I was running late last week and passed someone who looked like she was on her way to a venture on NASA's space shuttle. I think I GASPED so hard, I just about lost my breath (ok, maybe the lack of oxygen was just the fact that I was running and getting really tired) ;)
She was wearing THIS - a plastic "sweat suit" (also called "sauna suit" or "solar suit").
I didn't know these things actually EXISTED (or that people still believed in them)!
Aside from my initial shock, I really did feel saddness for her. She probably honestly thought this was a good method to help her lose weight...sweat more means toxins leak out and fat 'melts' off your body, right?
WRONG.If she only knew that she was actually doing more HARM than good in her efforts to lose weight. Sure, she would sweat profusely (I was already and I was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless shirt!) - and resort to a slow, lingering walk as her body starts feeling the effects of excessive dehydration. She'd get back home (cutting her workout short since she suddenly doesn't feel well)...and hop on the scale to find that it had gone down. Then she'd grab a glass of water, gulp it down and OOPS! the scale is back where is was when she started.
Water weight loss is NOT fat weight loss. Water weight loss will
decrease your performance, make you
feel ucky and will inevitably cause you to
burn less calories during your workout.
For a more detailed explanation, read the article below...
Plastic Workout Clothes
Can you sweat off weight?
by Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & Fitness
Q: I recently bought a solar suit so I’ll sweat more and lose weight during my daily hour-long walks. I’m not sure how much water loss is healthy, though. Can I wear the plastic suit every day, or is it better to only use it every other day? I drink while I walk and try to increase my water intake throughout the day.
A: I hope you kept your receipt (so that you can return the sweat suit and get your money back). It’s easy to be fooled into thinking that you’re expediting weight loss—but you’re really not doing a darn thing to change your body shape. Sweating can be misleading because, the more you sweat, the more it feels like you’re getting skinnier and flushing toxins and fat out. But dropping water weight doesn’t produce the type of weight loss that you probably want—a reduction in body fat—and it can be dangerous.
Water In Your Body
The human body is about two-thirds water. And wearing plastic “solar suits” can squeeze some of the water out and decrease the amount of fluid the body holds. Even though you can drop a few pounds immediately this way, you’re losing water, not fat and important electrolytes along with it.
Water is the body’s most important nutrient. You can go weeks without food, but death by dehydration comes in just three or four days. Water is present in every cell, in blood and in fluids found in places like the eyes and spine. When not enough water is present, cell functions are impaired and your body operates below par.
Water Cools You Down
Water is crucial in regulating your body temperature. When you work out, your core temperature rises. Since getting too hot is counterproductive to your ability to exert yourself, the body has several ways of cooling down. It allows blood vessels like capillaries near your skin to expand and dissipate heat. It also increases your sweat rate. As water leaves your body through your skin, it evaporates and makes you cooler. But if you’re extremely overheated and sweating too much or too fast, or if the weather is too humid, or if the heat is too great for your body to produce enough sweat to cool you, then sweat rolls off in beads of unevaporated water. If you’re sweating buckets, you’re no longer cooling your body—you’re only dehydrating it.
A review in the International Journal of Sports Medicine noted that sweat must evaporate from the skin to produce a body-cooling effect. If it doesn’t then, not only does the rapid water loss dehydrate you, but the pent-up heat accumulates, raising your core temperature. With less water available to cool you down, the heat continues to rise. Coupling your over-heated bod with exercise, and especially exercise in hot and/or humid weather that also raises body temperature, severely cripples your ability to thermoregulate (or control your body temperature).
When Dehydration Gets Dangerous
Athletes who compete in different divisions based on their body weight are famous for the extraordinary lengths they go to lose weight. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported the weight-loss practices of three college wrestlers in 1997: All three men restricted food and fluids while over-exercising for several weeks, dropping around 15 percent of their body weight. All three wore plastic sweat suits while performing intense exercise in a hot environment. All three died.
As a result, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) implemented protective guidelines to prevent dehydration and heat illness in athletes. The NCAA guidelines explicitly condemn the practice of fluid depletion, and they recommend that vapor-impenetrable suits (or rubber/plastic clothing) and steam rooms should be prohibited. Wrestlers, especially, are required to have hydration tests before a match. The American College of Sports Medicine also issued a position stand discouraging the use of these and other methods to drop water weight.
Water Loss Weakens You
Even a little dehydration can hurt you. Sweating off 2 percent of your body weight—a 175-pound person losing about 3 ½ pounds—can significantly impair performance. You’ll feel fatigued and weak, you’ll be more sluggish, and you won’t be able to push yourself to walk faster or have the stamina to hike up hills, for example. In other words, dehydrating yourself will slow you down. And slowing down burns fewer calories.
If you’re trying to drop a dress size, burning fewer calories instead of more won’t help you lose weight. To lose weight and decrease your fat, you need to burn as many calories as you can. And you can burn more calories by working out harder and longer—two things you can’t do when dehydrated.
Staying Hydrated
Long periods of exercise, intense exercise and/or exercise in hot weather requires extra fluid intake to stay well hydrated. The longer and harder you workout, the more you need, and taking in a sports drink that contains added electrolytes is a good idea. (You don’t need a sports drink for a shorter, moderate-intensity exercise session.)
One easy way to gauge your hydration status is to monitor the color of your urine. If it is too concentrated—i.e., there is not enough water in your body to dilute it—then it will appear more yellow, even a dark amber. Ideally, it should be in the clear-to-pale-yellow range. (This method isn’t foolproof; vitamin supplements, for example, can also turn your urine darker.)
Is a Plastic Suit Helpful At All?
You are clearly aware of the importance of fluids and mention that you stay hydrated through the day and drink during your plastic-wearing sweat session. But if you are trying to lose weight by water loss—which is NOT a safe or effective way to do it—you’re negating the water loss by drinking it back in as you sweat it off! That’s a safe approach and means that you’re probably not in danger of overheating from your solar suit. But it does beg the question, why are you even wearing the thing?
I'm someone who loves water - it makes us feel good, it's healthy and our bodies simply need it.
Here are some of my favorite memories of her. 
In her own words...
