Hi,
I'm new to the forum and this is my first posting.
I swim, both for the love of it, but principally as an aid for weight loss. I'm a 53-year-old male, 5' 11" tall, otherwise in good health but rather heavy. At present I'm 246lb. I never swam competitively in the past. I've been losing weight at around 2lb-per-week for the last 17 weeks, with the odd blip, using the 5:2 diet. I swim in a 25 metre public pool three-times-a-week, for a minimum of 2 hours each session. I've lost 21lb in those 17 weeks and reckon I'll be able to continue at the same rate for at least another 36lb. After that I suspect the low-hanging fruit will have gone and it will be a fight to get the remaining pounds off. The target weight is 189lb, and I aim to hit that by Q3 2017.
At present I'm 'clinically obese' having been 'morbidly obese' in the past, although as 'morbidly obese' I could a run 've switched to that stroke only in the last three years. Before I only swam breaststroke and two lengths of front-crawl would have left me with tunnel vision (so I didn't do it!) Swimming initially with my son I made an effort to switch to the front-crawl and after six months I could finally swim a mile (64 lengths) with no difficulty, though not necessarily all-that-fast. Since then the speed has improved, but only recently have I seen a step-change, coinciding with a relatively small weight loss.
I don't dive-in and don't do any flip turns (my substantial buoyancy tends to make these difficult!) I use a Swimovate Pool Mate Live Swim Watch and I have a Finis TT Pro. I'm not a club member and generally swim alone. My swimming technique follows TI, but I've not received any formal coaching.
As my weight has reduced recently, my PB's have improved, some markedly in just the last month-and-a-half.
50m 0.43 (this hasn't improved for a while)
100m 1:27 (previously 1:34)
200m 3.20 (previously 3.25)
400m 6.58 (previously 7.18)
800m 14:43 (previously 15:05)
1500m 28:49 (previously 30:01)
As the weight drops-off I'm finding that my general speed is improving. For instance a month-and-half-ago most of my 200m swims were 3:40-3:45, even though my PB was 3:25 (set in June 2015). Now all my 200 metres are sub-3:30's and the Xmas target is 3:15. I rarely swam a sub-7:40 400m but in the last fortnight every single one has been sub-7:15 and many 7:01-7:02. So things have improved and improved consistently.
You might note that I swim the 1500m quicker than the 800m, but that's likely to be addressed in the next few weeks!
With all of the above, I have some queries.
* For the specific purpose of losing weight, what swimming regime should I follow? Sprints (50m-100m) or longer-distances? I swim 'sets' but I will reach a physical limit at my current weight a little quicker than I would if I was lighter. At present 4 x 200m all @'t think I'm going to be able to perform a reliable turn until I get down to at least 224lb. I've read various estimates; such as that losing 14lb will contribute 5 secs off every 100m, but I suspect that say between say 224lb and 210lb the difference will be marginal. Someone who has lost a substantial amount of weight might be able to answer this.
Any advice will be gratefully received!
Former Member
Hi, losing weight could mean discipline with your daily activities and maintaining a healthy diet to achieve it faster.
Since you are primarily interested in weight loss, I would recommend trying to spend most of your workouts at an aerobic pace. Lots of aerobic swimming will increase the pace you can hold on long sets, but isn't really going to increase your top-end speed. For this, you're going to need to swim all out efforts with lots of rest. So you really need to strike some kind of balance between these two based on your priorities. Good luck!
I think this is fundamentally the best general advice. You must continue to push your aerobic boundaries in order to continue reaping the immense rewards of swimming as a calorie destroyer. You cannot expect to exert the same amount of energy as you lose mass and develop stronger technique.
While I was not obese by any means before, I have become far fitter and lost approx 25lbs with swimming. About four months into my new life aquatic, I became frustrated with my plateau in weight at 181 lbs, my goal being 175. I was not getting enough food on any day.
My wife, a registered dietitian, performed a nutrition assessment on me based on my Masters swimming routine, and put it to me rather bluntly: "Do you want to lose weight, or do you want to swim fast?" Obviously, my answer was "Gotta go fast." She put me on a nutrition plan that many probably call "carb-cycling". Really, it's just eating much more - and obviously focusing on complex carbohydrates - for days when I need it (this includes the night before apparently, which fascinated me), and eating lightly on days I'm in the gym, while focusing on quality proteins.
Now, I realize you are asking more about losing weight, but here's the thing. I fed my body appropriately, and to be honest ignored it for the holidays at times. For the first time in about a month and a half I stepped on the scale at the gym and weighed 175. I literally reached my goal without even knowing it, because I chose to feed myself for swimming rather than feed myself for weight loss. Cals in 's best for it varies. So keep that in mind if you find yourself frustrated. Dietitians are the nutrition experts, and they're happy to help you achieve your goals.
