Does Sweating Help Weight Loss?
Does sweating help weight loss?
My, what a stupid question!
Sweating means you’re working hard. And if you’re working hard, that means you’re burning calories. And if you’re burning calories, that means you’re losing weight.
That’s just simple logic, motherfucker!
Even simpler logic says that if you could sweat more, you’d burn even more calories.
And if you burn even more calories, you’ll lose even more weight!
That’s what people think, which is why you’ve thought about working out in a heavy sweatshirt with the hoodie scrunched over your head so you look like Kenny on South Park!
Well, I’m here to tell you to bundle up.
Oh, and don’t forget to do it in the middle of summer, too!
But before you do, let’s consider a few things…
Sweat occurs when the body’s internal temperature rises, with the body responding by releasing fluids on the surface of the skin. The evaporation of that moisture then cools the body down, helping to regulate body temperature.
Now, if you don’t know, calories are units of energy and they’re burned by the body to do work.
What kind of work?
Breathing. Pumping blood throughout the circulatory system. Chewing and swallowing food. Rolling down your window and making death threats at the person who cut you off a block away who now has the (mis)fortune of sitting at the same red light as you.
Basically, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G is work!!!
Because sweating, or cooling the body, is in fact work, the thinking is that raising the internal temperature higher and maintaining it there will cause the burning of more calories, as the body will require more energy to produce more sweat to prevent you from cooking yourself to death.
Sounds about right, right?
Too bad it’s not!
It turns out that the amount of energy — i.e. burning of calories — required for the body to cool itself isn’t appreciable, regardless how high the core temperature becomes.
So sweating DOES NOT help weight loss.
…
Actually, scratch that.
Sweating does help with weight loss, but just not through the process of calorie burn, as is commonly thought.
The sweating process doesn’t burn calories but you can still lose weight via sweating, as many people experience when stepping on a scale after taking their full-body BDSM rubber suit out the closet and deciding to jog in it.
How is this even possible, you say?!
What, do I look like a psychologist?
How the fuck would I know why some people are into BDSM?!
Oooooooh…
…you meant how is it possible to lose weight by sweating when sweating doesn’t have a calorie-burning effect?!
Gotcha!
Let’s think this through.
If sweating is nothing but the release of fluids in response to an increase in core temperature, core temperature staying high will result in the release of more fluids, mostly water.
So, ummmm, since sweating doesn’t burn calories and a greater amount of water is released from the production of more sweat, we can deduce that a scale reading of weight loss reflects a loss of water weight, NOT fat, all of which will be regained when you drink or eat again.
Sweat is an air conditioning — NOT a calorie burn — mechanism. So much like delayed onset muscle soreness isn’t a good indicator of muscle growth, sweating isn’t a good indicator of fat loss.
Nope!
It’s what you do that makes you sweat that causes a reduction in fat, not the sweating itself. Even on that note, you don’t necessarily have to sweat.
Why?
Because, for example, half an hour of weightlifting burns 260 calories, whether you’re working out in layers in the Sahara or butt ass naked in a walk-in freezer.1Check out the benefits of working out naked!
The same number of calories are burned by activity, regardless if you sweat or not. It’s for this reason why you should concern yourself more with other things instead of how close to heat stroke and death you can bring yourself to for no added benefit.
What “other” things?
Well, how about shit that actually affects calorie burn, such as rest periods, poundages, reps, not eating like a recovering anorexic at a buffet?
I know, I know, they all require more effort on your part than simply putting on hot pants, wearing trash bags, or slathering your body up in a “workout enhancer” and then wrapping yourself in cellophane.
The struggle is real!
Glossary: calories, muscle, muscle soreness, summer, work out