Since this is my first post here I wanna say big HI to everyone! ;)
I think I have to give a little background about myself first so You guys can guide me better (hopefully). So I used to train boxing for a couple of years. I was a boxing maniac to be honest, training 5-6 days a week with lots of sparring. Everything was great untill one day I fell on the ground and could not walk for a few weeks. MRI diagnosed severe bulging discs but I didnt give up and stayed in the gym for an extra year or two. I managed to centralize the pain but MRI showed the violent twisintg motion involved in punching is getting things worse so I had to stop. I was literally addicted to the sport so it took another 2 years for me to get myself off the ground and move on. During this time I took some swimming lessons as I knew I have to find myself another sport and swimming is the best sport for back problems. I started from the cratch as I could only swim some basic *** stroke and now I can swim decent freestyle, backstroke and I'm learning the butterfly. My current situation wont let me hire a coach (both lack of time and money) but I certainly will in a few months perspective. Till that time I have to just focus and develop the strokes further on my own.
I'm pretty happy with my progress but what bothers me is my current state of body fat. I never did any dieting as I allways stayed in shape over the last years. I could eat anything and I was just getting better and better. Even the last few months of boxing when the pain was persistent and I could only train like 2 times a week I couldnt gain any fat at all while now I'm just getting fatter and fatter while swimming my ass off in the pool 3times a week.
I tried everything from doing laps to intervals. i.e. my yesterdays workout looked like this:
200m fs
200m bs- warmup
10x100m fs
4*100m kick (fs/bs/side)
200m bs pull buoy
200m fs pull buoy
cool down- slow steady fs, flip turns and butterfly kick practice
I understand my knowledge at this point is close to none but I'm trying to mix things up and focus on a short distance intervals instead of doing laps. I also constantly focus on my technique.
Some time ago I came to the conclusion that maybe I dont kick properly so I dedicated the whole workout strictly focusing on the proper kick technique. I read somewhere that to kick from the hip You have to squeeze the buttocks so I swam each laop focusing on this. I could barelly walk the next day but the fat stayed. I know that when I finally get to the right level of intensivenes the fat is just going to melt away in a couple of days but I cant seem to get there anyhow.
After each session in the pool I do some very light lifting (2compound excersises/2-3s each/push/pull).
Now my questions is what am I doing wrong? Should I swim more each workout or focus on something in order to burn the fat? Like I said it took me a few rounds on the heavy bag 2 times a week to melt the fat away while now I'm doing miles in the pool without any effect. As for my back problems I almost forgot I had any. Swimming works like a charm!
Dieting is not an option for me. Id rather live in the pool 24/7 than waste time on dieting.
Please help ;)
It is not about the exercise it is about the eating and drinking.
I cannot agree more with Stewart....get that myfitnesspal app and get on the website and start tracking your intake of food and drink. If you drink beer like I did it will end immediately when you see the wasted calories you are putting down. I lost 10 pounds in a year exercising like a freaking animal and it drove me nuts why. I cook all my meals, but when I added the steaks, potatoes, fruit, eggs, toast, etc and then toss in 5 beers a day I was at 3500 calories per day easy.
I learned the body is a machine and it is predictable. I started tracking my intake on excel b/c I was sick of hoping I would lose a pound this week after the weekend wine or scotch. I decided I was going to 'predict' my weight. Immediately I saw I was spinning my wheels. I ran into that app by accident and it is much easier than building your own excel sheet. It will hold you accountable. I just made a massive pizza for dinner with my own non-salt, non-sugar, tomato sauce and an entire package of cheese. 1300 calories. I threw in a 7 hour intermittent fast today so I could do this. Two coffees during the fast...Easy. I am woddling around the house I am so full right now and I only put down 2000 calories today and burned 1000. So my caloric deficit is around 1800 today. I'll lose just over .5 pounds today alone and I would wager on that. It is a fun science for me now, the hope game is over now. I prefer to have a prediction and be almost dead nuts accurate. Predicting my weight loss before it occurs is like having skin in the game of a business venture. You just work harder when you have skin in the game.
After a year of non-discipline and thinking I could work out harder than my eating and drinking I finally got smart. The good thing is for every wasted step there are experiences had. I'm looking forward to figuring out how I am going to be able to eat 3000 calories without drinking beer....maybe I'll have a couple once I hit 190....20 more pounds to go :)
It is not about the exercise it is about the eating and drinking.
I cannot agree more with Stewart....get that myfitnesspal app and get on the website and start tracking your intake of food and drink. If you drink beer like I did it will end immediately when you see the wasted calories you are putting down. I lost 10 pounds in a year exercising like a freaking animal and it drove me nuts why. I cook all my meals, but when I added the steaks, potatoes, fruit, eggs, toast, etc and then toss in 5 beers a day I was at 3500 calories per day easy.
I learned the body is a machine and it is predictable. I started tracking my intake on excel b/c I was sick of hoping I would lose a pound this week after the weekend wine or scotch. I decided I was going to 'predict' my weight. Immediately I saw I was spinning my wheels. I ran into that app by accident and it is much easier than building your own excel sheet. It will hold you accountable. I just made a massive pizza for dinner with my own non-salt, non-sugar, tomato sauce and an entire package of cheese. 1300 calories. I threw in a 7 hour intermittent fast today so I could do this. Two coffees during the fast...Easy. I am woddling around the house I am so full right now and I only put down 2000 calories today and burned 1000. So my caloric deficit is around 1800 today. I'll lose just over .5 pounds today alone and I would wager on that. It is a fun science for me now, the hope game is over now. I prefer to have a prediction and be almost dead nuts accurate. Predicting my weight loss before it occurs is like having skin in the game of a business venture. You just work harder when you have skin in the game.
After a year of non-discipline and thinking I could work out harder than my eating and drinking I finally got smart. The good thing is for every wasted step there are experiences had. I'm looking forward to figuring out how I am going to be able to eat 3000 calories without drinking beer....maybe I'll have a couple once I hit 190....20 more pounds to go :)
