How Many Calories Do You Burn in the Sauna?
Saunas offer a wealth of health benefits, including relaxation and well-being. But are calories burned in a sauna? This question has been debated for years. Saunas have been associated with calorie loss, particularly through the use of sauna suits, which gained popularity in Europe and North America in the 1980s and 90s.
While it’s commonly known that spending time in a sauna can increase calorie burning. How many calories do you burn in a sauna? Is it enough to make a difference? In this article we’ll explore the science behind calories burned in a sauna and the best ways to use saunas for calorie loss in a healthy way. Even if you’re familiar with saunas, you might be surprised by how much they can do for your overall health and well-being.
How Many Calories Do You Burn in a 20-Minute Sauna Session?
To start, let’s consider a scenario where you enter a sauna without any prior workout. Essentially, you’ve gone from resting to sitting in a sauna. This means you can typically assume that calorie burning increases by at least 20% and can go up to 40%. For example, if you burn 40 calories in 20 minutes while sitting, spending 20 minutes in the sauna could result in burning up to 48 calories. While this may not seem like a dramatic increase, it demonstrates that the calories burned in a sauna are higher. Even with minimal physical exertion, as opposed to aerobic exercise.
It’s important to note that calorie burning isn’t the sole metric for weight loss. Weight loss occurs when there is a consistent deficit between the calories consumed and the calories burned by the body throughout the day. The average person burns between 1,500 and 2,200 calories daily just by functioning. Those who exercise regularly can burn an additional 600 calories. Weight gain happens when you consume more calories than you burn. Fat loss occurs when the reverse is true over a sustained period.
So, why does the body burn more calories in a sauna? Even for a sedentary person, moving from resting to soaking in the heat of the sauna increases calorie burning. The reason lies in how the body works to regulate temperature in the heat, resulting in increased energy expenditure.
Calories Burned in a Sauna: What You Need to Know
When you enter a sauna, your body starts working harder, resulting in calories being burned. While it won’t feel like an intense workout, your body has to work extra hard to regulate its internal temperature in a heated environment. The body operates best at around 37 degrees Celsius. A traditional wood-burning sauna that can reach up to 95 degrees Celsius. When exposed to this type of heat your internal systems must kick into high gear to maintain that optimal temperature. This process leads to an increase in calories burned during your sauna session.
One of the most immediate physical responses you’ll notice in the sauna is sweating. However, sweating is only one part of the body’s complex system for regulating temperature. As soon as your skin comes into contact with the sauna’s heat, your nervous system sends signals to the brain. Essentially saying, “It’s too hot! Start cooling down!” In response, your brain directs various systems in the body to reduce heat, which in turn, burns more calories.
The body keeps a small reserve of water near the surface of the skin to cool you down. Once the brain registers that you’re overheating, it increases blood flow and pressure in areas with sweat glands. The higher blood pressure forces sweat through the pores, releasing it onto your skin. Though it may seem like sweating starts instantly, it’s actually a complex process that increases your calorie burning rate while sitting in the sauna.
This increase in activity, combined with the heat, is why sitting in a sauna leads to calorie burning and contributes to weight loss over time.
Do Saunas Help You Lose Weight?
While it’s true that you burn calories in a sauna, the rate at which calories are burned isn’t significant enough to lead to major weight loss. As mentioned earlier, spending about 20 minutes in a sauna might only burn a few additional calories compared to relaxing on the couch. So, the only way to lose weight through the sauna alone would be to live in it. Clearly, that’s not feasible!
However, many people notice that after using the sauna, they weigh less on the scale. Don’t be misled—this is likely due to water weight loss, which is a temporary reduction. While it may seem like progress, losing water weight does not lead to long-term fat reduction. After sweating heavily in the sauna, you’ll notice weight fluctuations, but the pounds return as soon as you rehydrate.
Your body holds between 60 and 80 liters of water. It’s perfectly normal for your weight to fluctuate based on your hydration levels. As your body tries to cool down in the heat of the sauna, it triggers your sweat glands to release water through the pores. This process increases your heart rate and metabolic rate slightly, leading to calories burned. But it’s still not comparable to the calorie burn achieved through regular exercise.
The most effective way to lose weight is through sustained exercise and a healthy diet. Over time, your body will start to burn excess fat when your caloric intake is less than what you burn daily. A safe deficit is around 100 to 200 calories, as anything beyond that can be harmful to your health.
Sauna or Workout – Which Comes First?
One common question is whether working out and then using the sauna leads to even greater calories burned. The answer is yes—but not dramatically. A sauna after a workout can slightly increase the rate at which you burn calories. Especially if your heart rate is already elevated from exercise. Combining exercise with sauna use can contribute to your fat loss efforts. But the key to long-term success is still regular exercise and proper nutrition.
Sauna Suit for Weight Loss
If you’re considering combining sauna use with your weight loss strategy, you could also explore the benefits of a sauna suit for weight loss. These suits are designed to mimic the effects of a sauna by trapping body heat. This will lead to excessive sweating during workouts. While they might help shed extra water weight, the same rules apply. Real, sustained weight loss comes from burning fat, not just losing water.
Does Sitting in a Sauna Burn Calories Quicker With Exercise?
