Breaking a sweat while working out usually makes you feel that you have burned off those unwanted calories.
So, if you workout without sweating–does that mean you are not losing weight, getting in shape or reaching your fitness goals?
When you sweat, your body regulates body temperate by releasing water and salt which evaporates to help it cool down.
Sweating does not burn calories, but it helps you lose water weight. However, it is temporary because once you drink water and eat, you’ll regain the lost weight.
Sander Rubin, MD, sports specialist at Northwestern Medicine sheds light on this area.
“Sweating is a much better indicator of a body temperature’s regulation as opposed to calories burned,” he shares with POPSUGAR.
Instead of using the amount of sweat as an indicator of how you’ve worked, it’s more about the environment you’re in (hot or humid) and how much your body needs to sweat to regulate your temperature.
It is said that an hour of Bikram yoga helps you burn up to 1,000 calories, which is untrue.
Research shows that 90 minutes of Bikram yoga burns 330 calories for women while men burned 460 calories.
It’s equal to walking briskly at 3.5 miles per hour for the same amount of time.
Even though you don’t sweat, you burn calories while swimming, lifting light weights or exercising in cold weather.
For some, sweat is still a way to measure your intensity level during certain types of exercise.
Factors like genetics, environmental factors, age, fitness level and weight can determine how much you sweat.
Weight and fitness level will most affect how much you sweat because your body needs to use more energy to function at a higher weight.
This means more sweat because there is more body mass to cool down.
The fitter you are, the quicker you will sweat because the body becomes more efficient at regulating temperature.
Sweating earlier means your body can cool down faster. This lets you work out for a longer time at a more rigorous pace.
Dr Rubin said that it’s possible to lose weight in the absence of any sweating in workouts.
However, this is water weight usually regained after drinking and eating.
It’s crucial to rehydrate after a sweaty workout because if you don’t you might get side effects like fatigue, dizziness, constipation and joint and muscle aches.
So sweating doesn’t mean it’s a better workout. You still reap the benefits of exercise whether you sweat or not .