Weight Loss

Nuh uh!!!! I can tell you this: I've lost nearly 30 pounds and I've kept it off for almost two years with swimming being my primary form of exercise. Basically, I was running and couldn't lose weight. I hurt my knee and couldn't run anymore, so I started swimming. My diet was pretty healthy but I was eating a lot of cheese, drinking a lot of wine and beer, and really not watching how much I was eating. I cut out the cheese, wine and beer and more importantly, learned to push the plate away when I was full, and the weight came off! By that time I was swimming 4-6 times a week for 60-90 min. From what I understand - a calorie is a calorie is a calorie - your body doesn't care if you burn it by swimming, running, biking, gardening, or whatever. And for me - it was all about my diet and not my favored form of exercise. Hope this helps!

Depends if you push yourself or not. Any exercise will help weight loss if you push your body. I see people doing the breaststroke with their head never going underwater, about 7,000 strokes per length, about 3 minutes per length. They aren't getting much weight loss benefit. Heck, their heart rate probably goes up. But if you are panting between intervals. Pushing off while your heart rate is still up. Your muscles are tired when you leave the pool....you will loose weight. (Unless your diet consists of ice cream, beer and bon bons!):D

Originally posted by Fishgrrl I have to agree with Fishgrrl. Burn more calories than you eat and you will lose weight. End of story. The best type of exercise is the one that you will actually do. For us it's swimming.

I have found the more I swim, the bigger my back, arms, and chest get and the smaller my waist gets. I haven't lost much weight, but I've gained muscle. Maybe that's why swimming seemingly doesn't work for weight loss. Maybe you ARE losing weight (fat) while NOT losing weight (muscles!) Just some thoughts.

Swim Magazine had an article about this last year. Connie was in it. There are many on this board that can show that you can lose weight swimming and I also see many in the pool too. For me, weight loss is all about what I put in my mouth. Fitness is all about how I move my body. Swimming is one of the greatest all around fitness exercises, so the combination of watching what I eat and swimming and weight training has allowed me to lose 35 pounds and keep it off for almost 2 years. And even though it is about what you put in your mouth, taper time is not easy because I tend to gain at that time. :0

I think those who claim that swimming won't help you lose weight are either full of s@@t or talking about meaningless and effortless floating and splashing around in water rather than swimming.Although I never had to lose weight(way too fast of a metabolism), nothing ever got me as tired as swimming which means I lost a bunch of calories and gave my body a major work-out.

I’ve always found those “Calories Burned During Exercise” charts to be interesting works of fiction. The NutriStrategy site, reports 949 calories burned by a 190 pound person swimming one hour of butterfly! I wonder who they got to volunteer to swim an hour of butterfly to come up with that number??:)

So if I burn more calories swimming 100yds at 1:30 than I do swimming 100yds at 3:00, if I improve my technique will I burn less calories for 100yds at 1:30 than I did 2 months ago....

Weight loss always results from using more calories than consuming. With swimming the 2 variables to determine calories burned are size and speed. Most references to swimming for calorie use *underestimate* the amount of calories burned during workout swimming--you burn a lot more swimming 100yds in 1:30 than in swimming 100yds in 3:00. A number of references on calories burned reflect recreational swimming (like 500 yds in 15 - 20 minutes). A good rule of thumb I use is 20 calories/minute for swimming at a good workout pace (around 1:30 per 100yds). The more you weigh, the more calories you burn at any pace. The faster you go, the more calories you burn at any weight. Some data from the web: www.fitresource.com/.../...20Snow Sports www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm home.judson.edu/.../fitness7.html Hope this helps.

weight loss starts in the kitchen. swimming only helps. good luck.