Swimming intensely every day, build muscle?

[Tails]

I've been doing steady weight training for my arms and stomach for almost a year now. But during the summer I decided to lose some fat to let those muscles I've build show up a little more. I was 170 pounds a month ago, now I'm 162. What I did is just go to pool 6 out of 7 days, and swim 5.5 km's (3.5 miles). I'm a trained swimmer so I complete that workout in about 2 hours. It should be burning around 1400-1500 calories for my weight every day, and I don't think I'm eating more than usual, maybe a little more. So I'm cutting fat quite steadily so far.

My question is, am I burning only fat or am I burning the muscle I've build as well? Should I be eating more protein than usual to not lose any muscle mass during the swim workouts?

 

[malkore]

That kind of exercise isn't explosive enough to really build much muscle.

and if you're not eating to build, then you have very very little potential to build any muscle even if you were weight training.

 

[Tails]

That kind of exercise isn't explosive enough to really build much muscle.

and if you're not eating to build, then you have very very little potential to build any muscle even if you were weight training.

Got it. Although I'm currently I'm cutting fat, after I get to 155 pounds or so I'll start eating as much as I burn (I'll continue swimming and eat a lot) so you are saying only then I would be able to build some muscle? And also I'm not looking to build lots of extra muscle, my biggest concern is as I said is if I can replace the lost muscle tissue at least (if I'm losing muscle tissue while burning fat this way).