Do You Burn More Calories In The Heat? Risks And Tips In 2024

Will exercising on a hot day help you lose more weight than you would ordinarily? Do you burn more calories in the heat? The facts stand: it takes energy to keep your body in balance. Why not maximize your effort when safe to do so?

Do You Burn More Calories Running In The Heat?

While exercising during hot weather itself won’t lead to more calories^[1] being burned there are a host of peripheral factors that might end up increasing the intensity of your workout overall. 

Whole-Body Oxidation Rates

Environmental heat stress catalyzes more than a few bodily processes^[2] that may lead you to burn extra calories. Some of these include lipolysis, muscle glycogenolysis, hepatic glucose output, and whole-body carbohydrate oxidation rates, although whole-body fat oxidation tends to decrease under these conditions.

Core Body Temperature Homeostasis

Exercising, in general, will generate heat. When you exercise in warmer temperatures, this truth applies even more, even if you’re working out at the same exercise intensity that your body is already used to. 

Your body burns calories in order to keep your body in harmony despite external temperatures^[3], resulting in an elevated basal metabolic rate. Your basal metabolic rate determines how many calories your body burns in hot weather of the work that it’s doing. 

That means extra calories and an enhanced ability to burn fat. Exercising in hot weather is awesome for weight loss, largely for this reason. You burn more calories just trying to stay alive while dissipating heat through sweating.

Do You Burn More Calories Walking In The Heat? Body Temperature and Heat Stress

Heat stress while exercising increases^[4] one’s total metabolic rate and anaerobic participation, which means that you’ll burn more energy and lose weight much faster.

It’s worth noting that these secondary effects fade as your body acclimates itself to the heat. As a result, your total energy expenditure in this area may be reduced when exercising in the heat at length.

Risks Of Exercising In Hot Temperatures

Does working out in the heat burn more calories? Sure, exercising in the heat will burn more calories. Is it right for everybody, though?

Does running in the heat burn more calories? Weight loss goals or not, exercising in the heat burns way more calories than exercising in cold weather. Heatstroke, heat exhaustion, heat cramps, and even sunburn can all totally wreck your workout when exercising in high temperatures.

With every minute you spend in the heat, your body needs to burn extra energy to prevent you from falling out of homeostasis. This difference alone may be enough to push you over the edge, but it’s not all that you have to worry about under these circumstances:

• You may fall victim to heat-related illnesses like heat exhaustion, heat stroke, or dehydration
• Your athletic performance may suffer^[5], which may actually lead you to burn fewer calories than you would in cold temperatures
• When we overheat while exercising, more energy and even more blood are allocated^[6] to the task of cooling the body down in various ways

Aside from these, there’s always the risk that you might think that you’re burning calories at a higher rate when really you’re not. Sometimes, you might think that you’ve lost more weight by working out in a hot environment, but this may be due to simple water loss through excessive sweating. Extra water and a safe and effective fat burner should have you squared away in no time at all.

Here Are A Few Important Points You’ll Require

The body’s ability to regulate itself is impressive, but you should seek immediate medical attention if you find yourself fading or succumbing to heat exhaustion. A few symptoms that indicate that you should stop exercising may include^[7]:

• A body temperature of 103F or higher
• Hot, red, flushed skin, or cold and clammy skin
• Heavy sweating
• A racing heartbeat
• A stronger-than-usual pulse
• A headache
• Dizziness and vertigo
• Nausea, gagging, and vomiting
• Cramping muscles or pain and spasms
• Disorientation, weakness, sudden fatigue, and confusion (especially if you start shivering while exercising)
• A loss of consciousness, in the most severe cases

The additional calories that you burn should never come at the cost of your fitness needs; if physical activity in hot weather is taking an undue toll on your body’s temperature and ability to function, we recommend simply choosing to exercise under cool conditions instead.

Tips For Exercising In Hot Conditions

There are many types of exercise that take place in the heat by default—hot yoga, for example, uses extreme heat to improve range of motion, balance, and strength^[8]. 

This isn’t to say that outdoor exercise is completely off of the table, even if it’s not an environment that you have a lot of control over. A few tips for staying safe when exercising in high temperatures:

• Stay hydrated, and drink plenty of water throughout your workout, regardless of fitness level or exercise intensity
• Your workout clothes should be cool enough to keep you comfortable and made of fabric that will wick sweat away from otherwise dry skin
• A slight increase in discomfort is normal when you adopt healthy habits like this for the first time; these factors influence your performance greatly, and the heat affects our disposition greatly, but both of these factors should stabilize^[9] as you improve

When you’re able to burn more calories, exercising becomes a much more time-effective way to improve your body composition and lose body weight. You could even try to harness this effect by burning calories with a hot shower.

A quick assessment of yourself will help you prevent the greater risk of an unfortunate medical emergency, as will drinking water and improving your understanding of the way that the body works before, during, and after exercise.

Does Hot Weather Make You Lose Weight: Calories Burned, Faster Than Ever

While the temperatures that you exercise in every day aren’t necessarily the only factor influencing your average weight loss and calorie burn, it is one ace-in-the-hole that you can turn to when you would like to be burning calories at a greater intensity.

And, if exercising in the heat isn’t for you? There’s nothing wrong with an early morning jog in cooler temperatures to kick off your weight loss journey. Stubborn belly fat won’t stand a chance.

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