UKH

Can any one tell me why I go very shivery after a day in the hills? Even though the weather was dry sunny and breezy. I recently did 15 miles in the peak district with 1000 metres ascent but felt like I was suffering hypothermia after coming down. I am 61 and have been a part time hillwalker for 20 years now. I took nut mix with me cacao drink a snickers bar and a coke drink along with a litre of water. This has happened on and off over many years. 

I sometimes get this after a run in winter. I assume it's because my body is using energy to repair any damage and generally recover from the exertion so not putting effort into warming me up. I don't actually know though. My heart rate drops for a while after a run to lower than my usual resting rate.

First thought is some sort of diabetes related hypo/hyper state?

The short answer is I don't know, I would recommend talking to your doctor or other health professional about it.

    However, I sometimes get possibly the same thing after , what for me is, a very long day. Typically in the alps, a big day out in winter or after a longer mountain run in the summer. I usually put it down to energy depletion, possibly dehydration. To help reduce this I tend to do the following:

1) Keep an extra insulation layer and a flask of hot drink and a snack in the car for once returned from the hill and suddenly becoming static. Sometimes changing into a fresh, dry base layer helps too.

2) Keep small snacks in pockets for a regular top up whilst on the move. I try to avoid snacks that are very dry. I find cheese and sausage works especially well in the alps.

3) Add some squash and maybe a small amount of salt to the water I carry or sometimes add an energy supplement powder to the water.

4) Ensure I am well hydrated the night and morning before a big day.

Hope this helps...

'A Snickers bar and a bag of nuts' doesn't sound much food for a 15 mile walk with a thousand metres of asecent.  I guess you'd have burned up most of the glycogen in your muscles and would be burning fat.  Are you sure you're eating enough?

Having said that, when we used to do 6 hr caving trips on a cooked breakfast and a mars bar (mid trip), i'd be knackered at the end but not hypothermic.   I wonder if something else is going on?

My body doesn't regularly temperature very well. When exercising I got hot, so generally walk with relatively thin clothing, but when i stop i quickly chill and really struggle to get warm again.

I have to found the solution is to put on a warm layer (think belay jacket) whenever I stop, be that for food or on getting back to the vehicle. This feels uncomfortably warm, but gives my body the chance to cool/adjust slowly and avoids the shivers.

Agree with others about food though. For a full day out I'd be looking at more food overall, but a lot less sugar. 

Are you getting sunburnt?  If you pick up enough sun, your body will drop your core temperature to protect itself from the burns.

Possibly add exhaustion and so an inability to generate enough body heat?

Can only agree about talking to the doc and although everyone is different I agree with others - that amount of  'food' does not look anywhere enough for 15 miles and 1000 metres.

Dave

Thanks Neil. I'm thinking the sun may have something to do with it and the breeze wicking away at body temp. I was worried regarding a diabetic problem but lots of good tips in the replies to look at as well. 

Snap! This sounds identical to my clothing strategy. I make a point of nibbling something every 90 minutes when out on any sort of long day.

Even if you hardly stop, keep things in your pocket to eat. Fuel in definitely reduces hypothermia for me

Cheers. I will contact the doc and up the calorific intake. 

More food more layers then. Sounds good to me. Cheers. 

Will confront the quack. Cheers. 

Thanks. I guess it's to easy sometimes to forget to take the fuel and fluid on board when your having a great day and the weather is fine. I'll add some adjustment with more calories along the way and at the finish with food and a quilted jacket and see what happens. 

On the contrary, if you get hot while exercising, you are either unfit for that exercise (which I very highly doubt), or your body is extremely efficient at getting rid of the heat produced from the energy consumption during exercise. It then makes sense that you will cool rapidly in thin clothes unless you layer up. That sounds like a well functioning physiological and heat regulating body that you inhabit!

I'm 33 and I ran a hilly marathon the other day (just under 1000m ascent) for the first time. Took about 5.5 hours and I had lots of breaks, I ate loads of food and I was a coughing, shivering mess for the rest of the evening when I got home.

