Infrared Sauna results
 

Hi! I am new to this board. I have been reading many of your post and you all seem to have great insite and advice.

I eat well and get exercise on a daily basis. A couple months ago I heard about an infrared sauna and started researching the benefits. I also starting going to one about twice a week. They are supposed to help in many areas such as muscle and joint pain, detoxing your body and helping burn extra calories.(the reason being it takes so many calories to produce a gram of sweat so you drink water to replenish the fluid but you have still burned the calories. Also if you have fat soluble toxins in you body your body will hold onto fat) They are not as hot as regular saunas since they only get to about 110 degrees but the heat penetrates deapers because of the infrared light.

I have lost weight using this and am seriously considering purchasing one for my home. I wanted to know if anyone had tried these and had any experience with them. I talked to my doctor and she supports me buying one but does not know a ton about them. I am just trying to figure out what the best thing to do is. Thanks in advance for your help!

Saunas, huh?

What you're losing in saunas is water weight. Sorry, but you can't 'sweat out' fat. Doesn't matter if it's a traditional sauna or an infrared one.

Here's an article I dug up.

Originally Posted by :
12/03/03
The Infrared Sauna

Katie Wintters teaches pilates and works out at least three times a day. Needless to say she's in very good shape, but she says working out and eating right haven't been the only keys to her great health.

"I actually lost 20 pounds over a three month period," she explains.

She attributes much of her well being and weight loss to a cedar box, it's an infrared sauna. Unlike normal saunas, it uses infrared rays to heat your body.

"The tissues get hot so it makes the heart starts pumping faster, so you get a work out while you're in there because your heart rate goes up," Katie explains.

She's been using it for more than a year and says she's in better health today than ever before.

'It's eliminated toxins (from the body) I haven't been sick in a year and a half, and the energy is amazing," she says.

People around the country are buying into this latest health craze, but local doctors don't sing all of it's praises.

"I think it makes people feel better but as to whether it moves anything from the body other than water or electrolytes has never been shown to happen," says Dr. Stephen Rydzak of ETMC. He says there are no documented health benefits and worries som people might look at it as an alternative to exercise. He does admit though that it can increase circulation and may very well make you feel better.

Personally, any time I see someone talking about "detoxifying the body" I automatically smell a HUGE scam. Check this article out from Quackwatch.org...

http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...ics/detox.html

Originally Posted by :
"Detoxification" with Pills and Fasting
Frances M. Berg, MS
It's an irrational concept, yet an intriguing idea, that modern life so fills us with poisons from polluted air and food additives that we need to be periodically "cleaned out" ("detoxified"). Never mind that natural chemicals in our foods are thousands of times more potent than additives, or that most Americans are healthier, live longer, and can choose from the most healthful food supply ever available.

The elaborate, manipulative hoax of "detoxification" is gaining ground. Many people sincerely believe that their intestines, colon, and blood stream are subject to "clogging" by undigested foods and poisons. Food faddists seem to have a special fascination with bowels, colons, and body wastes.)

The supposed need to detox is promoted through extensive writings, advertisements and door-to-door pitches. This usually involves fasting several times a year for a few days while taking laxatives or diuretics to "clean out the system."

Some entrepreneurs claim that detoxing is a great way to jump-start a diet by losing 5 or 10 pounds before you even begin the diet itself. And if their scheme is not about weight loss, "rejuvenation" is typically recommended afterward. People who are persuaded that these activities will restore vigorous youth can wind up hooked on an herbal regimen that costs several hundred dollars a month.

In the "Inches Away plan," the client eats no solid food for three days, drinks only water with lemon juice and honey added, and takes three kinds of herbal capsules. This is claimed to cleanse the digestive tract of accumulated waste and putrefied bacteria, clean out the major organs and blood, and give mental clarity because it stops the mind's bombardment by chemicals and food additives. After three days of detox, the client takes four kinds of diet pills in combination, up to 30 a day, and visits the diet center for weekly body wraps and daily simulated action on 10 passive exercise tables.

In the Sambu Internal Cleansing Program, "Dr. Dunner of Switzerland" advises detoxing by drinking a special tea with pills that combine elderberries and birch-juniper.

