Using an Infrared Sauna For Weight Loss

Why are people interested in using an infrared sauna for weight loss?

Traditional-style saunas work indirectly, by heating the air inside the sauna's enclosure.

To put it simply, sitting inside a traditional sauna makes you hot and sweaty because you're surrounded by all that heated air. In contrast, infrared saunas directly heat you, not just the air inside the enclosure. Other pages on this site explain how this works in greater detail, but for now it's enough to know that the infrared energy penetrates deep into your body and causes your tissues to heat up from within. Your body reacts to this heating effect by raising your heart rate and starting to sweat.

Many people who want to lose weight try to live a healthy lifestyle by eating a balanced diet of wholesome foods and exercising regularly. That's enough for some people to start losing weight. Unfortunately, no matter how diligently they exercise or watch their diet, that strategy doesn't seem to work for others. They need something else to help them lose weight.

Intrigued by the potential, a lot of these people are searching for information about using an infrared sauna for weight loss. You've come to the right place if you're one of the many who want to know more about this new, hot topic in the weight loss field.

There are two basic mechanisms which make using an infrared sauna for weight loss very effective. The first of these mechanisms involves the way an infrared sauna helps you burn calories; the other is how the sauna can detoxify your body. Let's discuss these weight loss mechanisms one at a time.

Burning Calories

As mentioned earlier, an infrared sauna generates infrared energy that penetrates deep into your body and produces heat. This deep heating effect is much deeper (up to three inches inside your body) than the heat produced by the hot air in a traditional sauna. Your body will expend energy to lower the rising internal temperatures you experience while sitting in an infrared sauna for weight loss. During your body's attempt to eliminate the excess heat, your pulse and metabolic rate will go up and you'll start sweating. These responses all require the expenditure of energy, which in turn requires your body to burn calories. A 30-minute session relaxing in an infrared sauna can burn more than the 300 calories that an average-sized person would burn during a 30-minute swim or jog.

It's pretty typical to lose as many as three to four pounds during a single 30-minute session. That's a pretty dramatic weight loss, but most of it will be temporary because it's the result of fluid loss from sweating. Most of those pounds will come back as soon as you have something to drink. Don't be tempted to try to keep this weight off by not drinking water, however. Because you can easily lose a pint or so of sweat in a single 30-minute sauna session, it's very important to replenish your fluids by drinking at least two or three glasses of water for every 30 minutes you're in the sauna. Drink water instead of soda or some other drink that contains calories, because with water you won't replace the calories you just burned off. Dehydration can endanger your health, but it's easy to avoid. Drink up after your session with an infrared sauna for weight loss.

Detoxification

Modern medicine is becoming increasingly aware of the dangers posed by toxic substances in the human body. Unfortunately, life in today's modern world exposes us to a variety of toxins every day. Medical practitioners are learning that these toxic substances can cause metabolic imbalances that can make it extremely difficult to lose extra weight.

Infrared saunas are being praised for their ability to detoxify the body. Once the toxic substances are eliminated from your body, losing weight might become much easier.

Once again, the deep, penetrating heat created by an infrared sauna is the catalyst for weight loss. Human fat is said to begin liquefying at 110 degrees Fahrenheit, so when you use an infrared sauna for weight loss, some of your subcutaneous fat will be melted and excreted along with your sweat. The process rids your body of toxic substances that are concentrated in this fat while simultaneously cleansing your pores and making your skin healthier.

Eliminating the toxins from your body can help correct metabolic imbalances which can cause poor digestion and weight gain. Once detoxification eliminates those obstacles, it can be much easier to lose weight.

Click here to read what others have to say about using their infrared sauna for weight loss, or to share your own story.

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