If you want to lose weight without doing crazy workouts, you may have considered a sauna. Saunas are relaxing, healthy, and above-all-else a great way to help you get in shape! But how much weight can you lose in a sauna?
Look no further for the answer!
How Much Weight Can You Lose in a Sauna?
Saunas will help you lose weight, but they won’t help you lose body fat. The heat will help get you sweating, which will help you lose a decent amount of water weight. But water weight only makes up about five pounds at a time and is replaced when you hydrate.
A brief sauna session can lose you around a pound of water weight. If you stay long enough you could lose up to five pounds, but it’s not recommended. Staying in a sauna any longer than 20 minutes maximum isn’t good for you, and could be detrimental to your health.
Saunas dehydrate you pretty fast. If you want to lose more with a sauna, you should get out every 20 minutes, hydrate, and go back in after you’ve cooled down. Losing weight is never worth risking your long-term health.
The best way to lose weight with a sauna is to use it in addition to a workout. Do your regular exercise, hydrate, then get in the sauna and get sweating.
Does the Sauna Make Weight Loss Easier?
While you may not lose a lot of weight through the sauna alone, it does help you lose weight and burn calories over time.
The increased heat level of the sauna will increase your metabolic rate by around 20%, and heart rate by about 30%. That means an increase in calorie burn. This metabolic boost will even last a few hours outside of the sauna!
If you sit in a sauna after workouts, you’ll boost the effects of your workout and lose a little extra water weight.
Saunas also help you detoxify. When you sweat, your body pushes out unwanted minerals, such as lead, copper, zinc, and mercury. Using the sauna will help clear out your lymphatic system, which will give you more energy to exercise over time.
It’ll also help you burn fat more efficiently!
Less Stress, Less Weight
There’s actually a connection between stress and weight gain. High-stress levels raise your cortisol level, which in turn makes you hungrier. Stress can also reduce motivation, leading you to skip your workouts.
Eating more and not working out, you guessed it, is a good recipe for weight gain. However, the sauna might be able to help.
Saunas are great stress relievers and help you reach a meditative state. They release endorphins through your system, which directly counteract cortisol. Therefore, using the sauna will help you lower your stress levels, help you feel less hungry, and help you get motivated to work out.
Saunas Help You Work out Longer
Spending time in a sauna has some pretty great effects on your respiratory system. It increases the production of vasodilator nitric oxide. These dilate your blood vessels and increase blood flow, meaning they’ll help you work out harder in the long run.
If you’re able to work out longer and harder, you’re going to lose more weight. Simple as that.
One study even found that runners who used saunas saw a 32% increase in their endurance and stamina. That’s nothing to scoff at, showing how anyone dedicated to weight loss can benefit from using the sauna.
Heal Your Muscles, Work out More
The worst part about a long and hard workout is sore muscles. These can last for a few days at a time for those who are just starting, which can discourage further gym time. Thankfully, saunas can help with this, too!
A lot of athletes hit the sauna to reduce muscle strain. Those same endorphins that help reduce stress also help reduce soreness throughout your body. Increased blood flow rejuvenates your muscles, and helps eliminate lactic acid and toxins.
All of this, plus stress relief and relaxation helps heal your muscles in time for the next work out. You can even do this before a workout to feel more immediate muscle relief. However, it’s usually better to hit the sauna after a workout to increase the effects of your workout.
Consider Sauna Type
There are two basic types of sauna: Steam and infrared. But which one helps more with weight loss?
Steam saunas generally seem hotter because of the humidity, but that doesn’t mean more weight loss or benefits. Infrared saunas use infrared wavelengths to heat up the room, usually to around 145°. This is more comfortable for a lot of people and gets you sweating just as good.
Infrared saunas offer all the benefits of any other sauna, such as stress relief, detoxification, muscle relief, and an energy boost. These benefits could be increased from the use of the infrared lights, though. One study showed a 444% increase in fat and weight loss for bikers who used an infrared sauna!
If you want a full rundown of the difference between steam and infrared, you can compare here.
The Bottom Line
Regular use of a sauna can and will help you lose weight, but not in the way you may have expected. Losing weight is never quite as simple as sitting in a hot room and sweating. You need to put in the effort, exercise hard, and eat well to lose those extra pounds and get in shape.
So, the answer to how much weight can you lose in a sauna is not much on its own. You can, however, lose a lot more weight by complementing your workouts with a nice, relaxing sauna afterward. The benefits will shock you, and change the way you view weight loss.
Have you gotten any positive results from using a sauna? Let me know in the comments below.
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