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How Many Calories Do You Burn in a Sauna? Surprising Facts

Saunas provide numerous advantages that support both relaxation and overall wellness.  But can sauna burn calories? If yes, how many calories are burned in a sauna? This question has been debated for years. Calorie loss and saunas have long been linked, largely because sauna suits became a major trend in Europe and North America throughout the ’80s and ’90s.  While it's commonly known that spending time in a sauna can increase calorie burning. What’s the real calorie burn during a sauna session, and is it significant enough to matter?  In this article, we’ll explore the science behind calories burned in a sauna and the best ways to use saunas for calorie loss in a healthy way. You may have used saunas before, but their broader impact on your health might still surprise you.  How Many Calories Do You Burn in a Sauna Session of 20 Minutes? To start, let’s consider a scenario where you enter a sauna without any prior workout. Essentially, you’ve gone from resting to sitting in a sauna. This means you can typically assume that calorie burning increases by at least 20% and can go up to 40%. For example, if you burn 40 calories in 20 minutes while sitting, spending 20 minutes in the sauna could result in burning up to 48 calories. It may not appear significant at first glance, but it still shows that sauna sessions lead to a noticeably higher calorie burn.  Even with minimal physical exertion, as opposed to aerobic exercise. It’s important to note that calorie burning isn’t the sole metric for weight loss. You lose weight when your daily energy burn exceeds the number of calories you eat.  The average person burns between 1,500 and 2,200 calories daily just by functioning. Those who exercise regularly can burn an additional 600 calories. Weight gain happens when you consume more calories than you burn. Fat loss occurs when the reverse is true over a sustained period. So, why does the body burn more calories in a sauna? Even for a sedentary person, moving from resting to soaking in the heat of the sauna increases calorie burning. The reason lies in how the body works to regulate temperature in the heat, resulting in increased energy expenditure. Calories Burned in a Sauna: What You Need to Know The moment you sit in a sauna, your body boosts its workload to handle the rise in temperature, and this extra effort uses energy.  While it won’t feel like an intense workout, your body has to work extra hard to regulate its internal temperature in a heated environment. The body operates best at around 37 degrees Celsius. A traditional wood-burning sauna that can reach up to 95 degrees Celsius. When exposed to this type of heat your internal systems must kick into high gear to maintain that optimal temperature. This process leads to an increase in calories burned during your sauna session. One of the most immediate physical responses you'll notice in the sauna is sweating. However, sweating is only one part of the body’s complex system for regulating temperature. The instant the warmth from the sauna touches your skin, your nervous system alerts your brain to respond.  Essentially saying, “It’s too hot! Start cooling down!” In response, your brain directs various systems in the body to reduce heat, which in turn, burns more calories. The body keeps a small reserve of water near the surface of the skin to cool you down. Once the brain registers that you're overheating, it increases blood flow and pressure in areas with sweat glands. The higher blood pressure forces sweat through the pores, releasing it onto your skin. Though it may seem like sweating starts instantly, it’s actually a complex process that increases your calorie burning rate while sitting in the sauna. This increase in activity, combined with the heat, is why sitting in a sauna leads to calorie burning and contributes to sauna weight loss over time. Do Saunas Help You Lose Weight? Here’s an interesting question: can you lose weight in a sauna? While it’s true that you burn calories in a sauna, the rate at which calories are burned isn’t significant enough to lead to major sauna weight loss. As mentioned earlier, spending about 20 minutes in a sauna might only burn a few additional calories compared to relaxing on the couch. So, the only way to lose weight through the sauna alone would be to live in it. Clearly, that’s not feasible! However, many people notice that after using the sauna, they weigh less on the scale. Don’t be misled—this is likely due to water weight loss, which is a temporary reduction. While it may seem like progress, losing water weight does not lead to long-term fat reduction. After sweating heavily in the sauna, you’ll notice weight fluctuations, but the pounds return as soon as you rehydrate. The human body contains roughly 60 to 80 liters of water, so shifts in weight due to changing hydration levels are completely natural. When exposed to sauna heat, your cooling system kicks in, prompting your sweat glands to push water out through your pores.  This process increases your heart rate and metabolic rate slightly, leading to calories burned. But it’s still not comparable to the calorie burn achieved through regular exercise. A combination of ongoing workouts and mindful nutrition remains the most proven method for shedding weight. When your daily calorie burn surpasses your intake, your body naturally starts breaking down stored fat.  