I was warm enough throughout the run.

It felt to me it was just because I was bloody well knackered.

had your thyroid checked recently?

I think it's because our many complex regulating systems function at different speeds. Blood pressure has to be able to change fast for fight or flight. Temperature regulation is slower. Stopping after a long period of high energy output, blood pressure falls quickly, and although we've stopped generating a lot of heat, we are slow to adapt to the new situation. So hands and feet get cold. Hot bath sorts it out.

I thought it was natural to get hot and sweaty and red in the face when you exercise?  Maybe I am just very good at getting rid of heat.  I've sometimes noticed myself "steaming" at the end of a session if I happen to be in a cool part of the room or if I go outside, and always found it a bit odd that nobody else does...

And on my early morning runs it's typical to get back hot and sweaty, have a shower and then to feel my core temperature drop to point where I have to wrap up for a couple of hours.

I don't really know what it 'normal' though.  Don't feel any worse for it and it usual regulates within 2 to 3 hours.

remove boots, admire steam rising from boots and feet!

It is a weird thing to witness though.  I'm quite a chunky bugger and not the fittest so there's been a couple of times I've been at the climbing wall in winter, sweated my arse off getting up a wall and then when I've got back down I've noticed steam really coming off me.  Another time at the gym when I've sat in a cool area after a workout, and same again.  I'm suddenly going like a kettle.

Never noticed it on anyone else, but to be fair I try not to stare at other people in the gym too closely for too long...

No. Why?  What are the symptoms? 

I had half of my thyroid removed because of what turned out to be a benign lump.  It returned to normal quite quickly but after a year or so my thyroxine level started to dip so ever since I've been on levothyroxine, having to step up the dosage over the years though I'm a long way from the maximum.

One of the results, particularly before the levels stabilised at a suitable level, is feeling cold as your metbolism slows down a bit.  It first hit me in the Alps coming down from the Jungfrau - I found I hit a wall recrossing the glaciers back to the hut and simply couldn't recover my energy levels at a normal rate even with food.

Being slower to metabolise food and feeling a bit cold after exercise were symptoms I got particularly when my levels were not correct.

Thyroid dysfunction is startlingly common in the population when you start enquiring .  It's pretty well under control now and doesn't affect me at all except for the routine of taking levothyroxine every day of my life.

Your experience of course could simply be from exertion and your body not catching up as others have said.  I can still do that to myself sometimes too.  But keeping warm does become harder as one gets older.

I noticed this in my 50s and started to change my behaviour to avoid losing heat too rapidly, particularly with windchill - windchill has real meaning as you get older.

I find caffeine is to be avoided in cold windy conditions - I'd take a milky hot chocolate or hot juice or liquorice tea (really excellent ) in preference to coffee - I wonder if it is time to drop the coke?  I also warm my water, wrap the sigg bottle in a woollen scarf meaning that it is still tepid an hour or two later and drink more of it lower down.  A cold drink can be really chilling.

Apparently a 180lb person will burn 140 calories per mile. Let's double that to compensate for the ascent to give a total of 4,200 calories needed for the day in addition to the 2k a sedentary bloke will need, so 6,200 for your day.

Snickers gives 245 calories, coke is 105 calories per 100ml, 100g of nut mix is 600calories, a total of 1000 calories-ish.  I'm pretty sure you've simply run out of quick energy to burn and entered the realms of what a cyclist would term 'a bonk', and a marathon runner 'the wall'.  Had you spent longer out or got injured/caught in bad weather then hypothermia would have been rapid due to your energy deficit - no quick energy to burn = no heat being generated in your cells.  The breeze will have sucked a lot of energy out of you even if it was keeping you cool.  If you perked up as soon as you ate afterwards then that would tally up.  The shivers the next day is your body recovering (or not as the case may be).  Take some sandwiches next time.

Your body is trying to generate heat.

