Just wondering if anyone had experienced this:
Started 2nd swimming life in fall 2007 and have been hard at it since. For the first 9 or 10 months, I was just swimming long and slow until I could go no more. I began throwing in some sprint sets after a good 1600 or so for the next few months. During this period, say a year or so, I dropped 40 lbs, from 235 to 195 (I'm 6'3"). Breaking 190 was my goal, though 190 is probably where I should be.
Throughout 2009, I could no longer stand the long swims and did more and more sets, 400's, 200's, 100s & 50's between a warm-up 500 and a warm down 500. My goal is 3000 - 3200/day and try to get as close to 16k per week as I can by doing some variation of the sets above.
Over the last year of doing this, I've noticed more muscle I think, and my clothes all still fit right, but the scale is alarming me. I'm hovering around - and some weeks over - 200 again.
I think I've slipped in my eating habits (definitely did over the holidays), but I was wondering if anyone has seen this before? Are these sprints where I'm constantly trying to improve my times putting muscle on me that are causing me to fret over the weight gain? Or do I just need to stay away from the fridge? Or what?
Blue
PS> I know all the sites regarding weight loss & swimming, I just want the answers from the horses' mouths. Thanks!
I agree with Q and recommend cleaning up the diet as much as you can. Drop high calorie/high carb snacks and switch to high protein whenever you can. If you're drinking soda, beer, or other drinks, cutting them back can also help. When I dropped my daily Coke, I noticed a drop in weight of about 5 lbs.
Swimming gets a bad rap on weight for a variety of reasons, but I don't think many of them are quite valid. When I did the hour swim, trying to get in as much distance in an hour, I wasn't nearly as hungry after as usual. It felt more like an hour run, when I could go 7 miles and burn around 900 calories. It is rare for me to do swims like that though, most of my swimming is interval-based, say 10 x 200 @ 3:00, where my running and cycling is mostly nonstop, with some patterns thrown in.
If you lift weights, you may notice the same cravings after as from swimming. And one of these days, I'm going to try a running track workout, and I'd expect that would be the same.
Alot of my weight loss in the last two year came from swimming. But, it is all about adding yardage/meterage and adding intensity. of course, the weight loss from swimming is pretty slow. I noticed that added weights with higher reps and smaller weights helped alot too. You are probably adding more muscle. Lately, I haven't seen that much weight loss on the scale but people who only see me once every few months notice a difference in my appearance.
Swimming gets a bad rap on weight for a variety of reasons, but I don't think many of them are quite valid. When I did the hour swim, trying to get in as much distance in an hour, I wasn't nearly as hungry after as usual. It felt more like an hour run, when I could go 7 miles and burn around 900 calories. It is rare for me to do swims like that though, most of my swimming is interval-based, say 10 x 200 @ 3:00, where my running and cycling is mostly nonstop, with some patterns thrown in.
If you lift weights, you may notice the same cravings after as from swimming. And one of these days, I'm going to try a running track workout, and I'd expect that would be the same.
This is very interesting Tim. I have the same hunger issue with lifting as I do with swimming but never put the interval aspect of the two together. I am tempted to do a continuous swim tomorrow and see if I experience the same level of hunger.
Thanks for pointing this out.
All great advice, Thanks! I did most of my diet correction the same week I started back swimming in 2007. I quit all drinks with sugar (was drinking 2 - 3 cokes/day...sadly), cut out all fried foods, and tried to limit snacks to things with multi-grain options and the like. I like beer, but probably only have it a couple of weekends per month. And in typical fashion, I was too scared of what the body fat calipers would say when I started exercising and have no idea where I started on that.
I'm proud to say that I've had 1 coke since October, 2007. I think the problem with the diet is that I've slipped on snacks and sweets. Somehow I've gotten it in my mind that I "deserve" some sweet treat since I work out so hard in the pool. I have a bad sweet-tooth too. But I've got to reign in the sweets, they should be a treat, not a staple.
So, I now think that perhaps I have put on some muscle and abused my dietary intake, combining for some added padding and added muscle. So a double whammy.
Thanks for the motivation, I'm going to re-tackle my love of food issues and not fret any muscle addition.
Blue
That weight you gained could very well be mostly muscle mass.
Probably correct.
I always say that swimming makes me fat. I put on weight when I started swimming as opposed to running. Massive big shoulders. I think it's mostly muscle, but could be some extra body fat too.
Do you have any idea how your body fat percentage compares then to now? Do you think your current body fat pct. is where it should be? I would be inclined to track this as opposed to your weight. That weight you gained could very well be mostly muscle mass.
I've been told that swimming encourages the storage of fat because the body wants to insulate itself from the cold water. So swim in a warm water pool and see how that works with your appetite. I get great results by adding a brisk one hour walk to the swimming routine, which also preserves my precious muscle glycogen stores needed to do those hard sprint pieces in cold water.
Blue,
Clean up your diet. There is no reason not too, right? You will probably be happier with a leaner you and if that 5lbs was all muscle, you will be happier with a healthier you.
From personal experience, swimming does create a stronger hunger response than other exercise. This results in more frequent visits to the fridge, which contains some quick, easy and unhealthy calorie options which is what you eat because you are hungry now. This increased appetite is what swimming gets a bad rap for making people gain weight.
Very interesting thread.
I would add that everything I have read indicates that swimming is not the best exercise for weight loss due to a number of factors, some mentioned in this thread (added muscle mass, increased hunger due to heat loss) and some not (lower hr in the horizontal position and when immersed in water).
Bluewater34 didn't mention how old he was (I'm assuming he was not born in 1934) but 6"3 and 195 seems to me to be fine. I am 6"2 and weigh about 205 and I'm 56. I would like to get down to 200lbs. but why should a 6"3 male swimmer try to get under 190? If one is well muscled what's the problem?
Let's not get obsessive abut weight. Of course one could take up long distance running and look like a plucked chicken :afraid:. Is that what we want? Didn't think so.
