Slimming sauna belts are the latest in a long line of products that claim to offer dramatic weight-loss results with little to no effort on your part. Just wrap the belt around your waist, turn up the heat and sweat off the fat. But there's a problem with these claims: There's no proof. If you decide to try any of the sauna belts on the market, there are a few other potential concerns.
Exaggerated Claims
Many sauna belts promise something they can't possibly deliver -- the exercise myth of spot reduction. Spot reduction supposedly burns fat from just one target body area, but the truth is that when you lose weight, fat comes off your entire body. If the sauna belt appears to reduce your waist by inches very quickly, it's not from an instant fat burn -- although it might be the result of losing retained water. In the absence of empirical proof, you could speculate that any diet and exercise changes you made in addition to wearing the belt are responsible for any gradual weight loss you might experience, because burning more calories than you take in is a proven method of weight loss. Burn 3,500 more calories than you take in, and you've lost the equivalent of 1 lb.
Misleading Commercials
Past sauna belt commercials showed an extremely overweight person morphing into a slender, extremely fit model. But the fit models used for exercise equipment commercials usually maintain their fitness by their own means -- not with the equipment they're promoting -- and are simply paid to appear with what's being sold, just like any other model. Even when you see a real person's results depicted, exercise equipment manufacturers promote the most extraordinary results as ordinary, with only a disclaimer in tiny print at the corner of the screen to warn you that your results might vary from those shown.
Burns and Discouragement
Sauna belt manufacturers recommend wearing a T-shirt between the sauna belt and your skin. Wearing the belt without the T-shirt, or for longer than recommended, may cause burns. Because the sauna belt commercials and promotional materials depict extraordinary results, it can be very discouraging to try the belt, hoping for similar results, and receive something less than promised.
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