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Heat, exercise, anxiety. There are a few things that make people sweat — more than we likely want, given how uncomfortable and embarrassing sweat can sometimes be. But what do you actually know about it? In this episode, we discuss everything from the important role sweating plays in your body to whether someone can sweat "too much" and everything in between.
Hosts: Katie McCallum, John Dabkowski (interviewer)
Expert: Mag Ayyad, Exercise Dietitian
Notable topics covered:
- Why we sweat when we're hot — and when we're not
- Genetics, geography, activity level: What determines how much you sweat?
- How sweat acts as a natural cooling system when body temperature starts to climb
- The actual composition of sweat might surprise you
- Once you start sweating, how do you stop?
- Sweat and body odor: It's not your sweat — per se — that smells
- How hygiene products can affect your sweat
- Everyone sweats. Or do they?
- Mag's tips for heavy sweaters
- John and Katie do sweat tests (and share their results)
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KATIE: Welcome to On Health with Houston Methodist. I’m Katie McCallum, I’m a former researcher, turned health writer, mostly writing for our blog.
JOHN: I’m John Dabkowski, creative services manager at Houston Methodist.
KATIE: John, welcome back to the podcast. On a scale of 1-10, how much would you say you sweat?
JOHN: Scale of 1-10, I would say 47.
KATIE: I was gonna say, I feel like I already know the answer to this, but I just wanted to see what number you’d give yourself. I was gonna say, above ten.
JOHN: Way above ten. Yeah, I sweat a lot, I think I sweat a lot for a lot of reasons, but obviously when I’m exercising is when I sweat the most, I would say.
KATIE: Yeah, pretty standard.
JOHN: Pretty standard. Yes, I think I sweat mostly for standard reasons, but my volume of sweat does appear to be more than the average person, or in my head appears to be more than the average person. I think my wife would also say the same. She gets grossed out by me, and orders me to bathe immediately after I’m done exercising and doesn’t want me anywhere near anybody. So, yeah, I’m a sweater. I think about it a lot. I probably think about it a little bit too much and sometimes, I’m a little too self-conscious about it, but yeah, I’m a sweater.
KATIE: Yeah, I mean, I feel for you because I don’t really sweat. So, I think about it, but like, I think about, but I don’t think about it. But I do think about how people who sweat a lot, it probably is anxiety inducing to be like, “Am I gonna sweat through this T-shirt?” and you’re like picking out clothes and you’re like, “Well, can’t wear this shirt, ‘cause I’m gonna sweat.” Is that real?
JOHN: That is real, I would say the most anxiety inducing sweat situation is like when you have to like wear real clothes, which thankfully, since the pandemic I have to do less, and less, and less I find. That was definitely one of the pros. Like, when I go to a wedding, that is often all I’m thinking about is how do I prevent myself from sweating for at least as long until the normal people start sweating.
[Laughter]
KATIE: The normal people. Just make me be normal.
JOHN: Things of that nature, like anytime I gotta put a suit on, sweat really is at the top of my mind, and is that way until I’m not wearing a suit anymore.
KATIE: I mean, is it like anti-perspirant, is no help? Or I mean, I know, you can only put that in your armpits. Like, you’re sweating everywhere, I guess. Like, arms, everywhere, face.
JOHN: You know what’s funny? And that’s why I think I don’t sweat from anxiety a whole lot because I don’t get like sweaty hands or anything like that at all. Like, I don’t ever have that. So, yeah, I think it’s like the traditional sweaty places are where things begin.
KATIE: Yeah.
JOHN: Hands and feet and things like that. We’re getting already into the too much information portion.
KATIE: It’s a TMI topic so.
JOHN: I don’t really have that, it’s really just the traditional sweaty constrained areas.
KATIE: Yeah. And I know you think about it a lot because I feel like, when I think about when I first started here, and we were talking about like blog topics. I think like one of the first topics you were like is, I want you to write about sweat. And I’m just like okay. Today, you’re gonna talk to someone about sweat, and I’m kind of excited for you to get some like firsthand answers to all you sweat questions because I know you have a lot of them, who are we talking to today?
