One thread per newbie, please

There are some newbies here who are embarking on training programs. Great. But if that's you, please make only one thread about yourself. If you do that, people responding to your questions will have some understanding of your goals and background that you have already told us, instead of having to look around for the information. What you need is a consistent philosophy of training and a program. I know you think "What does Swimmer A eat?" is a different question from "How much does Swimmer B bench?" but it's pretty clear to me that all newbie questions are just roundabout confused ways of asking the same question: "How can I swim faster?" Note: My definition of newbie isn't someone new to swimming. It's someone new to thinking about swimming. If you ask a ton of questions, that's you.