A safe deficit is around 100 to 200 calories, as anything beyond that can be harmful to your health. Sauna or Workout - Which Comes First? One common question is whether working out and then using the sauna leads to even greater calories burned. The answer is yes—but not dramatically. A sauna after a workout can slightly increase the rate at which you burn calories. Especially if your heart rate is already elevated from exercise. Combining exercise with sauna use can contribute to your fat loss efforts. But the key to long-term success is still regular exercise and proper nutrition. Sauna Suit for Weight Loss If you’re considering combining sauna use with your weight loss strategy, you could also explore the benefits of a sauna suit for weight loss. These suits are designed to mimic the effects of a sauna by trapping body heat. This will lead to excessive sweating during workouts. While they might help shed extra water weight, the same rules apply. Real, sustained sauna weight loss comes from burning fat, not just losing water. Does Sitting in a Sauna Burn Calories Quicker With Exercise? In North America and Europe, it’s becoming increasingly popular to pair a workout with a visit to the sauna. There are several reasons why using the sauna after a workout is beneficial. One of them is tied to the continued burning of calories! Using a sauna after exercise has been found to slightly extend the calorie-burning effects of your workout. It may sound surprising, but even after you finish an intense, calorie-burning activity like running, your metabolism doesn’t immediately return to normal. The added heat inside a sauna slows that drop-off even further. If you’re wondering does sitting in a sauna burn calories, the answer is yes—but the burn is modest and works best when paired with exercise. This means that relaxing in the sauna after a strenuous cardio session keeps your calorie burn elevated for longer compared to just cooling down and resuming your normal activities.  Let’s take an example. If you run 5 kilometers in 25 minutes and burn around 400 calories (a rate of 16 calories per minute), this is great for both weight loss and maintaining good health. Normally, when you stop exercising, your calorie burn rate quickly drops. However, if you take a 20-minute sauna session after your workout. The drop from 16 calories per minute might be slower. Instead of immediately falling to your resting rate of 3 or 4 calories per minute, the heat from the sauna keeps the burn rate higher for longer. It might drop from 16 calories to 12, then 8, before finally returning to your average rate. This maximises the overall effect of your workout. This method can support your fat-loss goals by pairing the advantages of a solid workout with the extra calorie burn that sauna heat naturally provides.  Infrared vs. Steam Sauna: Which Sauna Type Burns More Calories? Does an Infrared Sauna Burn Calories? The examples from above all assume that you are using a traditional wood-burning sauna to track your sauna calorie loss. So, it’s natural to wonder if using an infrared sauna could help you burn more calories. In this case, however, the calories burned in an infrared sauna are similar to those in a traditional sauna. Even though the method of heating the body between the two sauna styles is quite different, the effect on the body is surprisingly similar. Both infrared saunas and wood-burning saunas use dry heat. The heat from a traditional sauna is produced by burning wood. An infrared sauna uses high-energy bulbs to emit radiation that heats the body. However, to the body, dry heat is dry heat. This means that the body will sweat at a comparable rate in both sauna types, leading to a similar number of calories burned. Luckily, this also means that you can still enjoy the benefits of an infrared sauna for weight loss and extend the value of your workout just as effectively as you would with a traditional wood-burning sauna. Calories Burned in a Steam Sauna? Steam rooms or steam saunas are fuelled by a wet heat boiler. While the heating style in a steam room differs from that of traditional saunas, there is still some caloric burning that occurs. When it comes to calories burned in a steam sauna, most people experience a mild increase in calorie expenditure as the body works harder to regulate its temperature in the humid environment. The reason saunas help boost calories burned is that your body must work harder to maintain an internal balance at a stable temperature. This same process happens in steam rooms, but with one key difference. The rate of humidity is much higher in steam rooms, which can lead to increased sweating in some individuals. This may lead to a slightly increased the rate at which calories are burned. However, when it comes to the significant calories burned in a sauna, tied to an existing workout, steam rooms offer similar benefits to dry heat saunas. After exercise, steam rooms can also slow down the return to the sedentary rate of calorie loss. This provides an extended period of increased calorie burn. How to Maximise Calories Burned in a Sauna Since saunas have an impact on your overall calorie burn, it’s natural to seek ways to maximise the calories burned during a sauna session. The good news is there’s a proven strategy to do just that. First, to get the highest caloric burn value out of your sauna visit, you need to have already been burning calories beforehand. The main benefit of the sauna is that it helps slow down your rate of return to your normal calorie loss. This indicates that beginning your sauna session with an already increased metabolic rate enables your body to sustain elevated calorie expenditure for an extended period.  