Swimming to Lose Weight

person · 8 Jan 2012 at 23:56

I love to swim and as I am fairly good at it I have decided to start doing it as a regular exercise going every week, I know it works all your muscles which can only be a good thing but will it help with weight loss? of all the reviews I have read on this topic some say yes its really good for this and others say no it wont help. Any advice or opinions would be appreciated

icecold · 9 Jan 2012 at 00:03

It will help, provided your diet is good.

Eating 20 doughnuts a day and going swimming will not result in weight loss, for example

person · 9 Jan 2012 at 00:10

icecold said:
It will help, provided your diet is good.

Eating 20 doughnuts a day and going swimming will not result in weight loss, for example

Well yes obviously not that would be stupid

I just mean generally for someone who eats a normal diet

mrthingyx · 9 Jan 2012 at 06:41

If you mean normal as being nutritionally balanced, then probably.

Depends on te swimming you do, too... Whilst any exercise is good, it needs to be of sufficient duration and intensity to help with weightloss...

Elixir · 9 Jan 2012 at 08:06

person said:
Well yes obviously not that would be stupid I just mean generally for someone who eats a normal diet

That depends what a normal diet is... if you burn more calories than you eat, you will lose weight.

MoNkeE · 9 Jan 2012 at 09:03

Adjusting your diet is what makes you lose weight, not exercising. Exercising just makes you healthy. However, you can afford to consume more calories if you're exercising, or you can accelerate your weight loss by creating a bigger calorie deficit.

To lose weight, you need to figure out what your calorie intake is for maintaining weight (pure average figure being 2500 for men, could be more or less depending on your build) and then ensure you're consuming less than that each day, say 2000 cals.

Have a read thru Steedie's sticky on diet at the top of this forum

Matutu · 9 Jan 2012 at 11:52

Losing weight - 80% diet - 20% Exercise.

Unless you are seriously training and i mean covering a lap (up/down) of a 25metre pool under a minute in free style the above is the case i always say.

If however you train hard and swim very intensely your diet needs to be tweaked to take in the activity.

At the end of the day an activity = Burns Calories. Just how you do it/how long changes the value of burn

person · 9 Jan 2012 at 14:25

Thanks to everyone who has posted will take on board the advice I do try to eat a good diet although lately I have been doing this to improve on this even more and just general healthy eating. I woke up today aching from head to toe after going for a good swim yesterday ... I can only presume this is a good thing because if you don't feel like that then obviously you haven't worked hard enough?