Article 22: Sweat suits and plastic wrap are useless; sweating during exercise ≠ weight loss.

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Sweat suits and plastic wrap for weight loss

Sweat suits and plastic wrap offer virtually no benefit for weight loss.

One day, as I was taking the elevator home, I saw an advertisement for sweat suits. I was shocked!

These sweat suits can easily cost several hundred yuan per set.

Looking closely at the material, it's actually a well-sealed, windproof garment, similar to the raincoats we used to wear on rainy days.

However, because of the high price, thrifty young women may have some complaints, so they racked their brains and invented the plastic wrap weight loss method.

While both methods involve covering the body completely to prevent drafts, this saves hundreds of dollars.

Sweat-inducing suits and plastic wrap offer virtually no benefit for weight loss.

The specific principles have been mentioned in the previous text.

1. Weight loss is not about losing weight; sweating suits reduce water weight, not fat.

2. Wearing sweat suits can cause body temperature to rise (because heat dissipation is blocked) and metabolic rate to increase, but this slight increase in metabolic rate has little significance for weight loss.

3. The amount of sweat produced does not equate to the level of exercise efficiency; sweat-inducing clothing does not improve exercise efficiency.

Of course, sellers of sweat suits don't see it that way; they'll say, "Many celebrities and athletes wear sweat suits."

Just because celebrities wear sweat suits doesn't mean sweat suits are good.

As for the fact that many athletes wear sweat suits-please! What are the physical conditions of athletes? What are the physical conditions of ordinary people?

Moreover, do athletes wear sweat suits to lose fat and slim down? Of course not.

They were training their athletic abilities under extreme physical conditions.

In other words, exercising in a sweat suit can put you in an extreme physical state.

Some have also said that the American Council on Exercise once organized a controlled training experiment with 14 athletes, which proved that there were no adverse reactions to exercising while wearing a sweat suit, and that fat burning efficiency was increased by 13%.

Just because professional athletes don't experience any adverse reactions doesn't mean ordinary people won't.

Because ordinary people's physical fitness cannot compare with that of athletes.

As for the claim that fat burning efficiency increased by 13%, I think that's a misinterpretation. It should be that the basal metabolic rate increased by 13%.

As I analyzed earlier, a 13% increase in basal metabolic rate over one hour has virtually no effect on weight loss.

So what are the negative effects of exercising in a sweat suit?

First, excessive sweating means a rapid loss of a large amount of water, which can cause ordinary people to quickly lose their ability to exercise, directly leading to a decrease in exercise efficiency.

Secondly, excessive sweating means that the body's electrolytes are lost along with the water, which can easily cause water and electrolyte imbalance, resulting in fatigue, physical exhaustion, heatstroke and other reactions. In extreme cases, it may lead to the very dangerous heatstroke.

Finally, sweat suits keep the skin in a hot and humid state, which can cause allergic reactions and rashes in people with sensitive skin. Over time, this can damage the skin barrier, leading to decreased resistance and worsening skin condition.

Therefore, my personal advice is that ordinary people and fitness beginners should not wear sweat suits when exercising.

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If you don't sweat during exercise, you won't lose weight.

The amount of sweat produced during exercise is not related to the effectiveness of weight loss.

For a while, many celebrities and internet influencers liked to focus on one thing: going to the gym, taking a picture of themselves covered in sweat, and then posting it online.

They might also add a sentence like: "How many calories did you burn today?" or "Self-discipline makes me beautiful," etc.

This brings us two concepts:

1. To lose weight, you need to exercise.

2. You need to sweat during exercise, otherwise it won't be effective.

First, is exercise necessary for weight loss? As mentioned before, exercise is beneficial for weight loss, but it's not always necessary. You can lose weight without exercising.

Secondly, is it true that exercise only works if you sweat? Does more sweat mean more calories burned? Of course not.

The amount of sweat you produce during exercise has little to do with the effectiveness of weight loss.

Some people are naturally less sweaty, but they still burn a lot of calories.

Conversely, some people with weak constitutions may blindly pursue excessive sweating, which can actually harm their health.

If you are reading this book and understand some of the scientific principles of weight loss, you might have a question: Aren't the final metabolic products of fat burning water and carbon dioxide? Doesn't the more water I sweat out, the more fat I burn?

Indeed, fat is eventually metabolized into water and carbon dioxide, but it is not necessarily excreted as sweat.

Moreover, the main purpose of sweating is to dissipate heat.

When you exercise intensely, your body will sweat to maintain a stable body temperature in order to dissipate heat.

From the perspective of overall weight loss, as I have mentioned many times, exercise is beneficial for weight loss, but the energy consumed by exercise accounts for a small percentage of the total daily energy expenditure.

If you engage in strenuous exercise in an attempt to sweat a lot, you won't burn much energy and may even damage your joints and muscles.

Especially for people without a sports background, it is important to exercise gradually and not blindly, otherwise it is easy to cause problems such as joint injury and muscle strain.

This phenomenon is very common among young college students or high school graduates.

In order to lose weight, many high school graduates will exercise like crazy during the summer before college, hoping to transform themselves.

But think about it: if someone who has had almost no exercise experience throughout their three years of high school suddenly starts exercising for 4 to 6 hours a day and sweats profusely, their joints will suddenly be under a lot of pressure, and their body's balance system will suddenly fall into a state of massive loss of water and electrolytes. In that case, their body may develop problems.

Every summer, I see high school or college students exercising like crazy to lose weight, resulting in rhabdomyolysis and dark urine.

Instead of losing weight, she ended up in the hospital.

If you really have the time and motivation, my personal suggestion is: first, manage your diet well, and then exercise for a maximum of 100 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

Weight loss is not about exercising more intensely to lose weight faster, and the speed of weight loss has little to do with how much you sweat.