How Ignorance Can Cost You, BIG Time

A lesson I learned after losing $1000.

I workout at a gym with no AC.

It’s unbearably hot, stuffy, and often leaves me breathless. Occasionally I’d mistaken it for a giant sauna.

But I paid $1,000 to train in this brutal environment. All because of one hypothesis I’d made from intuition:

Sweating burns more calories.

I figured if I confine myself in a hot environment that’d fire up my heart rate and force my body to sweat more, I’d exert more energy and burn more fat.

Makes logical sense, doesn’t it?

At least I thought so. That being said, I didn’t bother to double-check my reasoning. Instead, I continued to train in the 90–100°F (32–38°C) heat, hoping I’d slim down quicker.

Boy was I wrong.

After being curious enough to dig for the answer, I realized I’d wasted $1000 believing that a non-AC gym would make it easier for me to train harder and get results faster.

Because the truth was, working out in the extreme heat and sweating your skin off doesn’t help you burn extra calories. Lifting heavier or running more does.

And by exhausting your body from the excess heat, you become dehydrated quicker. You drink more water, which could lead to cramps. You feel more drained, which hurts your performance to do more.

If only I took a few minutes to research all of this before signing that pricey gym contract, if only I wasn’t so ignorant, I’d saved $1000 and joined a gym with AC.

From what I learned, ignorance is expensive. And if you don’t spend time learning what’s right, you spend more money doing what’s wrong.