Is Swimming Good for Weight Loss?

Looking for great routines and activities in order to achieve weight loss is quite a challenge for some people. Losing weight is not an easy thing to do. This process requires a lot of will, determination, patience and hard work. Having a great physique is not always handed on a silver platter (unless advance weight loss treatment methods like liposuction and surgical contouring is done). Losing all the excess fats in the body also requires sacrifices and huge efforts on our part. This means that doing exercises or physical activities, going to the gym and/or modifying the diet are all essential things in achieving our goal of weight reduction. In addition to these, playing sports can also be a huge help in losing all the excess pounds body. Physical sports like basketball, soccer, tennis and rowing or kayaking can be very effective in burning fats. However, when it comes to sports, swimming is said to be the best activity in order to lose weight fast. However, is swimming good for weight loss? What are the benefits of swimming when it comes to burning calories?

Sport or Leisure

Swimming is actually a very fun activity if it is done leisurely with family and friends. However, this activity can be very rigorous and tiring if it is used as a sport or in competitions. This is in fact considered one of the main activities in sporting events such as the Olympics. As we can see, most swimmers or swimming athletes do have lean and sculpted bodies. This allows them to move quickly through the water enabling them to reach the finish point faster. Nevertheless, swimmers are able to have good physiques due to all the calories that are being utilized by the body as an effort to compensate for all the energy being used in this activity. Is swimming a good activity for weight loss? YES. Swimming can actually help reduce weight faster than any other types of sports. However, this can only be done or achieved under certain conditions.

Swimming and Weight Loss

Swimming is definitely considered a good exercise. This activity is capable of burning 500 calories in just an hour of swimming. But is it really the best choice for weight reduction purposes only? YES, swimming can actually help fasten the loss of weight in the body. This physical activity is considered a total body workout since it targets all the different portions of the body. In order to stay afloat, constant arm and leg movement is required so as to keep the body above the surface. This movement is a lot harder compared to dancing or running (which also utilizes different parts of the body) since the limbs are all against the weight of the water, which is a lot heavier than air. An hour of swimming is already enough in exercising the arms, legs and the back portion of the body. This activity can also enhance the power and the condition of the lungs as well as the heart. Aside from this, swimming can also help in toning the body. This means that this sport does not only eliminate the fats but as well as condition and tone various types of muscles around the arms, the legs and the back. Swimming for 20 to 30 minutes a day for 6 to 7 times a week can be great in losing weight and getting in shape. However, this can only be achieved with the combination of proper diet.

Losing weight does not help without a proper Diet

Although swimming is an effective exercise for weight loss, negative effects can also occur if it is not done in a correct manner. Just like what is mentioned above, swimming is a good activity for enhancing stamina and providing aerobic effects on the body. However, in one of the studies published by the American Journal of Sports Medicine shows that swimming offers little or no effect to weight loss once it is done without a controlled diet. A professor in the name of Prof. Grant Gwinup has obtained results from his experiment that shows test subjects following a walking program has lost a total of 17 pounds during a three month study while those following a cycling program has loss a whopping 19 pounds. However, subjects that were under the swimming program have gained an astonishing 5 pounds. This result was explained by Prof. Gwinup to be an effect of the cold water which stimulates the appetite to increase caloric consumption. According to another professor, Professor Louise Burke, Head of Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport, competitive swimmers do have higher body fat levels in comparison to runners or cyclists who utilized the same amount of energy in training.

Many believe that the increase of weight in some swimmers is a result to the increase of appetite after swimming, which replaces all the calories that are burned. The cool temperatures in which most swimmers are trained enable the appetite of the body to increase as to compare to cyclists and runners who always experience an increase in body temperatures thus helping in the suppression of the appetite for a short while. Aside from this, most swimmers are drained from their sessions that they eventually spend the rest of their activities sleeping, resting or doing things that do not require any effort or physical activity.

Basing on these findings and results, we can say that swimming is only effective if it is combined with proper diet just like any other types of exercise routines. Doing rigorous activities like swimming is still considered useless if overeating is still not eliminated.

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