The Herbal Cleansing and Detox Program from the Indiana Botanic Gardens of Hammond, Ind., includes a tea and tablets containing ginger, prickly ash, yellow dock, cascara sagrada, psyllium and uva ursi. "With your body free of harmful toxins, you will feel younger, better, healthier and happier!" Claimed benefits are increased energy, better digestion, normal weight maintenance, clearer complexion, good circulation, mental alertness, balanced function of vital cleansing organs, and stronger defense system. (Cost for a supply of tea and tablets is $29.90.)

The Health Center for Better Living of Naples, Fla., promotes Colon Helper and an amusing theory: "It has been proven by medical authorities that nearly half of all sickness starts in the colon . . . when the colon is kept clean, disease in the body is very rare." After this the dieter might choose their Trim Fast pills, Herbal Food Combination Weight Loss Formula #59, Dieter's Delight Herbal Tea, or Good-Bye Cellulite.

Detoxification Relief is marketed by Home Health of Virginia Beach, Va. It helps you stop harmful effects from "overindulgence," or from tobacco, alcohol and pollution.

Dr. Clayton's Natural Program for Weight Control combines three kinds of pills, two for cleansing and one for weight loss. Blood Cleanser is claimed to "detoxify the blood and tissues," and the Herba-Clenz is for "cleansing and healing the bowel."

The detoxification theory can enable con artists to gain great power over their customers by diagnosing and curing "potentially fatal" (but nonexistent) illnesses. "They have to invent the idea of toxins," says Peter Fodor, president of the Lipoplasty Society of North America, "because that gives them something to pretend they can fix."

It can be terrifying to believe that one's body is being poisoned by toxins from within. But if this were true, the human race would not have survived, says Vincent F. Cordaro, M.D., an FDA medical officer. "A person who retained wastes and toxins would be very ill and could die if not treated. The whole concept is irrational and unscientific."

Speaking of saunas...recently HBO aired a documentary titled "Jockey" about what those athletes are forced to do to 'make weight' and ride in races (max of 115 pounds). If you have "HBO On Demand" I believe it's still available (I highly recommend watching it...it's chilling what these guys go through and how it wrecks their bodies). These guys spend a LOT of time in saunas, getting rid of water weight that comes back the next day - as soon as the races are over and they drink some H20. Here's a portion of the synopsis from the HBO website:

Originally Posted by :
JOCKEY follows the lives of three dedicated riders as they cope with the twists and turns of the intense - and often life-threatening - demands of their profession. Punctuated by footage of dramatic moments in recent horse racing history, this startling America Undercover documentary debuts just days before all eyes are on the Kentucky Derby.

JOCKEY takes an intimate, often-disturbing look at the hidden world of thoroughbred racing through the eyes of superstar jockeys Shane Sellers and Randy Romero and aspiring apprentice Chris Rosier.

While a few jockeys do make millions a year, many riders struggle to earn a living, and even the biggest names will do anything to make minimum required weight.

Through the stories of these three courageous jockeys from three generations, JOCKEY reveals some well kept secrets of professional horse racing, showing how impossibly low weight minimums have spawned a culture of forced starvation, sweating and purging among riders. Adding to the stress of the job, jockeys are not generally signed to contracts and have little job security or health coverage.

All three jockeys featured in JOCKEY express a deep passion for and commitment to the sport, despite the hardships. Sellers, once ranked the third-leading rider in the U.S., has been sidelined by a racing accident and is now working to shed 22 pounds to get back in the saddle. For Rosier, who is a struggling apprentice jock, or "bugboy," a successful racing career may offer an exciting escape from an impoverished life. And after years of competition, legendary jockey Romero suddenly faces death as a result of 20 years of bulimia and riding injuries.

While Sellers is preparing a comeback from his knee injury, he is wary of the lifestyle of the jockey community, where weight obsession runs rampant. "People don't know what riders go through," he observes. "It's a secret. It's a kept secret."

Many racetracks even have specially designed "heaving bowls" in the locker rooms. Rosier describes marathon sessions in the sauna, or "hot box," to lose water weight before getting on a scale to qualify for the race, revealing that "yesterday, I sweated six pounds [to make weight]. I know people who have sweated 11 pounds before a race. This happens every day."

"Keeping your body weight at 106 - 108 pounds stripped soaking wet -- takes its toll," comments Romero. His accident at the 1990 Breeders Cup illustrates the potential for tragedy. The racing icon was riding Go for Wand when the filly broke down in front of 50,000 spectators, but this was only one of 23 major accidents he has suffered. During the filming of JOCKEY, his body reaches a breaking point and he is hospitalized for kidney and liver failure, a dire situation complicated by the fact that Romero, like most jockeys, has no health insurance. "If a baseball player gets hurt, he has a contract. If that happens to a rider, you're just done," notes Sellers, who has spearheaded fundraising efforts to help with Romero's rising medical costs.

