Calories To Lose Weight - Is Swimming A Good Sport To Lose Weight?

Have you adopted swimming as a sport to assist you to lose weight? If you are, you are not the only one simply because most individuals think that swimming is a helpful way to tone muscles and shed weight. This is the reason why the public swimming pools everywhere are always packed in the evenings and on weekends.

Nevertheless, some study might seem to suggest that swimming is not an effective way to lose weight and in fact, one can also put on weight with swimming. Getting more bewildering eh?

Swimming is regarded by many as one of the greatest exercises or sport to get rid of weight and to tone muscles because whenever you swim, nearly all of your muscles are called into action and you are really having a full body workout. Furthermore, swimming too has an aerobic result and so the heart and lungs are obtaining their dose of exercise too.

However, a research posted in the American Journal of Sports Medicine revealed that in the lack of a controlled diet, swimming has small or no effect on weight loss.

Professor Grant Gwinup conducted an experiment correlating swimming with weight loss and came up with shocking results.

a) Test subjects placed in a cycling program lost 19 pounds in a 90 days study.

b) Those pursuing a walking plan lost 17 pounds in the same period.

c) Now, brace yourself for this! Subjects in the swimming program really added additional 5 pounds!

Did the findings surprise you? I couldn't fully understand what I was reading when I first discovered the report.

Professor Gwinup then assumes that swimming in cold water induces the appetite to boost caloric consumption. Do you really feel hungry after a swimming session? If you do, then professor could be right.

Professor Louise Burke, Head of Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport stated that competitive swimmers usually have body fat levels that are higher than those of runners or cyclists who expend a similar amount of energy when they train.

Why is that so? This is because swimmers really feel hungry after swimming and may simply restore all the calories they have burned with a big meal and a sugar laden drink following their swim.

On top of that, they might even consume much more calories than they'veused up.

"Some study indicates that this is due to the cool temperatures in which swimmers frequently train in and by comparison, runners and cyclists usually experience an increase in body temperature throughout their training sessions, which might assist to suppress appetite." Professor Burke said.

Professor Burke even observed that competitive swimmers are less active when not in training sessions. The swimmers are so tired from the hours of rigorous training that they sleep, relax or avoid any active physical activities outside their training sessions. Deja vu? Do you feel tired and sleepy after a swim?

Now, let's discuss toning muscles. Do be aware that most of the work your body does when swimming involves positive muscle actions and no negative action and we all know that the negative stage, that is, when lowering the weights during weight training is really important in building muscles.

So can your muscles develop correctly when only the positive muscles are worked on? By the way, just before you state that competitive swimmers have wonderful muscle tone, that is because they lift weights to maintain muscle balance as well as to gain strength for much more powerful strokes.

Please, don't quit swimming if you take pleasure in the sport. Performing any exercise or sport is much better than not exercising at all. Just make sure that you don't eat more or turn out to be more less active after your invigorating swim.

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