Do saunas help with weight loss?

Saunas help with weight loss if you are on a comprehensive weight loss plan that also involves dieting and workouts. It accomplishes this by raising your metabolic and heart rates which make you burn calories. However, any notion that saunas could help you lose weight as a stand-alone measure is misinformation.

Everyone burns calories even at rest and this depends on your basal metabolic rate. The number of calories you burn from sitting in a sauna is about 1.5 to 2 times what you burn while at rest at room temperature.

Having given a summary of how sauna help with weight loss, I’ll take it a step further by talking about the best times to have a sauna bath for weight loss, and the use of sauna suits and blankets for weight loss.

How long should you stay in a sauna to lose weight?

The only type of weight loss you can expect to lose in a sauna in a significant amount is water weight and this is only temporary. You regain the lost weight after you rehydrate by taking some water which replaces that lost through sweat.

Going by this type of weight loss, an average of 15 to 20 minutes of sweating in a sauna can make you lose measurable weight. In other words, it can take as short as 20 minutes to lose some weight in a sauna.

The amount of weight you lose by sweating increases with the length of time spent in the sauna, however, it’s not recommended you spend more than 30 minutes at a time. Breaking it into two 15-minute sessions won’t make much difference since you must rehydrate between these sessions. Rehydration puts back the weight you lost.

Saunas have an insignificant impact on your body weight by the amount of calories you burn. Staying longer won’t make it significant but will only increase the risks associated with the use of saunas such as dehydration.

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Best time to use sauna for weight loss.

Ideal weight loss will require the burning of calories rather than water weight. Even while at rest your body burns calories derived from fats for normal physiological functions. The number of calories burned depends on several factors one of which is your basal metabolic rate.

The heat from saunas, irrespective of time, increases your basal metabolic rate. This leads to an increase in the calories burned which assists with weight loss. However, the amount of calories burned in sauna bathing alone is too small to result in measurable weight loss. So it must be combined with exercises for the result you need.

On this note, the best time to use the sauna for weight loss will be post-workout, as described in an earlier article you may want to look up. This is because pre-workout sauna bathing may result in lethargy that reduces your workout performance.

A post-workout sauna plan will allow you to get the best from your workout and burn calories as much as you can. Afterward, you can get into the sauna to burn just as many calories as you would’ve burned if you had had it before your workout.

Do sauna suits help with weight loss?

Sauna suits are waterproof tracksuits formerly made from rubber but currently made of coated nylon or PVC(polyvinyl chloride). You wear them while exercising and the fabric causes heat and sweat to get trapped and build up within the suit. This creates the same physiological conditions you get from regular saunas.

The water loss and heat build up within the suit depends on the intensity of your exercise but it can be much worse than in a regular sauna. The calories you burn using the suit can also be considerably higher than doing the same workout without it. It feels like exercising while in a sauna.

You get greater weight loss benefits exercising with a sauna suit than is possible without it according to the International Journal of Research in Exercise Physiology.¹ However, this comes at the price of increased risk of dehydration and hyperthermia among other risks associated with the use of saunas as listed in another article.

The higher amount of sweat you experience using a sauna suit may leave you with the impression of a significantly instant weight loss but it’s only water weight that is replenished by rehydrating. The real weight loss is a cumulative effect of calories you burn over time.

Do sauna blankets help with weight loss?

Sauna blankets are built with infrared emitting components that warm up your body and are believed to be more effective than regular saunas even though they fall under the category of dry saunas. In other words, they offer you all the health benefits of sauna bathing which includes the burning of calories that help with weight loss.

Just as applies to regular saunas, the sauna blanket can only assist your weight loss goals. The number of calories you burn in the blanket is insignificant to result in weight loss as a stand-alone tool. Nonetheless, they are believed to have anti-aging effects and also help to improve the elasticity of your skin and tone. (source)

Where saunas stand in respect of your weight loss goals is something I have mentioned in previous articles. However, this was exclusively written in the hope of bringing out some salient points on the subject to satisfy your queries and I hope that was achieved. Always feel free to ask more questions on things you need clarification. See you on the next topic.

Reference.

1. Bryant R. Byrd, Samuel S. Van de Velde, Jennifer S. Fargo, Lexie B. Loring, Christina A. Buchanan, Lance C. Dalleck. (2017). Acute Metabolic Responses of Exercise with a Sauna Suit. International Journal of Research in Exercise Physiology. 12(2):1-8. High Altitude Exercise Physiology Program, Western State Colorado University, Gunnison, CO, USA. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lance-Dalleck/publication/315740916_Acute_Metabolic_Responses_of_Exercise_with_a_Sauna_Suit/links/58e0f21992851c36954b0301/Acute-Metabolic-Responses-of-Exercise-with-a-Sauna-Suit.pdf ↩︎