JOHN: We are talking to Mag Ayyad, he’s an exercise dietician here at Houston Methodist. He had amazing answers to all of my questions about sweat, but he also gave some answers that made me realize this isn’t entirely sweat related and might be related to other things as well.
KATIE: Alright, well, let’s get into it.
[Sound effect signaling beginning of interview]
JOHN: Confession right off the bat, I’m a sweater.
MAG: Okay.
JOHN: I think I spend most of my day perspiring in some form or fashion somewhere. How weird is that?
MAG: Not -- Not weird, I’m also a big sweater. But a lot of it has to do with many factors from genetics to your environment. Where you grew up, what your body is adapted to, so, you just happen to be on the unfortunate spectrum of maybe genetics and having like heavier sweat glands that perspire a lot. But I’d say it’s all over the spectrum, 50/50 where minimal sweaters to – I’m sweating even sitting here in AC and I need to go change my shirt.
JOHN: I’m going to assume – And you just touched on it a little bit, that there are a number of different reasons why someone sweats. Right now, I’m sweating ‘cause we’re doing this interview and I’ve probably got a certain level of anxiety that I try to not sound totally foolish on here. Someone listening to this is probably sweating ‘cause they probably live in Houston and it’s a million degrees outside. What are the different causes of sweat?
MAG: Anything that raises your body temperature. So, think anxiety is a big one, you mentioned that, stressed, just afraid, but exercise. If I step outside and the temperature outside is way higher than what my body temperature is. But think even, like if you get into a pool, your body temperature is rising, you don’t necessarily feel like you’re sweating, you don’t see the sweat, but you’re still perspiring. So, a lot of different factors cause us to sweat, just to kinda regulate that body temperature back to what it should be.
JOHN: You mentioned something interesting a couple minutes ago that I don’t think I’d ever heard before, where someone grows up might have an impact on how much they sweat. I grew up in England, now I live in Houston, maybe that’s got something to do with it.
MAG: Yeah, so think of like if you were to move back to a cold weather city or country. You feel -- it sucks in the beginning, it sucks the first few months, maybe the first year, but you adapt, you somehow -- You adapt, you get used to that cold weather and vice versa. So, where you grow up has a lot to do with how much sun exposure you’re getting. How much sweat -- Your sweat glands kind of start learning what the environment has. So, perhaps, even if you live somewhere and you adapt, you start sweating a little bit less. You might not notice it now, in Houston, ‘cause we’re always sweating, but if you throw someone from like a -- Let’s say Boston, and they come here in June, and they’re staying here for a year, they’re gonna have to adapt to that and years down the line, they might not sweat as much, or their body temperature might not get as hot as that first year that they moved down there. So, that environment plays a big role.
JOHN: That’s amazing. So, there are many different triggers or reasons that causes someone to sweat as you just talked about. Are there different types of sweat that are naturally inherent to a person, or is someone’s sweat simply made up of what they’re putting into their body on any given day?
MAG: Sweat is sweat. So, all of our sweat is the same, predominantly water with some minerals. So, I wouldn’t say it’s different from person to person, but you kinda touched on it. What we’re putting in our body, if it’s a lot of water that we drink that day, or a lot of sugar, a lot of spicy food, a lot of salt, your body recognizes that, and it’s like, I gotta get rid of this somehow, I gotta excrete it whether it’s throughout our urine, through saliva, but the predominant one, ‘cause we’re sweating all over our body, is sweat. So, composition, same from person to person, amount is gonna vary, not only from the environment like we talked about earlier, but what we’re putting into our body for sure.
JOHN: That’s really interesting. We’ve already reached the TMI portion of the podcast. Where I share far too many personal details about my sweat journey. We just talked about what sweat’s made up of. Now, I wanna talk about the odor and smell of sweat. So, my sweat smells, it doesn’t necessarily smell as it’s happening, but my clothes after the fact usually smell. I have to replace workout clothes every few months, every six months because even if I wash them the same day, it becomes impossible to remove the smell. What causes sweat to smell?
