Obesity is among the common health issues in the United States. People who are gaining weight are desperate to find ways to burn calories to stay healthy. But does using a hot tub burn calories?
Study proves that hot tubs can help you burn calories. It is believed to burn around 140 calories after soaking for an hour, equivalent to a 30-minute walk. The high water temperature of the hot tub produces a type of protein that accelerates the calorie-burning process.
Health enthusiasts agree that soaking in a hot tub can help burn calories and improve your metabolism. Furthermore, it can help improve inflammation and blood sugar levels. However, experts reiterate that hot tubbing is not the outright solution to burning calories and staying fit.
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Does Using a Hot Tub Count as Exercise?
What if you will get fit by simply soaking in a hot tub? What if you don’t need to exercise anymore to burn calories? Whether using a hot tub can help you get fit is very interesting.
The study conducted by Dr. Faulkner at Loughborough University reports that soaking in a hot tub for one hour is equivalent to walking for 30 minutes. It burns 140 calories and generally helps improve inflammation and sugar levels.
Technically, we cannot equate hot tubbing to exercising. An exercise involves physical activity, which is not happening when you soak in your hot tub. But if we talk about the effect, we can consider that exercising and soaking in a hot tub are similar.
However, I would still prefer to walk in the park or exercise at the gym to sweat the calories out. Getting physical feels more satisfying for me.
Related Read: Does Hot Tub Help You Lose Weight?
Does Sitting in a Hot Spa Burn Calories?
Spending time in a hot spa has been proven to help burn calories. The next question should be: Is sitting in a hot spa enough to burn calories and keep you healthy? Or, can you rely on sitting in a hot tub as the main method to burn your extra calories?
It is not deniable that using the hot tub can provide you with many benefits. Firstly, it helps you relax, temporarily relieve pain, and improve sleep. Secondly, it burns calories and helps improve metabolism and blood sugar levels.
As far as burning calories is concerned, sitting in a hot spa may not be enough. This idea is especially true if you are fighting obesity. It can “help” you burn some calories, but it is not the ultimate solution.
I can’t help but comment on how some of my friends think they can give up physical activities and rely on using the hot tub to lose calories. I always tell them that it is a lazy excuse. I am not a gym rat, but I make it a point to use the gym to help improve my health.
Sitting in a hot spa is not enough to lose calories. It is not enough to stay healthy. However, it is a great tool to assist you in improving your health condition.
The perfect thing to do is to use the hot tub alongside your other calorie-burning methods. The best method I know that helps burn calories is exercising. So, you can continue with your current exercise routines and relax in a hot tub afterward.
It is also important to note that the deeper you soak your body in the hot tub is better than just sitting up to your waist. You can burn more calories if you do this because your whole body gets stimulated by the heat of your hot tub water.
However, take some precautions before dipping yourself in your hot tub. Hydrate yourself properly. Set the temperature between 38 to 40 degrees Celsius.
Can Using a Hot Tub Burn Belly Fat?
If you are concerned about that flabby belly fat, you will be happy to know that using a hot tub can help you burn some of that fat. Many studies have proven that a hot tub is a good supplement for losing fat.
Health experts say you can lose around 17 calories after 15 to 20 minutes of submerging yourself in a hot tub (considering you weigh 150 pounds). Well, that is equivalent to .005 pounds of fat right there.
Of course, for the hot tub to be effective in helping you lose that belly fat, it requires you to do it for a certain period. You would likely start to see the result after soaking in a hot tub for at least 125 days. In short, it does require a little effort to be effective.
Since we are talking about the hot tub as a tool to help you lose that belly fat, you should continue your weight loss activities. You can add using a hot tub to the existing weight loss plan to ultimately achieve your goal. You need to stay focused and motivated and not think that soaking in a hot tub will fix everything.
A fitness trainer wrote about how using a hot tub can contribute to fat loss. He agrees that a hot tub improves your metabolism and helps you burn calories or fat. I want to think that he is basing this on the result of recent studies on how a hot tub can contribute to weight loss.
While he suggests that soaking in a hot tub is a good supplementary method for losing weight, he stresses that you need to put some limits. Of course, too much of everything is bad. The common side effects of excessive hot tubbing are dizziness, light-headedness, overheating, and dehydration.
Therefore, if you want to utilize hot tubbing to lose belly fat, keep it to a minimum. It would be best if you did not overdo it. Stick to your weight loss goals, and do not try to rely on the hot tub as the main method.
Do Hot Tubs Slow or Increase Your Metabolism?
With a good metabolism, your body can effectively convert food energy for all its functions. Health enthusiasts agree that a good metabolism can help you burn more calories.
On the other hand, when your metabolism is slow, you will likely easily gain weight. Plus, you will gain much more weight if you do not engage in physical activities to help burn calories.
The good news is that using a hot tub increases your metabolism. The mechanism is almost similar to how physical exercise improves your metabolism. As you soak in the hot tub, your blood circulation will increase, as well as your metabolism.
So, if you eat a lot and have a slow metabolism, it is a good idea to soak in a hot tub regularly or at least occasionally. Submerging yourself in a hot tub is a good supplementary way to help you burn more calories and increase your metabolism.
It is fascinating to know that you will not only enjoy and relax when using a hot tub. If you haven’t been doing it recently, it is probably the perfect time to start doing it again.
Haven’t you noticed that people start to gain weight as they age? This phenomenon happens because our metabolism tends to slow down as we age. It means that we need to do something to improve it.
Of course, soaking in a hot tub is just one of the ways to improve your metabolism. There are other ways or methods as well that you can consider. The most common method is to exercise.
You can follow the common ways to improve your metabolism and add hot tubbing. However, if you have some health issues, I highly suggest you seek advice from a medical professional to be properly guided on how to proceed.
Conclusion
Using a hot tub is a supplementary way to burn calories. Soaking in a hot tub burns calories like what happens when you exercise. Researchers report that aside from burning calories, using a hot tub will also increase your metabolism and blood sugar levels.
Although there are many benefits you can get from using a hot tub, it is also very important that you put some limit to it. Do not consider it the ultimate solution to burn calories and lose weight. It is always best to seek professional advice before heavily using a hot tub to ensure your safety.
