, modern humans are certainly unusual in having lost their fur without acquiring specific compensatory mechanisms to conserve body heat in cold conditions. It may be true that we have the same number of hair follicles as most other extant primates (Montagna 1985) and have more hair on the scalp and in the groin, but we have a greatly reduced volume of body hair for our size."

"In evolutionary biology, a long and largely speculative debate has continued since Darwin's time as to the reason our ancestors lost the cover of body fur that typifies mammals in general." "Darwin held that a reduced cover of hair was of no “direct advantage” to our ancestors, perhaps even “in a slight degree injurious,” but was inherited because it was sexually esteemed, as with “the plumes of some birds” (Darwin 1871, 2, pp. 376–377). To support this idea he cited sexual dimorphism, males being relatively more hirsute. Another view that continues to enjoy widespread popularity (e.g., Lupi 2008, p. 10) is that reduced fur cover led to reduced heat stress on the African Savannah, but body hair also insulates against heat, serving as portable shade (Newman 1970). This explains the retention of head hair (cf. Neufeld and Conroy 2004) and our copious—and, in terms of water requirements, expensive—capacity for sweating to compensate for the additional heat stress. The disadvantage of reduced body hair on the savannah may have been offset by bipedalism, as Wheeler (1996) suggests. Other theories posited (and resurrected) over the years include the aquatic and parasitic hypotheses, but all have obvious weaknesses and, at the present time, the adaptive significanceif any of our reduced fur cover remains debatable (Rantala 2007)."
:hairpull

"[Wowever, neither] natural nor sexual selection need have played a direct, active role in the emergence of nakedness: perhaps, it was selectively neutral, at least at the outset. One distinct possibility is that it could have evolved passively as part of a general trend in hominin evolution towards pedomorphism or neoteny (De Beer 1940; Montagu 1962; Groves 1989, pp. 310–314; cf. Churchill 1998). This means that ontogenic development is delayed and mature adults of a species retain child-like traits. Our lack of fur, large brain, and some anatomical aspects of upright posture may be developmentally juvenile, but the question arises as to what overall advantage this might have conferred. One suggestion is that it could comprise part of an ecological strategy known as K-selection where low reproductive rates and long life spans are favored in stable, generally tropical environments; in hominins, the prolonged infant learning that this permitted may have enhanced socialization and behavioral flexibility (Gould 1977, pp. 320–324, 344–351, 399–404). Whatever its causes, the heightened risk of hypothermia that accompanied a reduction in fur cover was probably of little consequence for early African hominins, yet it was to assume great significance as their descendants spread out from the tropics during the Pleistocene."

"The advent of clothing—especially complex clothing—set in train a series of technological innovations and other repercussions that have transformed the human world and, increasingly, the world around us. Despite being a prominent material sign of our modern distinctiveness, clothing has been largely ignored in the discipline of prehistory. Among the reasons for this neglect are poor archaeological visibility and the decoupling of complex clothing from its thermal origins, compounded by a traditional emphasis on the social purposes of clothing at the expense of its physiological functions and effects. These last extend beyond thermal insulation and include the perceptual, psychological, and psychosocial effects of routinely covering the skin, our largest sensory organ. Skin mediates much of our sensory experience and information-gathering about our surroundings and serves as the main interface between us and the physical world (Jablonski 2006, pp. 1–2). Tactile sensation, for example, is crucial to normal mammalian development, and the routine wearing of clothes will inhibit tactile contacts between humans and reduce sensory appreciation of the environment (e.g., Montagu 1986, pp. 181–182), with the potential to alter fundamental interpersonal, social, and environmental relationships."

"This has implications for the development of altered cognitive styles underlying certain elements of behavioral modernity that subsequently can be transmitted at a cultural level, almost independently of clothing (although discussion of these aspects lies outside the scope of this paper). While the nonthermal functions and effects of clothing became increasingly significant towards the terminal Pleistocene and into the Holocene, thermal considerations are nevertheless implicated in the widespread postglacial shift to the use of woven textiles. Production of natural fibers for textile clothing was a prominent aspect of early agriculture and may constitute a viable basis in its own right for this economic transition that proved pivotal to the rise of urban societies (Gilligan 2007b)."

"Archaeologically invisible though it may appear, clothing is arguably of great importance to key issues in human prehistory. The focus in this paper has been restricted to outlining a thermal model for its prehistoric origins and for the subsequent emergence of complex clothing (Fig. 20). Thermal parameters—physiological and environmental—provide a means for inferring the presence of clothing, and technological considerations provide a method for tracking its development archaeologically. The technological correlates are predictable and visible and draw attention to the environmental context of major paleolithic trends, many of which may relate primarily to innovations in clothing."​



Postscript: I don't know why many fashion designers when intending to make futuristic clothes add metalic parts and defined geometric shapes, also leave edges, multiple layers and surpluses. This would be more accurate and down-to-earth:

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