“My knees felt 100 per cent better,” she said. “It was working on the inflammation in my knees right out of the gate.”
She told herself that if she could stick to the cold plunges, she could stick to other things as well.
“I figured if I could discipline myself to do that every day for four minutes, I could certainly discipline myself to get down from 260 pounds to 200, which I’ve succeeded in losing 60 pounds in the last year.”
She isn’t suggesting that the cold water makes you lose weight. Instead, she’s using the same discipline created by the cold plunges to also help her keep her diet in a calorie deficit, and that’s what leads to weight loss.
Research into the health benefits of cold-water immersion is still developing, and evidence supporting many of its purported benefits remains limited. Sudden exposure to very cold water can also cause a rapid increase in heart rate and blood pressure and may pose additional risks for people with heart or circulation conditions. Health experts recommend people with underlying medical conditions speak with a health-care provider before trying cold-water immersion.
Kowtek is approaching her 60th birthday and has a photo of herself on her 58th birthday, immersed in water with ice floating on top, wearing a warm hat and eating cake.
It was –30 C that day, and her son waited nearby with slippers and a towel, mindful of the risk that comes with prolonged exposure to extreme cold.
While at first, the chest freezer she took her plunges in was outside in the backyard, eventually the freezer was moved into the basement for a little more safety.
“My husband realized how serious I was about cold plunging because I was doing it outside at 20 below. And I couldn’t get in the door. My hand would stick to the doorknob. And so I was having to be really careful to come in. It was almost dangerous. But he’s like, you know what? Pretty sure this girl is really serious about how she wants to cold plunge.”
Kowtek described herself as a ‘water baby’ who was born in Nova Scotia and exposed to cold water at a young age. She then moved to the West Coast before ending up in Saskatchewan.
She no longer plunges alone as her husband Earl took up the challenge about six months after she started.
Kowtek first discovered the concept watching a young Swedish woman do an even more hard core version of it.
“You know how Swedes are, right? They love their cold water. And she would actually cut a hole in the ice and go in. And I thought, oh my goodness, if this woman can cut a hole in the ice, I certainly can go in some cold water. And it just intrigued me. Absolutely intrigued me.”
Her biggest takeaway is that the icy baths just make her feel great and she loves the challenge.
“There’s your hit of dopamine and all your feel good hormone, you know, just, yeah, it’s, it’s, I’m alive. I wake right up. I am alive, let me tell you.”
People that aren’t sure they want to take a cold plunge themselves can practice in their morning shower by turning the water all the way to cold, Kowtek suggested.
“It just wakes you right up, but it’s at a mental level, a physical level, emotional level. Yeah, it just hits everything. It hits all the good feel goods.”
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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com