A Hot Bath Can Burn as Many Calories as a Half-Hour Walk, Study Suggests
Who doesn’t love a hot bath? There’s nothing more relaxing and rejuvenating than sliding into a bubbly tub after a long day and basking in the heavenly scents and warm water. But could this type of relaxation also be beneficial for your waistline?
A 2017 study, published in Temperature, analyzed 14 men in two different experiments — one fun test, and another not-so-fun test. As you can probably guess, the fun one was taking a nice, toasty bath — for one hour in 104-degree water. The other one involved doing a bicycle ride for an hour. (Let’s hope they got the relaxing bath after the ride!)
The researchers found that the bicycle ride ultimately burned more calories for the men than the bath (not shocking), but relaxing in a bath did burn about 140 calories for the participants. Ladies: That’s about the same amount of calories as a half-hour walk!
Fascinatingly enough, the participants also had their blood sugar measured after both of the tests, and researchers found that the men’s peak blood sugar was about 10 percent lower after the soak in the tub than it was doing a bike workout.
But before you start spending hours in the bath hoping to be a size smaller when you step out, keep in mind that this study did not prove that getting in the bath causes weight loss; rather, the study found a connection between an hourlong hot bath and burning about 140 calories. It’s also worth noting that this study has some other limitations; all of the study’s participants were men, and as we all know, men’s bodies and women’s bodies can react differently in the same situations. On top of that, there were only 14 men studied, so it’s not as if this was a huge sample group.
That said, if a warm bath relaxes you after a bad day, then it can definitely give your self-care routine a big boost — and no harm can come from that. If any scientists need us for further bath relaxation experiments (minus the cycling part) we’ll gladly volunteer.
In the meantime, anyone else feeling the urge to get in the tub?
Next, learn more benefits you can get from taking a bubble bath in the video below:
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