Are you struggling with your weight loss journey? Do you want to fit in your old clothes? Do you want to be in a shape of your choice? You can go back to your ideal BMI and weight with the help of a sauna. Yes, you have read it right. A sauna could help you lose weight, and it helps you get back to your ideal BMI.
Multiple studies have been conducted to see the relation between weight loss and sauna, and it has been scientifically proven that the heat, steam and high temperature could help you in losing weight. Studies have shown that saunas can be directly compared to the moderate intensity workout. It means you can lose extra inches from your waist and achieve your targeted weight without moving an inch. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
After reading it, you must have some questions in mind, and we have guessed it. You must be thinking about how a sauna could help you with weight loss? The Royal Sauna is there to answer all of your questions. In this blog, you will get all the information about a sauna, helping you with weight loss and how actually it helps in weight loss, and you will come to know some preventive measures to follow while using a sauna. So let’s start the discussion.
Does Sauna Help You Lose Weight?
If you are trying to lose weight, it is equally important to use the right equipments, tools and practices, and if you are not using a sauna, you must immediately include it in your weight loss journey. A sauna helps you lose weight. Various types of saunas are there, and they help you differently in losing weight. You can get an infrared sauna and a traditional sauna or a steam room.
What is an Infrared Sauna?
An infrared sauna is the most modern form of a sauna that you can get to lose weight. It is in fact a room design and constructed with wood that uses infrared waves to create dry heat. The infrared sauna does not raise the temperature of the sauna, but it penetrates heat in the human body. The infrared sauna heat penetrates 1.5″ deep into the human body to give it a warming and soothing effect. The infrared sauna temperature could be raised to 115 degree Fahrenheit to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, that is slightly lower than the traditional sauna. However, even the lower temperature of an infrared sauna could help you in losing weight. How could an infrared sauna help you with weight loss? Let’s explore the answer to this question.
Boosts Calorie Burn
The infrared sauna helps you with weight loss by boosting the calorie burn in your body. When you sit in an infrared sauna, the heat penetrates your body, raises your heart rate, and increases your metabolic rate. The fast heart rate and metabolic rate help you burn calories approximately 1.5 times more than the regular calorie burn. If you burn 20 calories while doing a walk or a low intensity workout for 30 minutes, you can burn 40 calories by just sitting in an infrared sauna for 30 minutes.
Reduce Fat Cells from Body
You know fat cells and cholesterol are the main hindrances in your weight loss journey and an infrared sauna could help you in removing these obstacles from your way to achieving an ideal weight. When you sit in an infrared sauna and the infrared heat penetrates your body, it increases your blood flow and reduces the fat cells from your body. The reduction in fat loss ultimately helps you in losing weight. Moreover, studies show that the infrared sauna helps the body decrease the bad cholesterol and increase the good cholesterol that helps in weight loss and it is a good sign for your health.
Improve Muscle Health and Reduce Joint Pain
If your muscles are weak and you have joint pain, you cannot do the exercise. However, if you sit in an infrared sauna, it can help you reduce your joint pain and improve your muscle health. You can get thermo therapy while sitting in a sauna and the therapy ultimately heals your body pain and aches. Hence, you could go back to your workout routine to do the exercise to help you lose weight.
Improve Your Sleeping Schedule
A messed up sleeping schedule could become an obstacle in your way to lose weight. A sauna could help you in improving your sleeping schedule, and a well rested body could make the good dietary decision and do exercise for weight loss. The infrared sauna puts you in a parasympathetic state that helps you in getting a sound sleep and reduce stress level. Therefore, you stay motivated and stay on track on your fitness journey.
A Traditional Sauna or a Steam Room
A traditional sauna is also known as the steam bath or steam room. The traditional saunas are known as the steam rooms because of the moisture in the environment. The temperature of the traditional saunas is higher than the infrared saunas because of the humidity. However, like the infrared saunas, the traditional saunas also help you in losing weight. How do they help you in losing weight? Let’s discuss and uncover some unknown facts.
Water Weight Loss
The water in your body could make you look fat, and it can cause a fluctuation in your weight. However, you can easily lose water weight by sweating, and the sauna or a steam room could be beneficial in this regard. When you sit in a traditional sauna, the humid ambiance of the sauna raises your body temperature and your brain sends the signal to the sweat gland to start sweating to normalize the body temperature. Therefore, when you sweat, your body loses water weight, and you get back to your normal weight by losing the extra water weight from your body.
Boost Post Workout Fat Burning
The traditional sauna could help you in boosting the fat and calorie burning if you use it after a workout. When you sit in a steam room after a workout, the sweating helps you in losing the remaining water weight and the toxins in your body. Moreover, the blood flow and the heart rate increase rapidly and help burn calories and fat cells that ultimately help lose weight.
