Does Sweating Result in Weight Loss

One of the most common myths in fitness is that sweating helps you lose weight and burn more fat. There are lot of weight loss companies that use the technology of steam/sauna baths to make you sweat for weight loss. In reality the weight loss experienced with high temperature is water weight lost through sweating.  Sweating is our body’s natural way of cooling the system. Whenever there is rise in temperature which could be due to physical activity or general increase in temperature we break  in to sweat.

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Let us give you an example of what we mean by losing water weight. Start with weighing yourself. Then sit in a room, in the middle of summer, without a fan and ac. You will sweat a lot due to the heat. After one hour you go and weight yourself. You will see you have lost a few grams on the weighing scale. Now go and drink a litre of water and then weigh your self. You will see that the weighing scale is back to your original weight. A note that it is impossible to put on weight with drinking water as it has zero calories. So now you might be more wise before you sign for a spa weight loss program.

There are genetic and fitness reasons why some people sweat more than the others. For-eg men sweat more than women because women sweat at higher temperatures than men. Then fitter people tend to sweat lesser than non-fit people doing the same physical activity  and lastly overweight people tend to sweat the most is because fat acts like an insulator under the skin that raises the body temperature a lot faster. Read more