LIFE AND STYLE.

DOES SWEATING MEANS YOUR BURNING MORE CALORIES?

When it comes to exercise, there is nothing quite satisfying as drenched pits and dripping for heat. But does a sweat soak shirt equal to a better work out?

The Science of Sweat.

As your muscle generate heat during exercise, and your core body temperature rises, your body triggers a cooling process- sweating. Our sweat glands are designed to pump fluids (mainly water, salt and other electrolytes) through the skin to evaporate into the air, taking a heap of body heat with it. Of course every person is different. Some people are natural sweaters- usually due to overactive sweat glands and others can stay dry as born.

Apart from your genes, level of fitness or gender, the rate at which you sweat depends on two things:

• The environment (i.e Temperature)
• Your metabolic rate (which is determined by how hard you are exercising)

The link between sweat and success.
While its common to assume that the more you perspire, the more calories you burn, there is actually little coloration  between the two. Consider this: if you run on the treadmill in an air conditioned gym, you'll most likely sweat less compared to pounding the pavement in 80 degree heat. Granted your body has to work slightly harder to keep you cool running outdoors, it wont drastically elevate your metabolism. In fact, you may end up burning less energy instead. This is because being hot makes exercise feel harder, so you may exert less effort and fatigue quicker than when working at lower temperature.

What about fat loss?
There is a good chance that if you stepped straight on the scale after both instances (indoors vs outdoors), you'd be slightly lighter after the outdoor run. Does that mean that you have heard more fat? Not quite. It means you have lost more fluid through sweat- so you're seeing  a temporary loss in water weight(not fat). As soon as you replenish your fluids, your weight will even out again.

What really matters with calorie burn?There are two key factors that determine an effective calorie burn:

• Duration.
• Intensity.

As a guide for getting max work out results, current Australian physical activity guidelines recommend 150-300minutes of moderate intensity physical activity or 75-150 minutes if vigorous activity a week. As far as someone is trying to keep her weight in check , guidelines recommend adults increase to 300minutes (5hours) or 60minutes of moderate intensity activity on most days of the week.

The take away.
Forget stressing about your sweat, just keep moving. Regular exercise (of any kind) along with a balanced diet is a sure  fire way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight , not doing everything you can to sweat more.

Article by Kathleen Alleaume a Nutritionist and Exercise Scientist. Founder of @therightbalance.