Try more and better food. Cereal bars, fruit, a sandwich etc.. chocolate bars and coke will just give you sugar highs & lows, as your body reacts to the intake. Apart from not being that good nutritionally it increases your diabetes risk. 

Sunny Breezy day. Sun burn will do that at he end of the day. As some one else mentioned it drops your core temp.  I agree on the calorie intake too.  Though if you are carb loaded before you start you may not need too many extras.  I find high sugar foods leave me empty, after the 30min rush, so I try to eat carbs on a longish walks. Butties for me.

If you have a drive home after a walk be sure to layer up in the carpark.  Often feels counterintuitive, but I've got home shivering a few times after forgetting.  You get back sit there taking your boots off sweating, then hop in the drivers seat and your all ready getting cold.  

Best thing when you get home is a long hot shower/bath.  As an ex winter surfer of 30+ years, I can say with confidence that works.  Though if you have sunburn, you still shiver.

I always get very cold after long hard endurance efforts. My body regulation is awful after a big day out.

I also get very cold when I lose weight, I'm not sure it's just an insulation thing. But if I just eat healthy and keep exercising I drop weight pretty fast and I'm constantly cold for a while. So if I'm swimming with my daughter or after a run I'll be freezing. 

For that distance and ascent I would be eating :-

A big meal the night before.

A big bowl of porridge before leaving for the walk.

Taking about 6 rounds or baps of ham and cheese with branston and eating one as I’m getting ready to leave.

Each hour I would have a cereal bar or small mars and some fluid.

Dinner:- most of the butties and a flask of tea and a change of base layer and anything too wet on the top half.

Back at the car:- instant change of the top half clothing and replace with dry fleece etc, then finish the butties and flask before setting off +_ a power kip before driving with the car ticking over and the heating on.

I remember watching a a survival programme with ray mears saying that its importantant we dont exhaust ourselves out in the hills,as this leads to our bodies struggling to keep warm.15 miles plus 1000m of ascent is a fairly hard day out,and depending on fittness if we dont pace ourselves,dont nourish,and dress properly throughout the day paying attension to the changing conditions its seem obvious to me we are going to get uncomfotable one way or another.M y very first hill walk 16 miles over the moors from hebden to howarth in winter,forgot my packup and drink,ran across heptonstall moor fully dressed in fleece and goretex,arrived in howarth feeling cold numb fingers and feeling weak.Huge lesson learned.

Are you getting enough salt? That can leave you feeling a bit odd.

Eat something less sugary with slow release carbs. 15 miles and 1000m isn’t going to deplete your energy that much if you’ve eaten well the week before. but all the sugar isn’t a great long term source for walking. Sounds like you’re getting more tired than you think though. 

Christ, that's a lot!

I'm the opposite. I can't stand walking with food in my stomach. 

My usual (if I can say that after the last year) for a hill day out is no breakfast bar coffee, pack two or three energy (Cliff) bars, dark choc bar and mixed nuts / choc drop mix (Morrissons do some good ones), maybe dried figs & some cheese. Probably eat the first bar after 90-120mins and then something every hour. 

On my way home I might stop at The Cluanie, The Drovers etc. for some chips / veggie burger.

Yep me too, always have, as soon as i have finished a decent run or big ride i need to get into something warm or i get cold really quickly,  also sometimes can take the rest of the day to feel properly warm if i don't warm up immediately after stopping.

I prefer a full tank of fuel. A big bowl of porridge for breakfast, 4 or 5 (dependent on size) egg mayo wholemeal rolls,  a couple of Bounty Bars and a Turkish delight (the latter two items don't freeze solid in winter). I normally have a piece every 90 minutes or so. When I arrive back at the tent/hut/hoose a big plate of carbs with a few large reflective glesses of uisge beatha afterwards. Two years ago walking into Conival and Ben More Assynt I discovered to my horror I had left ma piece box in the fridge back at the hut in Elphin. Ma mate shared one of his thinly spread peanut butter sarnies.  I had to ration myself to a couple of bites with a cuppa every couple of hours.....Ah'll no be daein that again in a hurry. 🙂