In North America and Europe, it’s becoming increasingly popular to pair a workout with a visit to the sauna. There are several reasons why using the sauna after a workout is beneficial. One of them is tied to the continued burning of calories!
Using a sauna after exercise has been found to slightly extend the calorie-burning effects of your workout. While it might seem counterintuitive, considering the body’s metabolic rate changes after leaving a high-calorie-burning activity like running, the heat from the sauna prolongs the amount of time it takes for your calorie burn rate to return to its resting level. This means that after a vigorous session of running or another form of aerobic exercise, stepping into the sauna can help you maintain a higher rate of calories burned for longer than if you simply cooled down and returned to your normal activities.
Let’s take an example. If you run 5 kilometers in 25 minutes and burn around 400 calories (a rate of 16 calories per minute), this is great for both weight loss and maintaining good health. Normally, when you stop exercising, your calorie burn rate quickly drops. However, if you take a 20-minute sauna session after your workout. The drop from 16 calories per minute might be slower. Instead of immediately falling to your resting rate of 3 or 4 calories per minute, the heat from the sauna keeps the burn rate higher for longer. It might drop from 16 calories to 12, then 8, before finally returning to your average rate. This maximises the overall effect of your workout.
This approach can be an effective strategy for those looking to boost their fat loss efforts, combining the benefits of exercise with the slight increase in calories burned that saunas can offer.
Infrared vs. Steam Sauna: Which Sauna Type Burns More Calories?
Does an Infrared Sauna Burn Calories?
The examples from above all assume that you are using a traditional wood-burning sauna to track your calorie loss. So, it’s natural to wonder if using an infrared sauna could help you burn more calories. In this case, however, the calories burned in an infrared sauna are similar to those in a traditional sauna. Even though the method of heating the body between the two sauna styles is quite different, the effect on the body is surprisingly similar.
Both infrared saunas and wood-burning saunas use dry heat. The heat from a traditional sauna is produced by burning wood. An infrared sauna uses high-energy bulbs to emit radiation that heats the body. However, to the body, dry heat is dry heat. This means that the body will sweat at a comparable rate in both sauna types, leading to a similar number of calories burned.
Luckily, this also means that you can still enjoy the benefits of an infrared sauna for weight loss and extend the value of your workout just as effectively as you would with a traditional wood-burning sauna.
Calories Burned in a Steam Sauna?
Steam rooms or steam saunas are fuelled by a wet heat boiler. While the heating style in a steam room differs from that of traditional saunas, there is still some caloric burning that occurs. The reason saunas help boost calories burned is that your body must work harder to maintain an internal balance at a stable temperature. This same process happens in steam rooms, but with one key difference. The rate of humidity is much higher in steam rooms, which can lead to increased sweating in some individuals. This may lead to a slightly increased the rate at which calories are burned.
However, when it comes to the significant calories burned in a sauna, tied to an existing workout, steam rooms offer similar benefits to dry heat saunas. After exercise, steam rooms can also slow down the return to the sedentary rate of calorie loss. This provides an extended period of increased calorie burn.
How to Maximise Calories Burned in a Sauna
Since saunas have an impact on your overall calorie burn, it’s natural to seek ways to maximise the calories burned during a sauna session. The good news is there’s a proven strategy to do just that.
First, to get the highest caloric burn value out of your sauna visit, you need to have already been burning calories beforehand. The main benefit of the sauna is that it helps slow down your rate of return to your normal calorie loss. This means that having the highest rate of caloric burn before you get into the sauna will allow your body to continue burning more calories over a longer period.
Here’s how this works: If you go for a brisk walk and elevate your calorie burn rate to ten calories per minute, your subsequent visit to the sauna will slow that rate from ten to around five or six calories per minute, which is typical in the sauna. Your body will reach that slower rate quickly. However, if you opt for a taxing run that brings your caloric burn rate up to 20 calories per minute, your body will have more ground to cover before returning to the usual five or six calories per minute. Thus extending the calorie loss period in the sauna.
Calories Burned in a Sauna Without Proper Hydration
Any time you pair a workout with sauna use, it is essential to ensure proper hydration. Exercise already makes your body lose water, and the sauna will do the exact same thing. It’s easy to become dehydrated after both a workout and a sauna session, which can hinder your body’s ability to burn calories. For optimal calories burned in a sauna, consider drinking water before, during, and after both your workout and sauna session. It’s also important to take breaks for water in the middle of your sauna session. Remember, no calorie loss is more important than your immediate health. Staying hydrated is key to safely increasing your calorie burn in the sauna.
Can Using a Sauna Help You Reach Your Weight Loss Goals?
The sauna can indeed help you burn more calories but that burn rate can only really lead to major weight loss when paired with serious exercise that gets the body sweaty already. The calories burned in a sauna alone are just not sufficient to matter.
If you were to use the sauna with no paired workout, the biggest weight you’d likely lose is in the water your body gives off. That water weight, unfortunately, isn’t the type of weight loss that sticks; you’ll gain it right back when you rehydrate. But for those who already have their bodies working hard after a workout, using the sauna is a proven way to prolong your calorie loss and even increase the total value of your workout!
As long as you stay properly hydrated and your workout doesn’t strain your body, adding a visit to the sauna after your workout may be a great way to both hold-off soreness and, of course, increase the number of calories burned in the sauna.