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
Former Member
Thank you swimmers! Your replies helped build a more positive outlook towards swimming as a vehicle to loose weight. I swim two times a week with rather high intensity for 45 mins. The reason why I am worried is because I am trying to upped my cardio with swimming. I hit the gym 4 times a week and I would like to scale down to 2 instead and spend the rest of my workout days in the pool. One of the reason is because I feel much better after a good swim as compared to a good run. I weight train the same day I swim and I'm not too sure if it's a good idea. Anyway, thank you so much for all your reponses.
I like your humor. If that works for you , great. But i still stand by my guns. By the way I do move in the water. Twice a week I swim . 25 meter pool , Mon. & Fri. 3-miles non stop free style.Good stroking all the way. That is a total of 6-miles a week. I dont do more because I do alot of work in the gym.;) :cool:
Originally posted by Dominick Aiello
But it will not give you the restance to have good firm muscle....
Heh, since I started swimming few months ago, I have gained a lot of muscle. Probably doubled the muscle in my upper body, and lot a lot of fat. When I want more resistance, I put my paddles and fins on. The fat is just coming off, like it's going out of style.
With swimming, if you want more resistance, just try moving your arms and legs through the water faster, you'll get a ton of resistance.
Ever tried doing bicep curls with your paddles on? You can work them good!
This may be impossible to quantify, but how much of Bills loss was due to swimming and how much was due to change in diet? He was swimming before he took off weight. Did he swim more? or was it really more a change in diet? I really don't know and am curious if anyone does.
Hi All,
First, thanks Meg for the kind words..
Second, to answer Fritz's questions:
Originally posted by Fritz
how much of Bills loss was due to swimming and how much was due to change in diet?
There were two factors that contributed to my weight loss -- exercise and nutrition. I couldn't say that either of these factors was more influential than the other. Both factors accompanied and complimented one another, and it is very important to note that these factors were approached as permanent lifestyle changes.
Originally posted by Fritz
He was swimming before he took off weight.
Actually, I was sedentary. Participating in Masters meets once or twice a year (without training) should not be confused with having a regular swimming routine.
Originally posted by Fritz
Did he swim more?
Yes. The routine changed from swimming once every six months to swimming once every 24 hours. Until recently, the daily volume was only 1600 meters in a 25 meter pool, with no other exercise activities.
Originally posted by Fritz
or was it really more a change in diet?
The two things went together. One of the most intriguing observations is when you start a regular swimming routine, you may become much more interested in good, balanced nutrition.
Good questions! Thanks for asking.
Swimmer Bill
Sure thing. Glad I could help.
So, here's the recap: The subject, "Swimmer Bill" went from three years of being totally sedentary to swimming 1-mile per/day, every day, seven days a week, very rarely missing a day.
During this time, the weight dropped from 265 lbs to 195, and the waist size decreased from 42" to 34". There were a couple short periods when the swimming volume increased, especially in the summer of 2002, but basically, it was a mile per/day swimming with no other exercise activity.
NOTE: This swimming activity was not leisurely, continuous swimming. It was interval training with a specific balance of kicking, pulling, swimming, drilling and stroke work -- and it included an unusually high percentage of kicking with fins.
One interesting observation from this experiment:
Not only can you lose weight swimming, but you don't necessarily have to do high-volume swimming to lose weight.
Even more interesting: the resulting improvement in swimming performance. This improvement has included almost 50 lifetime best swims, a 1-minute lifetime best improvement in the mile, and a 490 yard improvement in the One Hour Swim.
The mile/per/day routine continued until just a few weeks ago, when it was increased to two miles per/day. After just two weeks, the hour swim distance increased by another 20 yards during a 6000 yard postal swim.
...and the experiment continues...
My experience is that you can lose weigh swimming. I have only made small changes in my eating habits - but have dropped from 213 to 180 in the past 10 months. And I think that I have added some muscle so my fat loss is more than the 33 pounds the scale shows.
Also, I had a streak of three weeks where I could only swim a couple of times (pool closed for annual maintenance, terrible head cold and out of town for a week on business). Over that time, I put about four pounds back on. Then, two weeks of swimming again dropped those four.
I do suspect that many of the subjects in the studies are swimming "liesurely". My work out is intervals with a mix of free/***/fly (have not yet tried back) and pulling/kicking/drills. I check my heart rate once or twice during each workout and it is always over 140 and as high as 160. I am getting about 2700 to 3000 yards in an hour.
As for the "heat sink" keeping you cool, I don't know about that either. When I am done, I feel warm for several hours afterwards. Even when I am resting during my intervals for 20 seconds or so I feel warm.
I got annoyed with WW not having a moderate category for swimming, so I used www.caloriesburned.com to figure out how many calories swimming burned. Then, since one AP point is worth about 100 calories, I converted it to APs. That worked well for me.
