Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.

Sweat as an indivation of calories burned?

1235»

Replies

  • moe0303
    moe0303 Posts: 934 Member
    tomteboda wrote: »
    People's sweat relies upon the number and type of sweat glands they possess. Some sweat heavily with little exertion or heat, others barely sweat with significant body stress. The variability between individuals of physiology in both structure and function/response suggests to me that sweat itself would make a poor quantitative measure for energy expenditure.

    I agree. However, there is still some qualitative value there for most individuals.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    Not at all applicable to me. I am in a weird menopausal stage of breaking a profuse sweat all of a sudden for no apparent reason.

    Wouldn't work too well for me, either, though my issue is stress. If I'm sufficiently stressed, I'm sweating, even if I'm sitting and shivering in a freezing cold room.
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    edited June 2016
    Since we've 1) continued to point out that the theory put forward is only valid if all other factors are constant and 2) demonstrated that all other things never are constant (it was even pointed out that humidity levels fluctuate despite constant temperatures) can we possibly accept that a) the scenario put forward (using sweat as an indicator when all things are constant) is a strawman since it doesn't occur in real life and that b) sweat is thus not a reliable indivation (sic) of calories burned (especially considering that even if it were, we have no way of measuring the sweat in order to know just how much more sweat there is so that we can determine the increase in calorie burn or even by what proportions the two are related)?
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    Since we've 1) continued to point out that the theory put forward is only valid if all other factors are constant and 2) demonstrated that all other things never are constant (it was even pointed out that humidity levels fluctuate despite constant temperatures) can we possibly accept that a) the scenario put forward (using sweat as an indicator when all things are constant) is a strawman since it doesn't occur in real life and that b) sweat is thus not a reliable indivation (sic) of calories burned (especially considering that even if it were, we have no way of measuring the sweat in order to know just how much more sweat there is so that we can determine the increase in calorie burn or even by what proportions the two are related)?

    Now that's an incredible sentence. Also, I accept both your lemmas 1 & 2, and the conclusions a & b drawn in their wake.
  • mespreeman
    mespreeman Posts: 70 Member
    I sweat when I think it's sunny outside.

    I wish it were an indicator of effort in my case, I wouldn't be so portly. :)
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
    moe0303 wrote: »
    Again, not intended to be accurate or conclusive but only an indicator.

    Here's another indicator that isn't intended to be accurate: the season. More calories are burned in the summer than in the winter, so just calendar to see if you burned a lot of calories. :smile: