What Is Sweating?

Sweating is the body’s way of trying to cool down.  The human body needs to maintain a relatively even temperature.  If it gets too warm, it tries to cool off by sweating.  Part of this cooling off mechanism is sweat.  When we sweat, glands in our skin are letting water from our bodies flow out.  The evaporation of the water uses some of the heat energy which in turn helps our bodies cool down.

Why Do We Sweat When We Work Out?

Easy, because exercise warms our bodies up and in order to stay cool, we sweat.  However, sweat is just the side effect of the exercise.

Why Do We Sweat When We Sit In The Sauna?

Easy, because it’s really really warm in the sauna and our bodies are trying to cool down.

Well, That Sounds The Same As Exercise

Not really.  With exercise, our bodies are warming up because of something we’re doing.  We’re being active and burning energy to workout.  This causes our temperature to rise which in turn causes sweat.  However, it’s the exercise itself which burns calories and gives us the positive effects of physical activity.  With the sauna, we’re not doing anything.  We’re just sitting there baking in steam.  The heat of the sauna causes our bodies to overheat and this in turn causes sweat.  There’s no energy burn here, no calories being used.

But I Weighed Myself and I Weigh Less After The Sauna

Sure, and I weigh about 6lbs less after a long run.  That’s just water loss from sweat.  Drink some water and it will all come right back.  Remember, the sweat you lost is primarily water, with a bit of salt.  You didn’t really burn any energy in the sauna.  At least the run burned some calories along with all that sweat.