I wish you continued luck on your journey, and a very sincere congratulations on your progress thus far!
I am not fit nor a swimmer, but I have read that in order to gradually lose weight, you need to increase the intensity of your workout in a given period of time.
So, it turns out that you need to go as fast as you can and push your self into your limits then followed by a good diet plan. In this way, you will achieve what you are aiming for. Goodluck
Thanks for the detailed thread avalon, and thanks for the advice all. I was wondering if anyone could speak more about pushing one's aerobic pace? That means I think doing less distance swimming and more sprints, right?
Congrats on your progress! And your physical ability is very impressive!
* For the specific purpose of losing weight, what swimming regime should I follow? Sprints (50m-100m) or longer-distances? I swim 'sets' but I will reach a physical limit at my current weight a little quicker than I would if I was lighter. At present 4 x 200m all @'d need to start taking breaks. If you do more of a sprint-based workout, the extra calories you burn during high exertion generally don't make up for the time you spend resting. If you can manage with very short breaks, then a sprinting workout could be better, but most people will rest longer and overall burn fewer calories during their workout.
However, self-motivation and enjoyment need to be part of your workout. If beating the clock provides a lot of motivation for you to keep swimming, don't lose sight of that. In the long run, you want exercise to be something you enjoy since it needs to be something you do for the rest of your life.
One harder-to-quantify benefit of high exertion is that it provides more long term benefits. When you push really hard, it stimulates metabolic changes in your body to adapt. A moderate workout does not do that as much. Essentially, the hard workout stresses your body more, so your body overreacts to adapt and it gets stronger. Also, the harder the workout, the longer the post-exercise-caloric-expenditure is. You continue burning calories at a higher rate for a while after a hard workout. Even if you want to stick with moderate workouts, it's always good to mix in some intense workouts to push your body to change.
You may find some benefit to basing your workout around your heart rate. That will give a much better indication of your exertion level. Use a personalized heart rate chart to determine your exertion zones. From that chart, zones 3 and 4 would probably be where you could work out continually.
The other benefit to heart monitoring is that the app can estimate the calories burned based on analyzing your heart rate over your workout. The estimate is probably *not* going to be accurate for determining how many calories you actually burned, but it's useful for comparing your workouts to each other. View the calories as an indication of total effort. So if it says Monday's workout burned 800 calories and Tuesday's workout burned 1000, you can assume Tuesday's workout burned 25% more calories. You may or may not have actually burned 1000 calories, but you likely burned 25% more than whatever Monday's workout was. This type of calorie comparison will help you figure out which type of swim workout takes the most effort (and therefore burns the most calories).
Keep it up and Good Luck!
As someone who dropped over 100 lbs at my highest and is looking to drop some more, best of luck! It can be done. :)
I went from a 15:00 500 yard free to 11:15 in May of last year. I'm suspecting at least a 45 second drop, if not more, but I had a break period and times when I wasn't training for the 500. More like the 100 and 200 fly. :)
I will say that when you look at weight you probably want to look at a few other things. Body composition: what part is fat and what isn't? When I was at my lowest weight, I did not have any where near the back, arm, shoulders, forearms, and especially trap muscles I do now. I will never see that lowest weight again and given doing some *** stroke, there is no way my upper body will ever fit in the smaller clothes. That's fine with me. Are you going to be ok changing from a mindset of weight alone to something else?
Hi!
Just a short update.
I stopped dieting over the Holiday period and concentrated on swimming everyday I could.
My weight didn't stay the same; I put on 4lb. Restarting the diet in the New Year worked straightaway though - I lost 6lb in the first week.
I've followed advice and concentrated on sprinting in sets. My 25m has got down to 21 seconds (without a dive) and 50m down to 42 secs (without a tumble-turn or dive) although in theory my 25m should be quicker.
200m saw a new PB, though just a second off, so that is now 3:19. I'm finding most 200's I do are in the sub-3:25 area, so I'm expecting a new PB at that distance any day now.
400m PB came down 2 seconds to 6:56.
800m saw a big drop from 14:43 to 14:27. That was 15:05 in late November and on the 14:27 I really could have gone a lot quicker but had kept too much back and left it too late to sprint the last few lengths. I haven't swum 800m since the new PB (been concentrating on getting my core speed up) but I'm aiming to swim one later this week, with 14:15 the target.
One downside of the dieting is being regularly cold and shivering even sat at my desk at work. I'm fine in the water after a few lengths, but it was a side-effect I never envisioned.
