Sweating,beneficial or not ?

[Chris-H]

The roads are just too iffy for commuting at the mo so i'm putting in some turbo trainer hours.What i want to know is whats better for losing weight,riding with a long sleeve top and sweating buckets whilst also keeping hydrated or having the fan on and keeping cooler and not sweating as much,whilst also keeping hydrated?
Cheers,Chris.

 

[jdtate101]

If you're indoors, I'd have the fan on and a short sleeve top, purely for the comfort factor. As you are aiming to loose weight not getting de-hydrated is important. Your body needs the correct levels of fluids in order to metabolize fat into energy, so being de-hydrated can hinder this.

General rule of thumb, do what is most comfortable.

 

[poynedexter]

sweating is not losing fat. its merely regulating heat. sweat will cost fluid and salts, not fat. there was a guy in my spin class wearing a plastic bin bag type top. what for i dont know. a boxer might wear one to lose weight before a fight, but not fat.

 

[black'n'yellow]

The roads are just too iffy for commuting at the mo so i'm putting in some turbo trainer hours.What i want to know is whats better for losing weight,riding with a long sleeve top and sweating buckets whilst also keeping hydrated or having the fan on and keeping cooler and not sweating as much,whilst also keeping hydrated?
Cheers,Chris.

Seriously? Your diet and the calories you burn through exercise will lose you the weight - not how much you sweat.

 

[ColinJ]

I think if you are putting a decent level of effort in on a turbo trainer then you won't have much choice! I used to end up stripped to the waist with a fan on full power blowing directly at me, in an unheated room close to freezing point! I'd drink upto 750 mL of water in one session and still end up 1+ kg lighter by the time I finished.

PS I don't mean to suggest that the fluid loss was a good idea, or that the instant weight loss was meaningful - I just found it hard to drink enough to make up the sweat losses while I was on the turbo trainer. I kept drinking afterwards until my weight was restored.

 

[400bhp]

Seriously? Your diet and the calories you burn through exercise will lose you the weight - not how much you sweat.

More or less, yes.

I guess you could just drink relatively less water after exercise than before.

 

[Biker Joe]

As said above, you sweat to regulate your body temperature. The sweat evaporates thus cooling the body.
If you are over dressed and the sweat can't evaporate, your core temperature will rise above normal and, in a more extreme case, you will suffer heat stroke.
(and you will have just the same amount of fat as before.)

 

[Chris-H]

I was'nt expecting sweat alone to lose weight,there is a tiniest bit of method to my madness of thinking in that if my body heat was higher ie; without the fan, then due to the higher temperature of my body would that burn more weight? Obviously i'm rehydrating myself as i go its just that having the warmer workout somehow feels more beneficial afterwards.I'm in a brick shed with an average temp of 1.5 - 2.5 degrees and when i'm finished the temp has been raised by approx 4 degrees.

 

[black'n'yellow]

if your body temp is artificially high then it will just reduce your ability to train effectively. You don't burn weight, you burn calories and you burn calories by exercising. Forget about the sweat thing, it's just a by-product of exercise, not an end in itself.

 

[Rob3rt]

Getting too hot will cause your HR to drift up artificially, to the degree you can not train effectively. Give up looking for short cuts, do it properly or not at all!

 

[ayceejay]

If you are crossing an international border with a suitcase full of drugs sweating is definitely not beneficial.