Never lost weight without exercise, this time it's swimming

[swimalot]

This is my first post here. I am 47 years old, male, and have lost about 55 lb so far. I have a lot more to go, 236 lb this morning, 6'1".

I have never been able to lose weight without exercise.
I think I could at this point because I have finally learned to eat healthy and not snack mindlessly.
It is just so much easier when exercising often.

For me that means swimming about 45+ minutes every day, 6+ days per week.
I also occasionally bike and will do more of that and a lot more walking as I get even lighter.
I am exceptionally addicted to swimming, I have always been compulsive. At least this time it is a positive compulsion. That is why I am making my first post here, for me it is more about the exercise than the dieting. I figure my swimming to be about 800-1000 calories per hour, (10 calories per 25 yards).

I searched for threads with "swimming" in the title and they were all a few years old.
So I thought we could use this thread to discuss the usual "can you lose weight swimming, I heard it's not the best" etc.
It is a great exercise for heavier people to start with.
My nutritionist says it is not good strength training or flexibility training but I am not even convinced about that. My muscles get quite sore on occasion and my flexibility is much improved especially in my shoulders which had some serious issues.
I think one of the big problems with it is that it is hard, and most people can't swim more than about 10 minutes to begin with, and even good swimmers often stop at 20-30 minutes. For me it works because I usually swim an hour per day, very intensely.

I have only been swimming intensely since April, started losing about 10 lb per month, now it is 5-6 pounds. I was 280 on April 1. I have beat back high blood sugar I had for four years, my cholesterol was on my doctor's radar due to low HDL and high LDL etc and is no longer an issue, and I stopped taking blood pressure meds that I was on for 12 years at his suggestion. My primary purpose for swimming was to get back in shape, with weight loss being only a secondary goal. I had gotten really sedentary.

I feel like I added 20 years to my life in 100 days between April 1 and my July 7 checkup.

 

[bradlys]

If you are doing exercise then you will see changes in your weight lowly but through swimming you will lose weight fast. Because swimming require lots of effort from you hence it helps in losing weight. It is the best way to lose weight.

 

[Jynus]

I'm surprised by your dissertation that it's not discussed much, but you're right when I read back. I thought it was fairly well known that swimming is by far the best form of exercise there is. Guess not.

Your trainer is right to a degree that it's not good strength training. Strength training required you to be using the atp-cp energy systems of the body to promote progressive overload in the white fast twitch muscles of the body. Swimming for an hour is impossible to do this. Those energy systems and muscle groups simply don't activate during cardio. it's why any good training template has strength training in it as you understandably get best results when all muscles are activated and utilized. It's also why 99% of people have trouble seeing results as they by and large only do cardio. Even their "weight" training is still cardio. (ie 5lbs dumbell curls, or bosu ball training, etc)

What you can do instead though is do swim sprinting where you go 100% intensity. This in turn does use the bodies atp-cp energy systems (it's why you can only swim for a lil while before you hit a wall) but it doesn't really promote progressive overload for long. Only really power conditioning, so while when starting out you will see strength gains, it will not last, you'll just be training extended power for longer period of time. You want strength? you hit the gym, add absurb amounts of weight to your body, and lift it so you're at failure in 5 or less reps.