MAG: You are the culprit. Sweat is odorless, sweat is colorless from whoever it is. So, it’s actually the bacteria on our own skin.
JOHN: This is so disturbing right now. This somehow went worse than I thought it was gonna go.
MAG: So, you can do some things about it and some things you can’t do anything about. But yeah, definitely the bacteria that the sweat touches, as it comes out is what creates that scent and it’s very different from person to person. Some of the bacteria is just naturally occurring. So, even if you were to shower, be as clean as possible, it’s gonna happen because your natural bacteria just has that scent to when the sweat hits it, verses someone might sweat just as much as you, bacteria composition’s different. So, they’re a sweaty person, but they don’t stink.
JOHN: Amazing, I am fascinated by this.
MAG: Yes.
JOHN: This is so great. Okay, next deeply personal question that’s related to this. I’m assuming when I ruin a white shirt, ‘cause the armpits get staind, or have even maybe stained a pillow case over time with sweat --
MAG: Or sheets.
JOHN: Or sheets, that is because of this bacteria?
MAG: Color, I would say more products we use. That has much more of a factor. Like deodorant, or lotion, skincare products. A lot of times, if our sweat mixes with it, that’s where that color change will come from. If you see like the white hue that might come on shirts, think of that as salt. So, there’s salt in our sweat, there is chloride in our sweat so, sometimes it’s not a product, but just water mixed with salt. So, if you mix some water with salt in a cup and you pour it somewhere and you leave it for a while, you’ll still see that white change in color on that shirt or whatever you put it on. So, I would say a combination. Sometimes it’s just the sweat and the sodium that’s changing a little bit of the color, but a lot of it is product. A lot of it is deodorant, especially if you use like antiperspirants. They’re pretty heavy in the chemicals they have. So you immediately sweat, you mix that in, you’re gonna have pit stains, you’re gonna have stains from lotion, you’re gonna have stains from other products.
JOHN: Would you recommend -- What kinda products or ingredients would you recommend trying to avoid in some of those scenarios?
MAG: Just as minimal as possible. Like we tend to start -- Or we focus a lot of that on our food, like look at your food label, how many ingredients does it have. Look at your deodorant label, look at your lotion label. Like are there 70 different chemicals to make up this lotion and it shouldn’t be, it should be a pretty minimal list. So, there’s not a specific agent that’s causing this, but the more you’re putting in something the more that something is coming out. So, I’d say, less is better even when it comes to any product right, not just food.
JOHN: Similar to the sweat itself what goes in has gotta come out somehow, and sometimes it --
MAG: Absolutely. Yes.
JOHN: That’s truly fascinating and now, I’ve a lot of things to go and check when I get home today. Okay, pivoting back to more digestible questions. Once someone starts sweating for any of the reasons we’ve talked about, how do they stop once -- I find that once I start, it’s awfully hard to rein it back in again.
MAG: Be calm, take some deep breaths, because sweating is a natural process and your body’s way of cooling you back down. So, you don’t necessarily wanna stop that process because if -- Imagine if we didn’t sweat at all, we’d be like dogs, just panting, and we have saliva just coming out of our mouths, or we’re excreting through urine. Those are the only two other options for us to get our body temperature down. So, sweat is a positive thing. It’s our body’s mechanism of making us cooler. So, doing the opposite of anything we talked about, don’t be anxious, take the fear away, stop moving so your heart rate can slow down, so the deep breaths are kind of slowing our heart rate down reducing that body temperature. It’s almost like think of like meditation, and yoga, a lot of those times, we’re reducing a lot of the opposite of what we do in intense exercise. So, if it’s not exercise related then take deep breaths, sit still, avoid a lot the stuff we talked about, avoid the spicy food, avoid the high salt food. If you’re drinking a ton of water, perhaps not as much water, ‘cause then we’re gonna have to sweat that out somehow. So, I’d say more controlling what you put it again, rather than, oh, I feel embarrassed by the sweat, I need to stop. Embarrassing maybe, it’s natural everybody’s sweating, but it’s an occurring process because it’s important, it has an important role in the body.