Here’s how this works: If you go for a brisk walk and elevate your calorie burn rate to ten calories per minute, your subsequent visit to the sauna will slow that rate from ten to around five or six calories per minute, which is typical in the sauna. Your body will reach that slower rate quickly. However, if you opt for a taxing run that brings your caloric burn rate up to 20 calories per minute, your body will have more ground to cover before returning to the usual five or six calories per minute. Thus extending the sauna calorie loss period. Calories Burned in a Sauna Without Proper Hydration Any time you pair a workout with sauna use, it is essential to ensure proper hydration. Exercise already makes your body lose water, and the sauna will do the exact same thing. Both workouts and sauna sessions can leave you dehydrated, which slows down your calorie-burning process.  For optimal calories burned in a sauna, consider drinking water before, during, and after both your workout and sauna session. It’s also important to take breaks for water in the middle of your sauna session. Remember, no calorie loss is more important than your immediate health. Staying hydrated is key to safely increasing your calorie burn in the sauna. Can Using a Sauna Help You Reach Your Weight Loss Goals? The sauna can indeed help you burn more calories but that burn rate can only really lead to major weight loss when paired with serious exercise that gets the body sweaty already. The calories burned in a sauna alone are just not sufficient to matter. If you're wondering how many calories do you burn in a sauna, the number is generally modest and varies based on factors like temperature, duration, and your body’s natural metabolic rate. If you were to use the sauna with no paired workout, the biggest weight you’d likely lose is in the water your body gives off. That water weight, unfortunately, isn’t the type of weight loss that sticks; you’ll gain it right back when you rehydrate. But for those who already have their bodies working hard after a workout, using the sauna is a proven way to prolong your calorie loss and even increase the total value of your workout! As long as you stay properly hydrated and your workout doesn’t strain your body, adding a visit to the sauna after your workout may be a great way to both hold-off soreness and, of course, increase the number of calories burned in the sauna. Frequently Asked Questions 1. How many calories do you burn in a sauna session of 20 minutes?A 20-minute sauna session usually burns anywhere from 50 to 150 calories, depending on your body weight and the sauna’s heat level. However, this calorie burn is modest and mostly comes from your body working to cool itself. 2. Can sauna burn calories and do saunas help you lose real weight?A sauna mainly causes temporary water-weight loss, which returns once you rehydrate. Real, lasting weight loss only happens when saunas are combined with regular exercise and healthy habits. 3. Do infrared saunas burn more calories than traditional saunas?Infrared saunas may burn slightly more calories because they heat your body more directly, raising your heart rate gently. Still, the calorie difference between infrared and traditional saunas isn’t large. 4. Does sweating more mean I’m burning more calories in the sauna?Sweating more doesn’t equal more calories burned. Sweating is just your body cooling itself, while calorie burn depends more on heart rate and metabolic activity. 5. Is it safe to use a sauna after a workout?Yes, it’s generally safe and even beneficial to use a sauna after a workout, as it helps with relaxation and circulation. Just make sure you’re properly hydrated before entering the sauna. 6. Can a sauna suit help me lose weight faster?A sauna suit only increases sweat, leading to temporary water-weight loss, not fat loss. Overuse can also be risky because it raises dehydration and overheating chances. 7. How long should I stay in a sauna to burn calories safely?Most experts recommend 15–20 minutes per session for safe calorie burn. Staying longer can increase the risk of dizziness, dehydration, and overheating. 8. Is the calorie burn in a steam room different from a sauna?Yes, steam rooms feel hotter due to humidity, but they usually burn about the same amount of calories as saunas. The main difference is comfort and sweating intensity, not calorie expenditure. 9. Can using a sauna help boost my metabolism?Saunas create a temporary increase in heart rate and circulation, which can slightly boost metabolism. However, this boost is short-lived and not enough for major weight loss on its own. 10. What’s the best way to maximize calories burned in a sauna?Using a sauna after a workout is the most effective way to maximize calorie burn, as your heart rate is already elevated. Staying hydrated and keeping sessions to safe time limits also help your body work efficiently. 11. Does sitting in a sauna burn calories? Yes, sitting in a sauna does burn calories because your body works harder to cool itself down in the heat. However, the calorie burn is modest and not enough to cause significant weight loss on its own. You’ll see the best results when sauna use is paired with regular exercise. 12. Does sweating in a sauna burn calories? Yes, sweating in a sauna does burn some calories because your body works harder to cool itself down in the heat. However, the calorie burn is relatively small and mostly linked to increased heart rate — not the sweat itself. Sweating more doesn’t necessarily mean you’re burning significantly more calories. 13. Do sauna suits burn more calories? Sauna suits can make you burn slightly more calories by raising your heart rate and body temperature, but most of the “weight loss” is just temporary water loss. They don’t significantly increase fat burning on their own. For real results, they should be paired with proper exercise and hydration.