Sit around all day gargling ice water instead of exercising or dieting

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mnoodle12
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This has been bugging me... We all know the classic problem about how the consuming ice water burns calories, although if you drink 8 glasses a day it is only 70 calories... I wonder about taking that to the extreme but it is hard to burn much more than that as one can only drink so much water.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/weight-loss/question447.htm

Does the water need to enter the stomach or could one hold ice water without swallowing, then spit it out, to burn the same amount of calories? If you did this with 80 8oz glasses per day could you burn 700 calories? I imagine if anybody would rather sit around spitting out water than exercise, they need to re evaluate... but I want to know if this is possible.
 
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You need to swallow, and if you drink too much water you will definitely die. Instead, you can ice bath regularly or sleep in a cold pool which will make you burn more than 70 kcal.
 
We all know the classic problem about how the consuming ice water burns calories, although if you drink 8 glasses a day it is only 70 calories...

Not so sure about the burning Calories part.

Is it a cold day, hot day, humid day? Thirsty and/or dehydrated?
Are you sweeting buckets or just on the verge of goosebumps and shivering.
That should make a difference whether your body will burn an extra 70 Calories that it would not otherwise do.

Sure, it takes 70 kcal to heat up the water from cold to body temperature, but extra calories being burnt.