JOHN: This is like my life, at a wedding in the summer is when --
MAG: Same.
JOHN: And people are just like, “Wow, you’re sweating a lot.” And I’m just like, “Well, you know, they’re the ones that chose to have this wedding outside.
MAG: Yeah, like please, no outdoor weddings --
JOHN: In the middle of the summer. And I have too many clothes on, and I already was thinking about this on the way here and now, I’m just spiraling and sweating even more.
MAG: Absolutely.
JOHN: We will do our best to overcome that in the future when that happens.
[Music plays to signal a brief interjection in the interview]
KATIE: If you’re like John and often embarrassed by the amount sweat you’re leaking, you shouldn’t be. In fact, it’s possible that none of us would even be here without our ability to sweat. Scientists such as Daniel Lieberman, professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University believe that our sweatiness gave us an evolutionary advantage. Our ability to perspire meant that humans had the endurance to hunt game during the hottest parts of the day, when other built-for-speed predators like cheetahs, were forced to rest. So, don’t be ashamed by sweat, celebrate it. You wouldn’t be you without it. Literally.
JOHN: Up after the break, more with Mag.
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[Sound effect signals return to the interview]
JOHN: And we’re back with Mag. How important is hydration to a heavy sweater like myself, and is there a point where it’s almost too much at some point?
MAG: First question, I have a challenge for you. The next time you’re about to go do a workout weigh yourself before the workout, okay. Sweat it out, exercise, weigh yourself after you exercise. And I bet you probably lose maybe like a pound or two of just weight and it’s all -- Essentially all water weight. I wanna replace all of that back so, I wanna get like wanna get like 16 to 32 ounces of water back in my system. Some minerals as well because we’re losing that in the process. So, it’s super important to replenish our sweat throughout our day because it’s the only way we can replenish is drinking water or drinking fluids. There’s no other way where we’re getting back that sweat that we lost. Especially important in exercise because your performance drops really quickly and we might not realize it, but when we realize it it’s way too late. It’s way too late for us to replenish when we physically feel those symptoms that are coming on. Too much? There’s definitely something referred to as too much water, people can die from excessive hydration. I usually give a baseline of take your body weight, divide it by half, that’s the upper limit of how much water I should be getting in my day. So, obviously varied between person to person, and their weight, but that’s kind of a general rule of thumb. Try to stick around that range in ounces. Body weight divided by half in ounces. And I’m trying to get there. And it’s it not necessarily just pure still H2O, can we get other non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic beverages that still accumulate. Decaf teas, flavored waters, carbonated waters. All of that totals up. Some of the water we get from our food intake. A lot of food is very water based so that adds up as well. So, if you’re varying all that throughout your day, you should be fine, unless you wake up at 6 o’clock in morning and you decide to go on a run in Houston 100-degree weather. Then you gotta play catch up for --
JOHN: Catch up for the rest of the day.
MAG: Right.
JOHN: That’s me right now. Okay, so, we’ve established, I sweat a lot and it might be a little gross, but I am who I am. We’re gonna look into the bacteria thing ‘cause I am a little concerned about that one.
MAG: Maybe a few more showers.
JOHN: Maybe take some extra showers. So, allegedly, there are people out there who have a hard time sweating, or do not sweat at all. One of those people might be Katie, who is in the room without a microphone, which is now gonna drive her crazy. Is this a real thing? Are there people out there who have a hard time sweating?