How a Sauna Helps you Lose Weight?
We have discussed that the infrared sauna and the traditional sauna could help in losing weight in some specific ways. Now we will discuss some general ways and methods through which a sauna helps you in losing weight.
Detoxification of Your Body
Every sauna triggers your sweat glands, and they start sweating. The sweating from your body helps you in losing weight. Moreover, the sweating from your body helps you in losing toxins to improve your health conditions.
Studies show that sweating is good for health. However, if you have a busy schedule and could not do exercise to sweat, you can sit in the sauna, and it will make you sweat and detoxify your body and help you in losing weight.
Water Weight of Your Body
One of the most noticeable effects of a sauna in weight loss is that it helps you lose water weight from your body. If you sit in the sauna for 15 to 20 minutes, you will have enough sweating to lose the water weight from your body. It is a quick way to lose weight, sit in the sauna and shed extra pounds of water weight from your body.
Reduce Stress and Improve Mental Health
Mental health is as important as your physical health and a sound mind could help you make a wise decision about the fitness journey. If you sit in a sauna, it helps you reduce stress and helps you stay on track. Studies show that stress and depression push you to eat more, and if you are relaxed and calm you are less likely to eat unhealthy food. So, your eating habits could be improved as an indirect effect of the sauna.
Boost Your Metabolism
When you sit in a warm environment in the sauna, the heat and humidity of the ambiance penetrate into your body and increase your heart rate and blood flow. The increased level of heart rate boosts your metabolism. Studies show that the heat and high temperature of the sauna boost your metabolic rate at 20%. Therefore, to boost your metabolism, the Royal Sauna suggests to stay in the sauna for 20-30 minutes daily.
Boost Your Exercise Capacity
You can do the best workouts if you have no breathing issues, and a sauna could help you in improving your breathing and helps you in resolving any sort of breathing and respiratory issues. The improved respiratory system and stamina could help you to do the moderate and high intensity workouts. Therefore, if you want to boost your exercise capacity, spend 15-20 minutes in the sauna, and you will see improvement in your respiratory system and breathing.
Safety Tips for Weight Loss by Using Sauna
It is scientifically proven that a sauna could help you in losing weight. However, you have to observe some precautionary measures for your health and safety. The Royal Sauna suggests to follow the following measures to keep yourself safe in a sauna.
Keep Yourself Hydrated
If you are using the sauna to get the health benefits and lose weight, you need to observe the hydration. The Royal Sauna suggests you keep yourself hydrated because when you sit in the sauna, the heat and humidity of the sauna raise your body temperature, and you lose water weight as a result of sweating. If you don’t keep yourself hydrated, your health will be adversely affected. Therefore, if you want to lose weight while staying healthy, you must keep yourself hydrated. It would be best if you drink 10-12 glasses of water everyday.
Avoid Using Sauna Before Workout
Using a sauna has multiple health benefits; however, if you want to avoid any negative effects and repercussions, the Royal Sauna suggests you avoid using the sauna before a workout. If you do so, the chances of dehydration and injury increase manifold.
However, it is totally safe to use the sauna after the workout because it will help you in burning calories and fat cells and ultimately helps you in losing weight.
Start with Small Sessions
If you are a new user, read it carefully. Sauna has multiple health benefits for you. However, your body takes time to adjust and adapt to the new ambiance of sauna. Therefore, the Royal Sauna suggests you start with smaller sessions and then slowly increase user time.
If you are a new user, try to sit in the sauna for 5 minutes on your first sitting and then gradually increase the sitting time.
Take Care of Your Diet
Apart from keeping yourself hydrated, you have to take care of your diet. The Royal Sauna suggests you to eat healthy food and avoid junk and unhealthy options.
Combination of Workout, Diet, and Sauna
As it has been established earlier, the sauna could help you in losing weight. However, if you want to pace up the process, the Royal Sauna suggests to combine the sauna sessions with diet and exercise. Eat healthy food, do regular exercise and sit in the sauna to see the visible difference in your weight. However, if you are not doing any workout, eating junk and unhealthy options and waiting for a miracle by just sitting in a sauna, then you will not lose weight at a fast speed and the process will be dead slow.
Make a schedule to do exercise, eat some healthy food and spend some time in a sauna and you will see the long term and positive effects of a sauna on your health, skin, and weight loss.
Who Should Avoid the Sauna?
Saunas could bring multiple positive changes in your physical and mental health. However, there are certain conditions in which you should use the sauna. If you or your loved ones have any of the following health conditions, the Royal Sauna suggests avoiding using the sauna.
