Swimming as a calorie burner?

This is probably true, but it seems a little counterintuitive to me. It seems like the more "in shape" you are the fewer calories you would burn at rest, because your body is more efficient: it needs less energy to do basic tasks. Why is this not the case? You are both correct. Intense exercise keeps your metabolism elevated long after you quit exercising. However, once you have reached you base metabolic rate a fit person will burn fewer calories than an unfit one. Example: I was out for lunch yesterday and walked into the restaurant without thinking about it (minimal work). An obese man came in behind me (400+ lbs). He was breathing very hard. For those few moments he was burning way more calories than me. But earlier that day I ran a 10k. My metabolism was still elevated from hours earlier. The real kicker is who works harder at a race the winner or the age group. The age grouper. Being less efficient, he is working as hard as the winner but for a longer period of time.

I have been swimming six days a week, no more than a 1000m swim a day and sometimes a lot less. I walk everyday 2 to 4 miles a day. I watch my diet making sure I get all the essential vitamins. I have 3 meals a day and 3 snacks a day. I make sure that every meal includes fat protien and carbs, close to equal portions of the three. My snacks include carbs and protien. I don't count calories and have been loosing five pounds a month for the last four months. My workouts are all quality swims my walks are nearly brisk but not brisk. My bike was stolen so no riding bikes here. If you go off fat you will not lose weight. If you stop eating protien you will not lose weight. If you go off carbs you will not loose weight. I eat equal portions of the three during meals and just protein and carbs for snacks.

....yada... yada... yada.....and don't forget athletes NEED carbs and then treat yourself every once in awhile, too ... (or in my case daily) posted by FlyQueen Thats it Heather...rub it in now....Like salt in an open wound ....LOL!! Enjoy your youth while you can o.k. ....b/c before you know it your going to find out what that Violet chic found out in Willie Wonka....LOL!! (just j/k now Heather.....or am I?) Newmastersswimmer

I'm just waiting to see George on Oprah pitching his new runaway diet bestseller "Eat Bad Fish in Egypt". The whole subject is rife with fallacies, fads and foolishness. I get a great kick when I sometimes stumble across a panel of diet gurus savaging each other on television. There is a lot of sound biochemical science out there, but it seems a lot of general p. want the biggest effort to be buying the magic books that will melt pounds off. Congrats to all who have lost weight swimming! I think I just read an article in the newspaper about a study trying to determine which of the various fad diets worked better. I seem to recall it was inconclusive and that none of the would be dieters lost that much weight, with perhaps the Atkins diet (lots of protein) doing a little better than average? I also seem to recall that virtually none of the dieters could actually adhere to diet, thus further rendering the results inconclusive. :rofl: Good reason not to engage in this extreme eating behavior. I agree with everyone who suggested weights. It's definitely not how much you weigh because muscle does weight more than fat. It's all in the inches and whether they pass the mirror test. Or the spouse test. I'm with Jim though. I get the best results with swimming + running (or spinning) + weights. Even if (S)he-Man hates running. I think (S)he-Man is an aquaholic too. :thhbbb: And I am imagining FlyQueen tonight .... Do I want to drink alcohol or eat chocolate or both? Should it be ice cream or potato chips in my pajamas? LOL. Good genetics are great, but it helps to watch it as you age up. Kids are also a bit of a wild card ...

Did some one mention me? Thank you, aquaholic I know for sure I've gained weight since I started swimming almost 20 months ago. I was running before and weighed less and my shoulders were, well, obviously, much less broad. I don't swim as much as some of the aquaholics around here because of my labrum issue. But I still swim 4-5x a week with a few of them easy workouts of an hour focusing on drills and technique or aerobic lite sprinting. No way would that burn enough calories for me, and I hate to diet. So I have to run or cycle and weight lift to supplement my swimming. But I was definitely thinner when I was a runner. (Or maybe I'm just getting old and my metabolism is slowing down...:eek: ) So I disagree with that svelte (S)he-Man! Of course, (S)he-Man was training much more than me with that 1.5 hours 6x a week. I guess that would kill a lot of calories. Engine building seems to burn a lot more calories than limited sprint workouts. Don't you like running, Kristina? Or just too sad about the no swimming thing? :( Hang in there. Hope your eyes are better! :)

Another list (no endorsement implied): www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist.htm A couple of things to keep in mind: 1) It's not how many calories per hour you burn, it's how many calories per workout. I've never been able to run longer than 30 minutes, so I burn more calories swimming for an hour. 2) You can gain weight exercising, and that's OK. When I lifted weights, I weighed 15 pounds more than I do now. It was all muscle. I looked and felt better. I've also seen women drop a couple of dress sizes as they gained weight, because they were turning fat into muscle. 3) Unfortunately, I run into a lot of people who just assume going to the gym three times a week will let them keep their poor eating habits. For most people to lose weight, they must eat less. This may not apply so much to the 5x a week swimmers here, but the average overweight person working out 3x a week will only burn about 2000 calories through exercise, and I would bet less because they probably lack the aerobic capacity to exercise continuously, so the actual burn is probably less. A pound is roughly 3000 calories, so the exercise regimien burns less than one pound a week. You could do the same thing switching to black coffee at Starbucks and drinking diet Coke. That's not to say a person shouldn't exercise, just saying that exercise alone won't do the trick for the typical American. 4) Ding-dongs were the best if you ask me. (My wife loved Devil Dogs.) 5) From the list I posted, I notice that ping pong burns as many calories as walking on crutches.:joker:

I'm just waiting to see George on Oprah pitching his new runaway diet bestseller "Eat Bad Fish in Egypt". The whole subject is rife with fallacies, fads and foolishness. I get a great kick when I sometimes stumble across a panel of diet gurus savaging each other on television. There is a lot of sound biochemical science out there, but it seems a lot of general p. want the biggest effort to be buying the magic books that will melt pounds off (we'll worry about keeping them off in the sequel) {embittered old bookseller bites hand that used to feed him}. Yes, the guy thrashing down the pool with lousy technique is burning more calories than you, but be cannot keep up the activity. If he were to, his arms would fall off.

I think it matters more that you pick an activity you enjoy so that you will look forward to doing it every day and that you eat healthy...good food: not a starvation or fad diet. I lost around 15 pounds by rearranging my diet and walking around 15 miles per week at a brisk (not race walking) pace. I had some surgery that put paid to lots of pounding and I switched to swimming, which I've always enjoyed albeit recreationally, and lost another 15. I haven't pursued losing weight as agressively since the beginning of the year, but I've kept swimming and I can see my body build muscle, so I know I'm getting fitter.

The disclaimer: I eat healthy the vast majority of the time. I live for fruits and veggies and really dislike any and all fast food (save Subway). I have a big sweet tooth and am a chocoholic ... I do not eat candy bar after candy bar or load up on ice cream or alcohol, but rather I eat a cupcake, or a couple of cookies ever so often, maybe a piece of really good chocolate ... not vats of trans fats, blech! I'm not big on potato chips either ... I do pay attention to what I eat and try to make good choices, but like Fort I don't do anything fat free, I do use a bit of light mayo to mix in with tuna though ...

Re: resting metabolism. Muscles burn more calories at rest than fat,so increasing muscle mass will burn more calories. A hard workout takes longer to recover from so will burn more calories than an easy workout even if you swam the same distance.