MAG: Yes, from a scientific perspective there’s something called anhidrosis, where your sweat glands are not -- Don’t excrete as much sweat as others. And it can actually cause a lot of issues where your pores are just not open, you’re not releasing that so your body temperature, like I mentioned earlier, is only relying on either urine or just panting it out. And you’re not sweating as much, so, it can be dangerous especially, if you live in really humid and hot temperatures, but some people are just -- I’m gonna blessed, they might not agree with me. They just don’t sweat as much regardless of how high their body temperature gets. And it’s -- A lot of it can be normal, but you’ll find that people can vary -- Anhidrosis can happen, especially like in the armpits, in the top of our foreheads. So, think of all the areas, and palms, and feet where we tend to sweat the most. Like a lot of the sweat comes from those areas, and they’re kinda on the opposite of that spectrum that we were talking about. So, definitely an actual scientific fact. And it can be hindered by a lot of other factors as well. Like different medications can make you sweat less or more, if you had like trauma or skin infections, or burns in specific areas. That might also kill a lot of the sweat glands there. So, you might find it where if you have scar somewhere in your body and you’re like, “That’s odd, like, I’m not sweating at all in that area, but I’m sweating everywhere else.” So, different factors that can play with it, but overall, definitely, you just -- From a genetic factor, from how your sweat glands develop, you might be a high sweater or a low sweater. But there are terms for it where people all over their bodies can’t excrete, and there are surgeries to kind of reverse that. If it’s to the point where, hey, like body temperature is high all the time and it’s affecting me. But if it’s not to that point, I say consider yourself blessed that you’re not sweating sitting at a wedding or having this interview while your armpits are sweating.
JOHN: So, there nothing really someone maybe like Katie could do, as far as like drinking more water, what have you. It is genetic, it’s the glands that they have. And unless it’s an extreme scenario like you mentioned, there probably isn’t a whole lot of action they could take.
MAG: Yeah, like if she doesn’t have any side effects from it. If she exercises and still is able to get refueled and gets fluids in and carry about her day, she’s not getting severe headaches, nothing needs to be done. But if you find yourself never sweating at all even when your heart rate goes up, that’s when we start questioning things like, it’s a natural process, you’re supposed to sweat when your temperature goes up. So, if it’s not happening, that’s when it becomes more serious. But I think she mentioned to me that when she did a sweat test like she does sweat, it’s just not as much you’d expect someone exercising for an hour per se. But nothing necessarily needs to be done if no side effects or no symptoms are happening.
JOHN: There might not be an answer to this, it might be that again, unless it’s an extreme scenario, it’s all fine and everyone’s on a spectrum. Is healthier to be a heavy sweater or someone who doesn’t sweat so much.
MAG: That’s a good question, actually like back in early ancient days, heavy sweaters were put like ahead of the pack --
JOHN: Alright, okay. Do you hear that?
MAG: They could -- They could survive out in the heat more while they’re hunting because they’re sweating, they’re doing a natural process of trying to cool their body down. Being a heavy sweater isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially, when you are in a heavy exercise state or going for multiple hours for an event, or just to kind of relieve that anxiety or fear, the sweat, think of it as part of the solution. Like it’s helping me calm my nerves down, calm my blood pressure and my heart down. So, I’d say, it is not a bad thing to be a heavy sweater.
JOHN: Okay, this is good. I’m still nervous about this bacteria thing.
MAG: Yeah, bacteria is a separate story. Maybe another podcast.
JOHN: I’m gonna shower in an hour, but the sweat thing, I feel better about than I did 20 minutes ago. It’s great. Finally, to wrap up before I gross everyone out even more. Is there anything we haven’t covered about sweat today, generally speaking. Anything at all that you’d like someone listening to this to know?
MAG: Something came to mind as you were just saying. Not necessarily taking multiple showers, but if you are gonna take a lot of showers I wouldn’t advise using like body wash and shampoo every single time. ‘Cause that’s stripping a lot that bacteria and it’s gonna come right back. So, if you -- Let say you have to shower a few times a day because you’re in the sun a lot, one of them can be used to like cleanse and body wash, and what not. But the rest, just rinse yourself off with water.
JOHN: Interesting.
MAG: That will help -- Well, not necessarily with how much we’re sweating, but with that smell, with the coloring that might come if we’re washing off any of the products that we used. Use less body wash, use less shampoo products, just water to rinse it off. But final thoughts, sweating is great, we need it to regulate our body temperature. Just make sure you’re getting in what you’re losing. Getting that proper hydration, getting in those minerals, keep it leveled. It’s gonna happen if you’re a heavy sweater, unfortunately. Maybe move to like a cooler climate. But if you’re stuck in a 100 degree oven in Houston just let the process happen, rehydrate, stay indoors when necessary, and if you’re a light sweater then I envy you.
