We have all heard that loosing weight in the long term requires hard work. It involves restrictive diets combined with military style exercise regiments. Well, that may be true but is it the only way? Lets start with the basics and why traditional diet/workout methods can work and sometimes fail. The basics are like your bank account. If you put in more money than you take out, your bank account will grow. If you take out more than you put in it shrinks. The currency of weight control is calories instead of money because they are stored as tissue, usually fat. The goal for the size of your account is usually different also. With our weight a balanced account is ideal. Unfortunately for many of us, until we get our caloric finances in order being in the red is a good thing. So how do calories get into our account? Food is the obvious culprit. In general the more we eat the bigger the deposit. The type of food will also have a huge effect on the number of calories. We all know that Twinkies equal a much bigger deposit than an equally sized apple for instance. Much has been written about specific diets and I will leave that debate to others for now. The withdrawals from your account are as important to the size of your account (or waistline) as the deposits are. So how do we withdraw funds? The short answer is when your body does work. The bad news about sweating off pounds is that sweating itself has little effect on your long-term weight account. The actual weight from the sweat will quickly be replace as soon as you rehydrate, which for health reasons should be fairly soon. It is true that for short term results like a wrestler trying to make a weight restriction, excessive sweating can help reach a specific goal but there will be minimal long-term results. The good news about sweating and weight loss is that sweating is usually a result of the body trying to rid itself of excessive heat produced by the cells doing work, and work burns calories. In other words it is the loss of calories from exercise that is the useful withdrawal from our calorie account that matters not the sweat itself. So can we cheat and get the benefits of sweating without doing the work required to burn calories? The answer is yes and the solution is a sauna. Before you write this off as a classic myth let me explain. Most people understand the concept described above about lost water weight being quickly replaced and doing no good in the long term. This is true but not the whole story. To quote a well known phrase "here is the rest of the story". The heat in a sauna triggers the sweating response, which requires activity on the part of the body. This equals increased metabolism and in the process burns more calories than normal. Is this equal to doing hard labor? No, but studies show that it burns calories at about the same rate as a brisk walk. Not bad for what may be the most relaxing and enjoyable part of your day. I am not suggesting that you should skip the walking or other exercise but what if you continued to withdraw calories from your caloric account even while relaxing after your normal exercise routine? What a deal. This is a great way to accelerate your return to caloric balance. The rest of the good news is that sweating in a sauna has huge additional health benefits. Not the least of these is the efficient detoxification of your body. There may be no better method of detoxification available. The link at the end of this article will lead to a much more detailed discussion of the process. The ideal situation is to conveniently have a sauna at your disposal. This was a rare situation in the past but times have change and it is now possible to get a sauna in your own home very easily and inexpensively. The link below will show you how easily you can take advantage of the benefits of a home sauna. The reality is that your weight and your bank account work on the same principles. It all comes down to the mathematics of deposits and withdraws. Do yourself a favor and look into how a home sauna can change your health and help you get your caloric bank account back in order.
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