Does sweating more means more fat loss?

Also, what it means if you feel cool as a cucumber after your workouts. Sweating more during workouts is often linked with burning more calories. But does it imply that if you’re not sweating much that you’ve not worked hard enough, or you haven’t burned more calories? Does sweating more means more fat loss?

Why do we sweat?

Sweat can be messy( or sometimes stinky), but it’s our body’s natural cooling mechanism. So, our body creates sweat to cool off when the body temperature goes up.

Sweat glands are responsible for regulating human body temperature. There are three types of sweat glands: eccrine, apocrine, and apoeccrine.

1. Eccrine sweat glands are present all over the skin and secrete water and electrolytes through the surface of our skin.

2. Apocrine glands secrete oily substances having lipids, proteins, and steroids through the hair canal and are found only in the skin containing hair(armpits, anal, mammary, and genital areas). And produce an odor when get mixed with the bacteria on the skin. Rather than reacting to the temperature, they often respond to anxiety and fear. 

3. Apoeccrine sweat glands are found in the area apocrine glands but secrete water just like eccrine glands. 

If you and your workout partner are doing the same exercise in the same atmosphere, with clothes made up of the same fabric, you might still notice the sweat rate difference. The one who’s sweating a lot might have more sweat glands. 

Does more sweating mean more fat loss?

These different sweat glands are responsible for sweating, and some people have more sweat glands, and they respond to other conditions like:

1. Temperature: Weather conditions like heat and humidity are responsible for your sweating. The climate makes the most significant impact on your sweat rate.
2. Clothes: Polyester and nylon clothes are good at wicking moisture and dries quickly. (Polyester is also used in sportswear). Nylon is another great option for moisture management.
3. Gender: Men generally sweat more than women. 
4. Caffeine: Coffee or other energy drinks containing caffeine will make you sweat more as it stimulates the central nervous system, increases heart rate and blood pressure. And, all this extra energy can cause sweating. So, caffeine before workouts can be another reason behind sweating.
5. Age: With increasing age, our body’s ability to tolerate heat decreases. Sweat glands shrink, which translates into decreased sweating.
6. Muscle mass: Fit people with more lean muscle mass than fat sweat more because their bodies are more efficient at cooling down.
7. Fitness level:  Fit people usually sweat more than their less-fit counterparts because of their body’s ability to cool down more quickly. But, if they perform the same exercise, the less fit one will sweat more because they have to put more energy into completing that exercise. In the end, your sweat rate depends more on the number of sweat glands than any other factor.
8. Water: If you’re dehydrated, you’re likely to sweat less as sweating, after all, depends on having water to spare. 
9. Other factors: There can be many other factors behind sweating, like hormones, medical conditions, genetics, alcohol consumption, weight, etc. So, now you will get the answer for does sweating more means more fat loss.

Apart from all these conditions, the deciding factor is always your sweat glands. The more you have, the more you sweat. These conditions may fit for some, and not for all.

Conclusion –More sweating doesn’t mean more fat loss:

You might feel proud of yourself for draining in sweat after your workout session. But Sorry!

1. Sweat is not the scale for the number of calories you’ve burnt. So, you can still be proud of yourself even if you’re not draining in sweat after your workout session.
2. More intense workout sessions will burn more calories than the less intense ones, even if it doesn’t make you sweat. Yes, heavy sweating is also not the scale for measuring the intensity of your workouts.
3. A hot yoga class performed in the heated room is low-intensity, but you might feel drenched in sweat after the class because of the heat and humidity in the room.
4. So, the difference in the weighing scale you might experience just after your workout is the loss in water weight, which the body will quickly regain once you rehydrate.

 The sweat rate doesn’t indicate much about the number of calories you’ve burnt or your workout quality(intensity of the workout). You might feel cool as a cucumber after the same exercise, which made you sweat a lot earlier. (Because of weather conditions)