Does Sweating Help You Lose Weight?

A lot of people wonder if they can lose weight by sweating. Since sweat contains water and electrolytes, you will lose some amount of weight instantly when you sweat a lot. But this weight will come back as soon as you drink water or eat again. So it is a myth which has become widespread among people. For this reason you can find many people using sweat suits or saunas in order to lose weight quickly.

The myth became popular mainly due to athletes and boxers who wanted to quality for a certain weight category and they induced sweating in order to achieve temporary weight loss. They would wear sweatsuits or sit for hours in a sauna in order to drop pounds. However be warned that this is a very unhealthy practice.

There are many dangers associated with severe sweating in order to lose weight. The dangers include chances of heatstroke, dehydration, extreme loss of electrolytes from the body resulting in kidney damage, cardiovascular related problems. The weight loss through sweating is mostly water loss and not fat loss. Sweating is a physiological reaction of the body to heat.

While you may feel happy at losing a few quick pounds through excessive sweating, you are taxing your body and it could lead to dehydration. Some of the symptoms of dehydration are - thirst, loss of appetite, fatigue, muscle cramps, headaches, weakness, dry skin. After a heavy workout it is important to keep drinking water or an electrolyte drink for the next 30 minutes or so in order to replace the fluids and salts you have lost during the workout.

In order to lose weight successfully you have to burn fat. More sweating does not indicate that you are burning more fat. Individuals are born with 2 to 4 million sweat glands. Moreover, the sweat glands in men are usually more active than those in women. For these reasons you might find someone sweats a lot while another person may not sweat as much even if both are doing equally intense exercise. Don't be worried next time you see someone on a treadmill sweating more than you do. That person may be working harder or may be having a million more sweat glands than you.

So here is my final advice. Instead of sitting in a sauna for hours, increase your level of physical activity. Physical exercises such as running, skipping may also cause you to sweat but you are burning calories at the same time.


There are lots of healthy weight loss tips that you can follow to achieve your ideal weight. To learn more about how to lose weigh fast go to http://www.fatdynamite.com

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