Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by Fasting Planet
When you’re on an intermittent fast, you like to try to get your sweat on to make your fast even more efficient. Recently, another fasting buddy of yours told you about their experience at a sauna while they were intermittent fasting. That has you curious, can you boost the effects of a water fast by visiting a sauna?
When you spend time sitting in a sauna sweating, it’s possible you could burn more calories. This can enhance the results of your intermittent fast, including water fasts, leading to more weight loss.
In today’s post, we’ll discuss the safety of using a sauna during an intermittent fast and how the experience works. You’re not going to want to miss it.
Does Water Fasting Work More Efficiently When in a Sauna?
If this will be your first trip to a sauna, let’s briefly discuss what you can expect. Then we can talk about using a sauna in relation to fasting.
When you visit a sauna, you enter a small room with extremely high temperatures, typically an average of 150 to 195 degrees Fahrenheit. The room is often covered with wooden planks and maybe some rocks, as these absorb the heat currently in the sauna and then release more.
Sitting in a sauna is beneficial to your health in many ways. You can use the experience as a chance to cleanse your skin, flush out toxins from the body as you sweat, and soothe aching muscles. After your day at the sauna, you may have a stronger immune system as well as get a better night’s sleep.
One of the biggest health perks of using a sauna is burning calories. That’s something saunas share with intermittent fasting. When you’re on a water fast, which is a form of time-restricted eating, you’re cutting all the daily calories you eat, consuming only water. In doing so, you’re triggering cell renewal in the body and strengthening through autophagy and also losing weight. This happens both by reducing calories and burning fat.
If you were to visit a sauna on an intermittent fast, could you burn even more calories than you can without a sauna? According to sauna resource Steam Sauna, indeed you can. The site mentions that your rate of calorie burning in a sauna is 1.5 times greater compared to your base rate of calorie burning, aka the calories you burn when you’re at rest.
Let’s say you weigh 150 pounds. Even if you’re completely sedentary, your body will still naturally burn calories. In 30 minutes of sitting, you’d burn around 56 calories. When you’re in a sauna, your body will torch 84 calories in that same time period.
Now, this isn’t a significant increase in calories burned. However, when you consider that you’re fasting and already torching calories and fat through your dietary choices, the health benefits may be more pronounced.
Is It Safe to Use a Sauna When Intermittent Fasting?
Using a sauna when intermittent fasting can be a safe experience if you spend a limited time in such high temperatures. However, the trip can just as easily turn dangerous if you don’t watch out for these risks.
Dehydration
You shouldn’t have to worry about dehydration from sauna use if you keep your visit short, like a half-hour to an hour. However, for those who spend hours in a sauna, they’re at quite a risk of dehydration. Considering you’re already more likely to be dehydrated when intermittent fasting because you’re losing about 20 percent of your hydration from food, saunas + water fasting can easily make you dehydrated.
Dehydration is more than just feeling thirsty, by the way. If unaddressed and untreated, being under-hydrated can be fatal in some instances.
Hypoglycemia
This 2017 report from HealthDay as published on WebMD cites a study involving sauna users from Finland. All participants lowered their blood pressure by regularly spending time in the sauna.
A decrease in blood pressure is ideal for warding off deadly conditions like heart disease and stroke. However, if your blood pressure drops too low, you could have hypoglycemia.
More than likely, being in a sauna alone isn’t enough to cause hypoglycemia, but with your blood sugar already low from not eating on a fast, now you’re at a much higher risk of hypoglycemia.
You may feel a bit cranky, hungry, and anxious if you have hypoglycemia, and your heart rate can increase too. Without treatment at that point, low blood pressure can progress to these serious symptoms:
- Unconsciousness
- Blurry vision
- Seizures
You would need immediate medical attention for your health.
Lack of Electrolytes
Although you’re not exerting yourself in a sauna, you’re still sweating, and quite a lot at that. When you sweat, your body loses electrolytes. Too steep of an electrolyte loss can cause what’s known as an electrolyte imbalance. We just wrote about this in another post, but if you missed that, an electrolyte imbalance can cause the following symptoms:
- Constipation or diarrhea
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Seizures or convulsions
- Exhaustion
- Faster and irregular heart rate
You can drink electrolyte water, Pedialyte, coconut water, or bone broth to renew your electrolytes after a sauna visit. None of these beverages will break your water fast.
Having an Empty Stomach
You’re not supposed to sit in a sauna if you haven’t eaten, as the stress of the heat can make your body feel sick. Yet when you’re water fasting, it may have been close to 24 hours since you’ve last had a bite to eat. Please make sure you only augment your fasting with a sauna visit if you’re doing a type of intermittent fast that allows for eating.
Conclusion
Sitting in a sauna is a good way to improve your health, remove toxins from the body, burn calories, and lose weight, and that weight loss may be accelerated by intermittent fasting. Just make sure you eat before you visit the sauna, you hydrate before and after your visit, and you replenish your electrolytes.