JOHN: That’s a perfect, perfect note to end on thank you. Thank you so much for doing this, I really appreciate it.
MAG: Yeah, thanks for having me. Any time.
[Sound effect signals the end of the interview]
KATIE: So, John how are you feeling about learning that there’s bacteria on your body, doing things to your sweat.
JOHN: Slightly disturbed, I feel like I’m the dirty kid in class. The smelly kid in class, which I did not know was the case. Yeah, I thought it was fascinating, I always just assumed that it was a sweat thing and turns out it’s not a sweat thing, it’s more of a bacteria thing. So, I have already, in the couple days since the interview --
KATIE: Made adjustments?
JOHN: Made adjustments to my body wash and shampoo. Like I mentioned in the interview, I haven’t changed my deodorant yet, ‘cause I have like some pretty hardcore deodorant and while I’m sure it’s full of stuff that might not be great for me, that’s probably the last thing I’ll change ‘cause I’m just nervous about it. So, yeah, that was a revelation that I did not see coming that did disturb me quite a bit.
KATIE: I was glad you asked him about the color, and he talked about the ingredients like looking at your deodorant labels and like labels, and looking for limited ingredients. I’d never thought about that before.
JOHN: I think I had seen somewhere, or heard somewhere, or something, somewhere as you do that deodorant was like more of the cause to armpit stain more than sweat itself. But I -- For some reason, I don’t think that I put like two and two together as far as the rest of your body goes. Discoloring your sheets, or your pillowcase, or what have you. I never kinda put those two and two together, when he mentioned that, that obviously made a ton of sense. So, yeah, we will work on not being so covered in bacteria, and maybe throw in an extra shower every now and then. Once a day, I guess is not enough.
KATIE: Yeah, but I like that he pointed out too, it’s like you don’t necessarily need to soap, you just need like to rinse off, and stuff, and refresh.
JOHN: I guess an end off day rinse is in my future. Every day now.
KATIE: Just jump in the pool or something.
JOHN: No chemicals in there. Yeah, I guess the end of day rinse, I need to start working into my routine, which really sounds like a pain and something that I don’t need, but I’m willing to try it.
KATIE: Well, I mean, you know, microbiologist -- Former microbiologist here making a plug for the bacteria. Like, you do need them, you need some of it on your skin. That’s like -- They play roles in like, a healthy -- In healthy skin.
JOHN: I appreciate you trying to support me during this time.
KATIE: Yeah, I mean, I’m sorry that your bacteria makes your sweat smelly, but, you know, could be some other good things they’re doing for you.
JOHN: I mentioned it in the interview, but it leads to things like my gym clothes smelling and things of that nature. So, like, maybe if I may change some of these, I won’t have to buy so many gym clothes every so often, when they start smelling and I can’t get the smell out of them. So, maybe that will be a positive.
KATIE: That’s fair, that’s fair. You and I did something fun; we did some sweat tests because we were interested to see sort of, how you and I sweat and, you know, everyone sweats differently. We’ve talked about this before and Mag talked about it some too, amounts and volumes for sure. Like we’ve already said, you sweat a lot, I hardly sweat at all. Or that was my perception. But even then, like, what’s in your sweat can kinda differ. So, yeah, you and I did sweat tests, and your results were -- I don’t wanna say concerning, but very different from mine.
JOHN: Again, like, the sweat of it all, I actually feel weirdly better about after the interview. It’s the bacteria that concerns me more.
KATIE: You found a new enemy.
JOHN: And then our sweat test kinda confirmed what I thinking already about sweat a little bit. Although, I guess it was -- Seeing the numbers kinda blew my mind. So, long story --
KATIE: Yeah, your numbers were wild.
JOHN: Yeah, long story short, we put, kind of a patch on -- You put a patch on your forearm, you do a regular workout, you weigh yourself before and after, you send it in, and you get all these results back. Gives a lot of information. Some of the high points, and I do mean high points of my feedback was my sweat rate is 2.05 liters an hour, which was in the 86 percentile, and was classified as a significant sweat rate. Katie, what was your sweat rate compared to mine?