This unhealthy attempt to lose weight quickly often leaves riders fatigued and weak before a race -- a dangerous situation for diminutive men and women who ride atop 1200-pound horses racing at speeds of more than 40 miles per hour.

The film has a bittersweet ending, as some racetracks move to raise their weight minimums for the first time, due in part to the efforts of Shane Sellers. This will help young jockeys like Rosier, but unfortunately comes too late for Romero, who is still fighting for his life.

Now, I'm not saying that saunas are bad - I've used the one at my gym from time to time - it's relaxing and feels good. But if you're planning on buying one as a weight-loss aid, IMO you're just tossing away your money.

I second Mrs. Jim on this one, though I do like saunas and they do make you feel refreshed if only for the circulatory benefits. Like the second article posted points out, the chemicals we come into contact with in everyday life are, for the most part, far less potent than chemicals in the food we ingest. Somewhere along the line "chemical" became a bad word - and it's not. The entire world around you is made up of chemicals. Yes, every day you are bombarded with chemicals - they allow you to live and function normally and for the most part they're not "toxins". Actual toxins that build up in the body are things like heavy metals, and even they must be ingested in large quantities to have any effect; your deodorant will not poison you, eating old paint chips will. The likelihood that you have enough toxins in your body to actually make you hold on to fat is nil, and the even the concept is not biochemically sound. Yes, the body may store some toxic substances in fatty tissues and certain organs with a high lipid content, but only those substances it cannot eliminate properly; most things are eliminated if they even make their way into your body. Besides, amount of toxins that a typical person has in their body is infintismally small when it comes to their effect on your cellular processes; it's certainly are not enough to prevent lipolysis on a cellular level even if it were chemically possible for the toxin to interfere with the process. I posted this on another thread about "detoxification" through skin:

"Basically the skin is a selectively permeable membrane, and very few substances can pass in, and especially out - you can't remove any significant amount of actual toxins from your body through the skin. I have yet to see even one peer reviewed, replicated study that proves otherwise. Toxins in the body are processed by the liver and kidneys and usually eliminated, but some heavy metal toxins can build up in the body. Even still, they settle in areas where there are the most lipids present - it lessens the likelihood of them getting into blood and causing systemic problems, its your body's way of protecting you - so they're found in small quantities in the liver and fat tissue, sometimes in the brain if they can pass the blood-brain barrier. Most people don't have toxin levels that would cause them any problems, and they certainly don't put any weight on you unless they reach levels toxic enough to affect your metabolism and that is highly unlikely unless you work or live in an area where you are constantly exposed or have been slowly poisoned by that crazy woman next door. So toxins are stored basically in fatty tissue, and yes, fat lies under the skin, but there's a matrix of fibrous connective tissue that separates the two, not to mention as I said the skin's selective permeability. Water, certain synthetic drugs and protein-based chemicals can get through into the skin, but it's very selective about what gets out - basically just water and oils along with a some ions come out in the form of sweat and the amount of toxins that can exit is minimal."

And the concept that making sweat requires sufficient caloric energy to make you lose weight is, no offense to you at all, absurd to the point of hilarity from a physiological perspective. Sweat is just water, with some sebum and a few ions thrown in - sweat is NOT a way to detoxify the body or remove wastes, and nature never intended it as such - if that were the case we would be sweating urine, now wouldn't we? Sweat is basically just interstitial fluid that is released through the pores when the body overheats taking some oil from the sebaceous glands with it - it's a cooling mechanism, that's it. There is no calorie expenditure in "producing" sweat. The components are already there, they just come out when you get hot. The only thing of significance you lose when you sweat is water and electrolytes.

If you want to get a sauna, get one - it makes you feel better, improves circulation, and invigorates you. But don't use it for weight loss - your weight loss is coming from diet and exercise and hard work, not a light and a heater - don't sell yourself short. Oh, and BTW, infrared light just opens your pores so you sweat more, it doesn't actually help the heat "penetrate" - it's a sales gimick. I say save yourself the bucks and sit in a hot shower for 10 minutes if you want to feel more invigorated.

-Vanessa