This was the latest from Train Right Nutrition Newsletter:

Cold and Hungry
By Alicia Kendig, CTS Sports Dietitian

Ever feel like you're more famished after a long ride on a cold morning than if you did the same workout during the heat of the day? Do short swimming workouts leave you hungrier than a long run in the heat? Well, it turns out there's a scientific explanation to your cold hunger.

Essentially, your body wants you to eat to help it warm up. By chowing down on food, the body literally burns through energy to digest the intake and metabolize it into a form your body can use or store. And as a result, your body's core temperature naturally increases. Until you reach a nice and comfy body temp, your body will shoot "I'm hungry" messages to your brain which, in turn, will have you reaching for a cinnamon roll. Intellectually, you know you don't need that baked good, but that's not the message your stomach's telling you.

Did you know? The opposite response happens during exercise in hot weather. Instead of feeling like you can scarf down a Thanksgiving turkey, you'll probably have little or no appetite at all. That's because the body is doing everything it can to cool down and eating food, thus generating heat, is not on the immediate agenda. However, it's times like this that you must eat to quickly restore your glycogen, a.k.a. fuel stores, in order to keep your energy levels up and recover.

What does this mean for you? If you're looking to lose or maintain your weight for competition, knowing how to manage the "thermic effect" of food and the hunger signals attached to it will go a long way toward keeping you trim. For example, swimmers have a tendency to over eat right after practice. That's because the cool water keeps the body's core temperature in check. Upon exiting the pool on a cold morning, they'll actually feel cold -- and hungry -- almost immediately. The same effect can hit a cyclist who is underdressed for a long ride on a crisp fall morning. Instead of arriving home feeling warm, they feel chilled to the bone and start eating their way to warmth. In both cases, it'd be better to eat a small high-carbohydrate snack and then sit under a hot shower until they warm up before raiding the pantry.