Don't Sweat It...Or Should You? (Ft. guest blogger Bonnie Gardner)

Photo courtesy of Tony Alter via Flickr

by Bonnie Gardner of Union Fitness

Featured Guest Post:
In addition to providing excellent physical training (in New Zealand), Union Fitness also aims to “take exercise science to the people” by busting exercise myths… like the one below!

Today’s mythbuster is about sweating – does it help you to lose weight?  And  does it really release toxins from the body?

We’ll start by looking at weight loss.  When you get hot, your body tries to cool off.  One way that it does this is by sweating – releasing water that evaporates from your skin’s surface, cooling you down as it does so.  So when you sweat, you’re losing weight – but about 99% of the weight is water, and if you don’t want to get dehydrated, you’re going to need to replace that water. 

So sweating in itself doesn’t really help long term weight loss!  But many of the activities that cause sweating (walking, jogging, weights, etc.) will help with weight loss. 

The next question that we’ll tackle is: what else do we lose when we sweat?  We know that water is the main component of sweat, as well as salts – but do we sweat out toxins as well? 

This is a tricky one – research has shown that some synthetic chemicals (bisphenol A and some phthalates, for example) are released from the body when we sweat, but it doesn’t seem to be the main route for getting rid of many substances that our body doesn’t need.  The liver, kidneys, and lungs are the best at filtering out and removing unwanted material from our bodies – so to keep us healthy, we want these organs to be functioning well.  The good news is that all kinds of exercise have been shown to increase the activity of these important organs – so by getting your heart pumping and keeping fit, you’re going to be increasing the amount of toxins that can be filtered out from your body.   And at the same time, you’ll be burning fat! 

So the bottom line is: Sweating in itself doesn’t do much for weight loss and toxin removal – but if you’re sweating because you’re exercising, then you’ll be losing weight and toxins at the same time!

About the Author: Bonnie Gardner is a PhD student in Anatomy at the University of Auckland, and one half of the team at Union Fitness. She helps comb through the science to make sure Union Fitness provides training methods and nutritional guidelines that are up to date. She also appreciates a good pun and ice cream!

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