KATIE: Yeah, so, I mean, we’ve -- I’ve eluded to -- We haven’t really got into it. I like don’t sweat as a human. My sweat rate 0.27, and I’m in the zero percentile of sweat rate. So, I got -- I had all of my sort of thoughts about my issues with sweating confirmed and that I indeed do not sweat. To the point that my first attempt with the sweat patch did not work. I sent it in, and they were like, “We did not collect any sweat whatsoever, please do it again.”
JOHN: Whereas I --Again, I did a 45 minute spin class, and within 10 minutes of starting, my sweat patch had trouble sticking to me ‘cause I was sweating so much.
KATIE: Yeah, I -- It’s funny when I -- When I took that first one off, I was like, it doesn’t really -- It’s not wet so, I was like, hmm, I wonder how they do this. And like, how do they get the information out of this thing. See, I had to kinda modify the second patch, do a longer workout and like outdoors, and we’re in the heat of the summer. So like, you know, not a typical workout for me, but it was the only way to get me to sweat enough to actually get my 0.27 sweat rate result.
JOHN: Myself, did a 45-minute workout in my air conditioned home and had a -- Basically, ten times the sweat rate as you do, which just kinda blows the mind.
KATIE: Yeah, it is crazy, and I’m glad you guys talked about the non-sweating thing. I mean, I think -- I think, I’m definitely in the minority here, but we’ve got enough listeners that I’m sure I’m not the only person who doesn’t really sweat very much, and there are downsides to it. I know you guys were talking about how it’s kind of like, I’m blessed. Which I understand that like, it’s annoying to have, you know, soak through your shirt, but it is really hard to live in Houston, in the summer when you don’t sweat. ‘Cause I just overheat immediately when I walk outside. And it’s just a problem.
JOHN: I mentioned it a second ago, I feel way better about my sweat situation after the fact, and I’m actually quite thankful that I sweat, and I’m able to sweat because I agree, I don’t think I would like the opposite, where I could not cool myself off, and my heat has nowhere to go. Like, that sounds pretty miserable.
KATIE: Well -- And I - I’m actually, really glad we did this test too because everything I sort of like read -- And even when I’m writing for the blog, it’s always like, hey, when you exercise, you need to drink water. And my results are literally like, in your hour exercise, you kinda don’t actually need any extra water. Like, if anything, you know, Mag was talking about how you can overhydrate and like, I could potentially be overhydrating at this point if I like try to drink a liter of water after a workout ‘cause I am not losing a liter, I’m losing point three liters.
JOHN: It’s incredible, the other kinda stand out, one of the other stand out numbers in my test was my sodium loss, which I have never thought about in my life, for a second. And according to the test, I was losing, or I lose a day’s worth of sodium in the hour of my exercise.
KATIE: Oh, that’s crazy.
JOHN: Which is kinda wild to think about.
KATIE: Yeah, time for a salty meal after.
JOHN: I -- And again, like don’t really think about salt I lose, don’t really think about salt I intake. This is the first time it’s ever kinda been put in front of me that way.
KATIE: Yeah, I hear you. Well, I’m glad you feel better about being a proficient sweater. I think it’s a good thing, and I’m glad you got all your questions answered today.
JOHN: I’m borderline also willing to say it’s a good thing. But I still don’t wanna go to a wedding in a suit, in the summer. So, whatever I could do to continue to avoid those summer weddings, that would be lovely.
KATIE: I think that’s fair, I -- Even as a non-sweater, I don’t like to overheat at a wedding in the summer. So, I am also good with the -- Let’s hold off on the summer weddings in Houston, people. ‘Cause none of us wanna sweat it, you know what I mean? Well, that’s gonna do it for us today. If you enjoyed our episode, please be sure to share, like, and subscribe to On Health with Houston Methodist, wherever you get your podcasts. And for more topics like this visit our blog at HoustonMethodist.org/blog. In the meantime, stay tuned and stay healthy.
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