For Your Health: Ask BeWell!
The BeWell Tanger Center for Health Management, BIDMC's onsite wellness and exercise resource center, answers your questions in this ongoing column in BIDMCtoday.
BeWell will offer a FREE 2-week pass to any BIDMC staff member whose question is published in this column -- so e-mail your health- or fitness- related question today to the BeWell staff at makenned@bidmc.harvard.edu.
Q. I have heard that I can lose weight and tone specific parts of my body (i.e. my abs or thighs) if I have them wrapped in Saran Wrap while I exercise. Is this true?
A. Using Saran Wrap is neither safe nor an efficient way to lose weight.
Yes you will lose weight when exercising in it -- water weight -- but that weight loss will be temporary. As soon as you drink enough fluid to replenish what you lost from sweat, you will be back to your original weight. In order to lose actual weight, you need to spend more calories in physical activity than you consume from eating.
Saran Wrap cannot help you tone specific parts of your body. In order to see muscle definition, you must do some strength training and enough cardiovascular activity to shed the fat from on top of the muscle to allow it to be seen.
Besides being ineffective, wrapping yourself in Saran Wrap while exercising is potentially dangerous. It can cause a sharp rise in body temperature and blood pressure that can cause you to pass out.
Always remember – if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Weight loss happens when you work at adopting healthy eating and physical activity habits.