I saw this article online and it really dampen my spirit since swimming is my favorite sport and I am trying to loose weight at the same time. Any comment??
SWIMMING IS NOT GOOD FOR WEIGHT LOSS
If you want to lose weight, lower cholesterol, or help to control diabetes, swimming is better than nothing, but not that much better (1).
A recent report from the University of Colorado shows that obese people who start a supervised swimming program do not lower their fasting blood sugar, insulin, total cholesterol, good HDL cholesterol and bad LDL cholesterol levels. They also did not lose weight or redistribute their body fat (2).
These results are different from people who start land-based sports such as running, aerobic dancing, racquetball and cycling. When you exercise on land, your body is surrounded by air which insulates you, causing your body to retain heat and your body temperature to rise for up to 18 hours after you finish exercising. Increased body temperature speeds up your metabolism and helps you to lose weight and lower cholesterol. On the other hand, when you swim, your body is surrounded by water which is an excellent conductor of heat away from your body, preventing your body temperature from rising. If you want to lose weight by swimming, the best way is to do it is by using a swimming machine on dry land.
I'm Dr. Gabe Mirkin on Fitness.
1) H Tanaka, DR Bassett, ET Howley. Effects of swim training on body weight, carbohydrate
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Former Member
I think it is a complete myth that swimming is not good for weight loss. I myself lost almost 30 pounds by swimming and limiting calories. And I happen to have had my blood lipid profile done recently, and the improvement was profound. Resting heart rate and blood pressure are also excellent.
The truth is, you can gain weight, lose weight, or stay the same depending on your calorie intake versus calorie expenditure. Swimming is superb for burning up calories, and is excellent exercise for many other reasons.
The participants in the study simply ate too much to lose weight and to see improvement in their lipids.
I believe it is also false that the "heat sink" effect of the pool works against swimmers who want to lose weight. In fact, some people reverse the argument, saying that drinking ice water causes you to lose weight -- believing that the body is burning additional calories to warm up from the ice. The heat sink and ice water arguments contradict each other, and in fact both are false: our metabolism is not driven by the ambient temperature. We're warm-blooded, forgoshsakes! Sure, there are tiny, marginal effects (e.g., if you're very cold, you'll shiver, which expends some energy). But the effect on weight loss is utterly negligible.
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Former Member
I think it is a complete myth that swimming is not good for weight loss. I myself lost almost 30 pounds by swimming and limiting calories. And I happen to have had my blood lipid profile done recently, and the improvement was profound. Resting heart rate and blood pressure are also excellent.
The truth is, you can gain weight, lose weight, or stay the same depending on your calorie intake versus calorie expenditure. Swimming is superb for burning up calories, and is excellent exercise for many other reasons.
The participants in the study simply ate too much to lose weight and to see improvement in their lipids.
I believe it is also false that the "heat sink" effect of the pool works against swimmers who want to lose weight. In fact, some people reverse the argument, saying that drinking ice water causes you to lose weight -- believing that the body is burning additional calories to warm up from the ice. The heat sink and ice water arguments contradict each other, and in fact both are false: our metabolism is not driven by the ambient temperature. We're warm-blooded, forgoshsakes! Sure, there are tiny, marginal effects (e.g., if you're very cold, you'll shiver, which expends some energy). But the effect on weight loss is utterly negligible.
