If you are like me, that means you sweat like crazy both in the gym and out of the gym. But the question is does sweating more make you lose more weight or burn more fat?
Before we answer these questions, let's first discuss why we sweat in the first place.
Why Do We Sweat?
Sweating is a natural process that helps us maintain body temperature because it cools us down. People who are physically active are accelerating their heart rate which causes a rise in body temperature.
Overweight and obese people sweat more because the excess fat acts as an insulator, which raises body temperature. People in puberty sweat a lot because the body is highly active, which also causes a rise in body temperature.
The common theme here is body temperature—whenever our internal temperature increases, the body compensates for it by sweating to cool us back down.
There are also some people, like me, who simply have overactive sweat glands. This means we just sweat a little more than normal. In almost all cases, this isn’t a bad thing, other than the fact you might wet stain your clothes a bit or be a little uncomfortable in some scenarios.
But there are also some people who suffer from more severe cases of sweating, which is referred to as hyperhidrosis. The actual definition of hyperhidrosis is a disorder marked by abnormal excessive sweating that may not be related to exercise or increased body temperature.
These more severe cases may disrupt normal activities and can cause other problematic situations
Does Sweating Burn Fat?
The truth is, sweating does not make you burn more fat. The actual aspect of sweat does not correlate to fat loss at all.
Does Sweating Make You Lose Weight?
Regarding sweating and weight loss, it does make you lose weight, just not the weight you want to lose. Sweating is a result of water loss and losing water weight is not a sustainable method of actual weight loss.
Sweating is a great method to water cut if you’re a competitor and need to cut weight quick to make a weight class. But for the average person, the more or less you sweat will not bring about sustainable weight loss.
If you do decide to water cut, you will gain back all of the weight you lost once you hydrate.
That being said, sweating when you exercise is a strong signal that you are burning calories and burning calories is 100% going to help you lose weight and burn fat.
When you are doing some form of physical activity resulting in calorie expenditure, this almost always results in sweating because the body increases its internal temperature.
So again, the more you sweat, perhaps that means you are burning more calories because you are working your body harder. However, it’s the fact that you're burning more calories that correlates to weight and fat loss, not the sweat.
It is important to understand that some people sweat more than others and sweat itself isn’t the factor affecting weight and fat loss.
Some people may be working just as hard as you and sweat less than you but burn more fat and lose more weight. It’s just how it is.
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