The Thin Ice Weight Loss Clothing Line, recently backed on
Indiegogo by more than half a million dollars, is designed to trick your body
into thinking you’re cold and burning fat to keep you warm. The team behind
Thin Ice is kicking off the line with two items to target areas of your body
with a lot of thermoreceptors (nerves that detect temperature changes). The
first is a tank top, dubbed a “vest.” The second is a pair of insoles. Peltier
cooling strips (used to cool compact electronics) and the rechargeable battery
that powers them are built in. Both garments connect to the Thin Ice Android or
iOS app using Bluetooth Low Energy so you can see how many calories you’ve
burned and control the temperature.
Turn the temp down and watch the weight fall off, the
company claims.
And don’t worry, you won’t freeze to death: Even if you turn
the temp as low as it will go, the company says you won’t end up shivering. The
cooling mechanism targets specific parts of your body to trick your nervous
system and avoid triggering the shiver response. The science is explained in
depth in Scientific American and the New England Journal of Medicine, among
others. In short, cold triggers your brown adipose tissue (BAT) to consume
lipids (A.K.A. fat) to produce heat, and Thin Ice is designed to affect that
consumption without chilling you enough to cause muscle spasms (shivering).