Does sweating more/less affect the amount of kcal burnt?

krhn

I was wondering whilst doing my workout today, I didn't sweat at all cause the temperature in the surrounding area was quite chilled... But compared to hot summer days where I sweat buckets, if the time of the workout and training program is the exact same, do you lose more calories since your body is actively trying to cool down your body by physically sweating?? :huh:

cwolfman13

Not really...

CipherZero

Not at all. It's your body cooling itself.

bumblebums

Not so fast, everyone.

The amount of sweat doesn't have anything to do with anything--humidity influences how much sweat you see on your skin. What does matter is how warm your body gets, and how cold it is outside. In general, the warmer it is outside, the more calories you burn.

Lay overview:
http://www.acefitness.org/blog/1061/do-i-burn-more-calories-when-it-is-hot-outside-or

A controlled study (small but convincing):
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/2002/05000/Effects_of_reduced_ambient_temperature_on_fat.8.aspx

ninerbuff

I sweat more in a steam room than in the gym. I would say no.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

BrianSharpe

If there was a correlation between sweat and calories burned I would have been skinny years ago :laugh:

BrianSharpe

Not so fast, everyone.

The amount of sweat doesn't have anything to do with anything--humidity influences how much sweat you see on your skin. What does matter is how warm your body gets, and how cold it is outside. In general, the warmer it is outside, the more calories you burn.

Lay overview:
http://www.acefitness.org/blog/1061/do-i-burn-more-calories-when-it-is-hot-outside-or

A controlled study (small but convincing):
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/2002/05000/Effects_of_reduced_ambient_temperature_on_fat.8.aspx

Did you actually read the articles?

"These two studies suggest that working out in moderate to warm temperature is best for burning fat and exercising longer, so more calories are burned overall."

which suggests to me that the ambient temperature does have an effect on how long we can exercise for but, in and of it self, there's no correlation to calories burned (more fat oxidation doesn't equal more calories burned, it means more calories burned from fat proportionally)

Azdak

Not so fast, everyone.

The amount of sweat doesn't have anything to do with anything--humidity influences how much sweat you see on your skin. What does matter is how warm your body gets, and how cold it is outside. In general, the warmer it is outside, the more calories you burn.

Lay overview:
http://www.acefitness.org/blog/1061/do-i-burn-more-calories-when-it-is-hot-outside-or

A controlled study (small but convincing):
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/2002/05000/Effects_of_reduced_ambient_temperature_on_fat.8.aspx

Did you actually read the articles?

"These two studies suggest that working out in moderate to warm temperature is best for burning fat and exercising longer, so more calories are burned overall."

which suggests to me that the ambient temperature does have an effect on how long we can exercise for but, in and of it self, there's no correlation to calories burned (more fat oxidation doesn't equal more calories burned, it means more calories burned from fat proportionally)

I agree--both of these have to do with fuel substrate utilization, which we all know now has nothing to do with loss of stored body fat.

Azdak

I was wondering whilst doing my workout today, I didn't sweat at all cause the temperature in the surrounding area was quite chilled... But compared to hot summer days where I sweat buckets, if the time of the workout and training program is the exact same, do you lose more calories since your body is actively trying to cool down your body by physically sweating?? :huh:

At a certain point, if your body has to do that much "cooling down", the result will be a substantial decrease in your exercise workload. In other words, like working at altitude, even if increased sweating DID burn more calories, it would be more than offset by the significant decrease in workload that occurs with thermal stress. You will still burn fewer calories overall during an extended workout in hot weather.

bumblebums

Not so fast, everyone.

The amount of sweat doesn't have anything to do with anything--humidity influences how much sweat you see on your skin. What does matter is how warm your body gets, and how cold it is outside. In general, the warmer it is outside, the more calories you burn.

Lay overview:
http://www.acefitness.org/blog/1061/do-i-burn-more-calories-when-it-is-hot-outside-or

A controlled study (small but convincing):
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/2002/05000/Effects_of_reduced_ambient_temperature_on_fat.8.aspx

Did you actually read the articles?

"These two studies suggest that working out in moderate to warm temperature is best for burning fat and exercising longer, so more calories are burned overall."

which suggests to me that the ambient temperature does have an effect on how long we can exercise for but, in and of it self, there's no correlation to calories burned (more fat oxidation doesn't equal more calories burned, it means more calories burned from fat proportionally)

Yes, I did actually read them. Why would I provide links to things I have not read? That seems like a silly thing to do.

The posts above mine dismissed the idea that calorie expenditure varies with ambient temperature without discussion. I happen to have looked into this in the past out of curiosity, so I wanted to point out that it is not as simple as "lol no".