Coming to this topic, for those who are a member of the regular commercial gyms, a lot of us ould actually make use of the sauna facilities that they have in the gym. However, some do ask whether steaming ourselves in the heat room would actually help you lose weight?
The Simple Answer to this is Yes and No. Read on why I say this
How Does Sauna's Work
The modern day sauna's was developed and practices in most parts of Nordic Europe and Central America as a way to "release" the pores from unwanted clogs and germs from the body. By simulating "heat and humidity", the idea is to force your body to perspire and in the same time, uses the body's function to release sweat when put in a heaty room.
Today, the use of sauna, especially in gyms, is to basically relax the limbs after a heavy workout and in the same time sweat out any unwanted clogs from your everyday activities.
Why do I say Yes?
When inside a hot room, the body's automatic function is to sweat out as much as possible for the body to regulate the heat around the environment. So in a nutshell, weight does get shed from the body when spending time inside the sauna.
However...
The weight that you are actually shedding is water weight in your body. Since that 60% of the body composition consist of water, so the idea of sweating water from your body would evidently reduce the water percentage in your body.
Why do I say No?
The whole objective of trying to lose weight is to make sure the weight loss is permanent. Unfortunately for saunas, "dehydrating" the body inside one does not get this result nor does it help in improving the body's ability to burn fat.
Point to remember here is that you cannot "melt" fat while being in a sauna room. Thats a fact. If this is true then gyms around the world would replace their treadmills with bigger sized sauna rooms.
Also, when starving the body of much needed water, it does make it harder for the body to effectively burn fat naturally. As mentioned in my last post, water does play a major role in boosting your metabolism rate so without it, it does create a little problem with your effort to burning fat.
So, Does it Really Help?
Much I would want to believe it, I would have to lean towards no. As much as it would help with last minute cuts before a competition, "sauna sweat off sesh" doesn't really make much difference in losing the unwanted fats in the body.
In the end of the day, nothing beats cardio and high resistance training to elevate your body metabolism and heart rate that would evidently help you burn fats which in return would contribute to your weight loss.
[Funny documentation on saunas from my favorite comic blogger, Don't Like that La Bro]
Since we got that situation out of the way, I believe there is a lack of common sense and etiquette when it comes to sauna use here in Malaysia and there should be some things that need to be pointed out from here.
Honestly, I have had my fair share of annoying people and practices that people do in saunas. I'm going to be the one to point it out to you people. Here's some things that you should or shouldn't do when being in a sauna:
The "Overly Friendly" Sauna User
As most of the saunas are available in public gyms, saunas are too designed to be public spaces.
If possible, please try not sit in areas where others would be uncomfortable with your presence. Its bad enough that we're all in a hot, sweaty box filled with people from the same sex...
The Naked Sauna Guy
Very common and dear god, this irritates the living daylights out of me. Unless there is a requirement in that sauna for everyone to be nude or you look like Scarlett Johansson after a very very very hard workout, please don't nude up in a sauna.
The last thing I would want to do is concentrate not accidentally looking at your junk while wondering if your sweat from your sweaty junk would trickle to my seat. no homo...
Lubing Up in Saunas
Not sure if you have ever encountered this but by far, this is the worst experience I had while being in a sauna. There were two scenarios that happened to me before
The common ones are the people that enter into saunas drenched from their shower. Once inside, they start to rub themselves all over, making the slushing sounds from the mixture of water and sweat from your body. Dude...
The special ones is this guy I had the misfortune to sit next to. We were both inside the sauna room and after a while, this chap proceeded to whip out his body lotion and decided to apply it on himself THE ENTIRE TIME we were in the sauna. Believe me he did not miss a spot...
So there you go guys, some useful information on saunas and sauna etiquette that should be practiced by most of us. Do you have any annoying stories when using a public sauna? Share it here!
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