Not sure what to do if I want to have less fat that generated by swimming

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hiroober

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I'm 24 female. I do swimming as my routine for the last 9 months. It makes my body stronger, but the only thing I'm not very happy with is that it's increasing my subcutaneous fat. It seems that it's kinda hard to avoid if you go swimming as your routine workout. Since I'm really anal about being lean, and having atheletic body. My question is that should I stop swimming and switch to do workout on treadmill? Or any other workout I should do if I want to focus on fat loss? Or should I combine both of them? Is it gonna be better than one? (if it is, which one should be the first to do to have a best result? Or it really doesn't matter which one goes first?) It'll be perfect if the combination way works better since I really like swimming a lot...

I appreciate any tip or advice!:)
 
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hiroober said:
I'm 24 female. I do swimming as my routine for the last 9 months. It makes my body stronger, but the only thing I'm not very happy with is that it's increasing my subcutaneous fat. It seems that it's kinda hard to avoid if you go swimming as your routine workout. Since I'm really anal about being lean, and having atheletic body. My question is that should I stop swimming and switch to do workout on treadmill? Or any other workout I should do if I want to focus on fat loss? Or should I combine both of them? Is it gonna be better than one? (if it is, which one should be the first to do to have a best result? Or it really doesn't matter which one goes first?) It'll be perfect if the combination way works better since I really like swimming a lot...

I appreciate any tip or advice!:)
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You need to change it up. Your body is getting use to swimming as a form of exercise. You could just change it up by doing "sprints." just swim as fast as you can to the other end of the pool.

Also weight training is more important than cardio in the fat-loss battle. You if you are swimming 6 days a week, you should replace them with lifting and HIIT after.

Some programs to check out for maximal fat-loss are Turbulence Training from Craig Ballantyne and The New Rules of Lifting by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove (At Amazon for $12).

You Can not be afraid to lift! Many women are. You wil not get big. It is extremely hard for women to gain much mass. SO DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT. The science backs it up.

-Kevin
 
Thank you very much for the suggestion, Kevin!

Sorry I don't know how much calories of my intake, so I think I just describe my diet here.

For breakfast, I have a home-made sandwich or burger and 1/2 cup of oat. I'm cheese-phobic...so I never add a slice of cheese to my food.
For lunch, it may vary from a yogurt and some toast and deli to spaghetti. Or if I get up late at noon, I skip the lunch.
For the dinner, I usually have some stir-fry vegetable and rice. I'm careful about the amount of vegetable oil and make sure it is no more than 2 spoon per serving. Or sometiimes spaghette or pasta or sushi. For dessert I go for fresh fruit.
Basically, I'm pizza-free, fries-free, candy-free, icecream-free. I'm not a veggie but won't have meat very often. It may seem that I'm on a diet, which is not true. I was brought up in this way.

I go swimming for 45min - 1 hour every time, 3-5 days a week for the last 9 months. So you suggest that I sprint in the pool? Well, I see that will help to burn more calories, but does it mean that if someday I stop swimming, I'll gain fat dramastically?

Anyway, I'll try weight training:) Since my concern of that subcutaneous fat thing mainly occur on my waist and the upper arm circumference, if I want to make them smaller but has lean muscle, what kind of weight trainning I should take?

Thanks in advance!
 
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OK...just too clarify...

Sandwiches -> Bread -> Brown, wholemeal or white?

Lunch -> Never skip -> Toast (as above) -> Yoghurt, 100% natural or some "low fat" thing that will have sugar on the ingridient list somewhere?

Dinner -> Rice, brown or white?

Pasta -> Egg or wholegrain pasta?

May sound like daft questions, but your answers could make a massive difference.

I will say your missing 2 or 3 meals in your daily plan, and theres not a whole lot of protein knocking about.

If you just cut out swimming tommorrow, you will have to reevaluate your diet and take less calories for maintenance, as you will be less active, thus recquiring less fuel (which is what food is).
 
Thanks for replying.:)

For the bread, I kinda take the wholeweat and white randomly. Yogurt is some "1% fat" thing as advertised. Rice is always white. Pasta is always wholegrain. Yeah, you're right, I also feel that I don't take in that much protein.

Well, it's kinda hard to have the meal when you are not hungry yet, which is mostly the reason for skipping lunch sometimes. So if I add 2 or 3 meals daily, wow, I don't think I can take in that much...are you suggesting smaller amount every meal?
 
Yes most definetly.

Think a serving as being a handful. So a handful of pasta is one serving, a handful of rice is a serving etc. etc.

Make your rice brown, bread wholegrain or ditch it all together from your plan.

Yoghurt, just get the pure natural stuff, will probably be labelled Bio Live or somthing like that.

Just these small changes alone will help no end.
 
hiroober said:
For the dinner, I usually have some stir-fry vegetable and rice. I'm careful about the amount of vegetable oil and make sure it is no more than 2 spoon per serving
Click to expand...

I think Fly covered all the big stuff, but I would like to chime in here and mention that there are better oils than vegetable to cook with. Canola and olive oil are much healthier and taste great IMO.
 
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