Can Plastic Wrap Help You Lose Weight?

One supposed hack for losing belly fat is to wrap your abdomen in plastic cling film. The idea is that it creates a sauna-like environment next to your skin that raises your core body temperature and makes you sweat, especially if you wear it during a workout. After, you may have shed a few pounds.

There’s no evidence that body wraps can help with long-term weight loss, however. You may reduce your waist size and lose a few pounds immediately after wearing a plastic body wrap during exercise. But the loss isn’t fat, and your results won’t last.

Why Plastic Wrap Isn’t a Good Idea

“This might be helpful if you want to show a bit more [muscle] definition for a single night or event, but it’s not going to help you lose any significant amount of body fat or waist circumference,” says Dean Somerset, CSCS, an exercise physiologist in Edmonton, Alberta.

Once you hydrate, your weight and waistline may return to their prewrapping levels.

If you wear plastic wrap around your midsection, you also risk irritating your skin, Somerset says.

“Skin needs to breathe, and sweat is a way of dealing with heat production, so preventing sweat from evaporating from the skin surface and allowing heat to dissipate can run the risk of rashes, infections, or other skin disturbances,” he says.

There’s also a risk of restricting blood flow if the plastic wrap is too tight, Somerset says. This can cause abdominal discomfort or pain.

What to Do Instead

Gimmicks come and go, but the principles of long-term weight loss stay the same.

“The only real way to lose body fat is through a caloric deficit,” says Somerset, referring to using more calories than you consume.

The Takeaway

• Wrapping plastic cling film around your waist during exercise is not an effective way to lose weight long term.
• Although you may drop some weight through sweat with this approach, plastic wrap does not help you burn fat.
• The risks of wearing cling wrap include skin irritation and restricted blood flow.
• Proper exercise and a healthy diet, including burning more calories than you consume, is a more effective way to lose weight.