Heart Disease
The users who have some health problems and breathing issues should avoid using the sauna. If a person with such issues uses the sauna, his heart rate will increase, and he may have to face some breathing issues.
Respiratory Issues
The people who have respiratory or breathing issues should avoid using the sauna because the steam and humidity could further complicate their breathing and respiratory system.
Pregnant Woman
If you are a mommy to be, the Royal Sauna team suggest you avoid using the sauna. In pregnancy, body temperature increases than the usual, and if you sit in the sauna, the sauna temperature further raises your body temperature. High body temperature will be dangerous for your and your baby’s health. Therefore, you must avoid sitting in the sauna during your pregnancy. However, once you deliver the baby, the sauna welcomes the new mommies to lose weight and to get back into the pre-pregnancy shape.
Some FAQs About Sauna Helping You Lose Weight
How Many Calories Are Burned in a Sauna?
A sauna could help you in losing weight. You can burn 1.5 to 2 times more calories while sitting in the sauna compared to sitting anywhere else. Studies have shown that a woman could lose 68 calories if she spent 30 minutes in the sauna.
Does Sauna Help Burn Fat?
Yes, a sauna could help you in burning fat and losing weight. If you sit in a sauna, it will not only help you in losing weight, but it also helps in increasing the blood flow in your body that will bring multiple health benefits for you.
How Long Should You Spend in a Sauna to Lose Weight?
Many users who want to lose weight with the help of a sauna ask this question. If you’re going to lose weight, the Royal Sauna suggests you to spend 15-20 minutes in the sauna. However, if you are a new user, avoid bringing abrupt changes in your life; it would be safe for you to sit for 5 minutes in the sauna during your early session and then gradually increase the time.
Does Sauna Increase the Metabolic Rate?
Yes, sitting in the sauna increases your metabolic rate. If you sit in the sauna, your metabolic rate will be increased by 20 to 25%.
Is Sauna Good for Skin?
If you sit in the sauna, the heat and high temperature of the sauna increase your body temperature. Once your body temperature increases, the sweat glands all over your body start sweating. The sweating cleans your skin and removes toxic chemicals from the skin. The regular use of the sauna could give you clean, smooth, acne free skin.
Should I Use Sauna Before or After the Workout?
Sauna has multiple health benefits, and you can use it whenever you want to. However, there are certain times when you must avoid using the sauna. You must not use the sauna before the workout, if you do so, you will be more prone to injuries and dehydration. However, it is totally safe to use the sauna after the workout as it will boost the calorie and fat burn in your body.
Is Sauna Good After Workout?
Many users ask this question that is it good to use the sauna after a workout. The answer is yes, it is good to use the sauna after the workout because it boosts the calorie burn and fat burn and helps you losing weight.
Should You Use Sauna Before of After the Massage?
This is yet another question that comes into the mind of a new user. If you have the same question in your mind, the Royal Sauna suggests you use the sauna before getting the massage. If you use the sauna before getting the massage, massage will be more effective, and you will feel more relaxed and calm.
Do You Need Shower Before Sauna?
Yes, you need shower before using the sauna. It would be best if you use warm water to take a shower, it will give you a warm up, and your body will get more positive effects of using a sauna.
Is Sauna a Cardio?
Sauna is not a cardio, but it has the similar effects. If you sit in a sauna, the high temperature of the ambiance raises your body temperature, increases the blood flow, boosts up your heart rate and breathing and you experience all those changes in your body that you experience during cardio. So, if you relate the effects of sauna with cardio, you can say that sauna is a type of cardio.
Is Sauna Good for Building Muscles?
Sauna could help you in building muscles. It helps in recovery time and muscle growth by releasing heat shock proteins and HGH. Therefore, if you want to build the body muscles, the sauna could be a good choice for you.
Is Sauna Good for Heart Patients?
Saunas are generally safe for users. However, heart patients should avoid using the sauna because the heat could increase the heart rate and breathing, and it could be dangerous for a heart patient.
Can Sauna Reduce the Cholesterol?
Yes, sauna could help in lowering your cholesterol levels. Multiple studies show that the saunas could decrease the cholesterol level and ultimately bring positive and good changes in the user’s health.
Which is Good for Weight Loss, Traditional Sauna or an Infrared Sauna?
Many users have this question that what type of sauna is the best for weight loss. The answer is, both the traditional sauna and an Infrared Sauna is the best for weight loss. Both increase the blood circulation, heart rate and burn calories to lose weight.
It depends on your choice of which type of sauna you want to get. You can get your favourite sone from the Royal Sauna. Contact the Royal Sauna team, tell your preferences and get the one that suits you the most.