Sweating is often linked to hard workouts at the gym, hot weather, or sickness. It's how our body cools down, but does it help us lose weight or burn calories? In this article, we’ll look at how sweating relates to burning calories, losing weight, and staying healthy. We’ll explore if sweating by itself can help you burn calories or lose weight and what you can do to stay healthy while you sweat.

Do You Burn Calories Sweating Without Exercise?

Sweating, on its own, doesn't directly result in significant calorie burning. The body sweats to regulate its temperature when exposed to heat, physical activity, or other factors. However, while the act of sweating itself doesn’t burn substantial calories, it’s essential to understand the physiological process involved.

When you sweat, your body is expending energy to cool down and maintain homeostasis, the balance of body temperature. This process uses up some energy, but it’s minimal compared to the calories burned during physical activity.

Prolonged sweating in hot environments can lead to a small increase in calories burned. For instance, in extreme places like saunas or during hot yoga, your body has to work harder to stay cool, which boosts calorie burn a bit. However, the extra calories burned in these situations are not enough to replace regular exercise or lead to significant weight loss.

Does Sweating With Exercise Mean You Are Burning More Calories?

Generally, higher-intensity exercise causes you to sweat more because the metabolic process of using calories to exercise creates body heat—which triggers sweating. So, sweating with exercise generally reflects that you are burning more calories.

Other indicators of physical exertion during exercise include increased heart rate, faster breathing, deeper breathing, and not feeling like it's easy to talk.

When you exercise hard, everyone's body reacts differently. One difference is how much they sweat. Some people sweat a lot, and others don't sweat as much. How hot and humid it is outside can also make you feel sweatier.

Research from the American Council on Exercise (ACE) shows that the number of calories you burn mostly depends on how hard and how long you work out, not how much you sweat. So, even if you sweat a lot, if you're not exercising intensely, you might not be burning many more calories.

What Does Sweating Do?

Sweating is a complex process that helps regulate the body's internal temperature. The main purpose of sweating is to cool down the body when it gets too hot, either due to exercise or external heat. The sweat glands produce moisture that evaporates from the skin, and this evaporation process has a cooling effect on the body.

Here’s how sweating works:

Activation of Sweat Glands: When your body temperature rises, your brain signals your sweat glands to produce sweat.

Evaporation: The sweat on your skin absorbs heat and evaporates, cooling your body down.

Heat Regulation: The evaporation of sweat helps maintain a healthy body temperature, preventing overheating and potential heat-related illnesses.

Sweat is mostly water, but it also has important stuff like sodium, potassium, and chloride. When you sweat a lot, like when you work out or it's hot, you lose these important things. That's why it's important to drink and get them back into your body.

Other Causes of Sweating

Sweating doesn't just happen when you exercise or when it's hot. There are other reasons that can lead to sweating a lot:

Stress or Anxiety: Emotional stress can trigger the body's fight-or-flight response, causing sweating as part of the stress response.

Hot Weather: Exposure to hot weather can lead to sweating as the body works to cool itself down.

Spicy Foods: Eating spicy food can raise your body temperature, resulting in sweating. This is a response to capsaicin, the compound that gives spicy foods their heat.

Hormonal Changes: Hormonal fluctuations, such as those experienced during pregnancy, menopause, or with thyroid disorders, can lead to sweating.

Some people may sweat too much without the usual triggers like exercise, heat, or stress. This could mean they have a condition called hyperhidrosis. If sweating happens without these common causes, it's a good idea to talk to a healthcare provider for further evaluation.

Illness, Sweating, and Weight Loss

If you develop a fever due to illness—usually a viral or bacterial infection—you might sweat due to the fever as your body tries to fight the infection and cool down. Staying hydrated when you have a fever is important.

When you're sick, you might lose weight because you lose fluids (like from sweating, diarrhea, or throwing up), you might not eat as much, and your body works harder to fight the sickness.

Does Sweating Help You Lose Weight?

Sweating doesn't automatically mean you're losing weight. When you sweat, your body is just cooling down. Weight loss happens when you burn more calories than you eat, usually by eating healthier and exercising.

As we've talked about, intense exercise that makes you sweat can help you lose weight indirectly. Activities like cardio, strength training, cycling, swimming, or running burn calories and help you create a calorie deficit, which is needed for weight loss. However, sweating itself doesn't directly burn fat.

Can You Sweat in a Sauna for Weight Loss?

Using a sauna for weight loss is a common belief, but it's important to know the truth. Saunas make you sweat a lot, but the weight you lose is mostly just water. This means the weight loss is temporary and doesn't come from losing fat.

In a sauna, the heat makes you sweat, which can lead to a temporary drop in body weight because you're losing water. However, this isn't fat loss, and you'll quickly regain that weight once you drink water again. The number of calories burned in a sauna is low compared to doing exercise. Since you'll be sweating and losing fluid, it's important to stay hydrated. Drinking water while in the sauna can help replace the lost fluids.

Saunas can help you relax, recover your muscles, and improve blood flow. However, they're not a good way to lose weight.

Staying Healthy When You Are Sweating

Sweating is normal and good for you. But, sweating too much, especially when working out, can cause you to lose too much water and important minerals. Here's how to stay healthy while sweating:

• Hydrate Frequently: Drink water before, during, and after exercise. If you're engaging in intense physical activity, consider sports drinks to replenish electrolytes lost through sweat.
• Wear Appropriate Clothing: Choose moisture-wicking fabrics that help pull sweat away from your skin and keep you cool.
• Take Breaks in the Shade: If you're exercising outdoors in hot weather, take breaks in the shade to avoid overheating and prevent heat-related illnesses.

• Monitor Your Effort: Using a heart rate monitor, like a Coospo heart rate monitor, can help you keep track of your intensity levels and make sure you're not pushing yourself too hard — especially on hot days. It’s a simple way to stay safe and get the most out of your workouts.