Monday 27 June 2011

Super sticky

As I left my overly air-conditioned office this evening and was hit by a wall of heat it dawned on me that whichever mode of transport I took I'd end up needing a shower when I got home.

Faced with the prospect if a super sticky journey home I did the only sensible thing, changed into my gym kit and ran home.

I can detect some NITC readers questioning my sanity at this point, but my logic was that if I was going to get sweaty on the way home I might as well also get some exercise.

Running in this level of heat and humidity is a very different experience to exercising in my chilled underground gym and one I imagine most people wouldn't enjoy (personally I love exercising in the heat but appreciate this is unusual). However there is one downside to gym facilities being kept super cool and that is that it can prevent you from having a good sweat.

Sweat is produced to cool you down as it absorbs heat energy from your skin causing it to evaporate. Sweat also carries toxins out of your body, your skin being your second main detoxification organ (the first is the liver). So sweating can be a useful mechanism to help eliminate toxins.

This is part of the reason why Bikram yoga can be so beneficial (it is yoga done in a high temperature room). However any exercise that makes you sweat for more than 10minutes will be helping detoxification.

It is always important to replace lost fluids with water or electrolyte drinks for lengthy exercise. If you're not sure how much you need just weight yourself before and after. For every 1kg weight loss you need 1 litre of fluid.

However, if you are following a strict detox regime then you should be resting and relaxing, not sweating it out on the treadmill. But you can still use this method of detoxification if you have access to a sauna, just make sure you follow the recommended time limits and drink lots of water to replace lost fluids.
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