Overweight Long Distance Marathon Swimmer looking for support

ellenphant0203

Hi everyone! My weight has gone up and down and back up. I'm a swimmer turned triathlete turned marathon swimmer. I started swimming late in life and as soon as I stopped doing tri's I started gaining weight. I fractured my shoulder four years ago and gained so much weight from depression over not being able to swim and poor eating habits. Now that I'm training incessantly I am not having much success losing weight! Ugh. I'm now tracking and it's working but my exercise: weight loss ratio is way off kilter. Obviously so are my portion sizes. I have a big race coming up in 2 weeks and looking for support. Anyone else find that ratio off too?

Thanks in advance!

Penthesilea514

There are a lot of possible reasons to go over without more information, but here are a few things to keep in mind:

I am an ex-swimmer myself! I gained a lot of weight when I stopped being active and kept eating like an athlete >.< If you are trying to lose weight, then focus on just trying to get your logging under control (accurately weighing/measuring your food)- but keep in mind, exercise is more for health, not weight loss. Also- MFP tends to be generous with exercise calories burned, so you may want to consider seeing if eating back only 50% of your calories gets you to the rate you want.

Also I am not sure what your weight loss rate is, but 1-2lbs a week is normal (and the closer you are to your goal weight, 0.5lbs a week is normal). And it may not "happen" week to week, but if you look at the trend over, say, a month, you may notice the overall trend to lose weight is on track. And depending on when you started, it could take a few weeks to even start to see changes in weight (changes with water retention, etc).

As an athlete, a focus on high protein may help with two things: fueling your muscles and satiety. You should be eating the protein listed on MFP as a minimum (not a maximum)- obviously while still within your calorie allowance. Greek yogurt, eggs, cheese, lean meats, protein supplements, etc- all are yummy ways to add protein to your diet. But with your race coming up, make sure not to make too many drastic diet changes- it could affect your stomach in unexpected ways.

If I were you, I would focus on getting ready for the race for now (given that it is pretty soon) and worry about weight loss more afterwards so as not to affect your performance too much- but that is up to you. Good luck with your race!

deannalfisher

current swimmer/triathlete here - feel free to friend me

I have to be very careful during training season to not eat too much even if I'm hungry all the time - to that end, I actually started working with some sports nutritionists/dieticians (all PhD types) to help me dial in my nutrition that has really helped - but even beyond that, the simple act of logging all my food really helped me center myself

WhitneyDurham777

I stopped competing in triathlon a few years back and now I am 15 lbs heavier than I was when I was competing. I know it isn't that much, but it stinks. It is so hard to keep the weight down and I still exercise like mad. I feel your pain. Keep at it!

ellenphant0203

HI Deanna: I started journaling (again) and it does work. It's hard but it works. Hi protein for me is what works best but I do love my whole wheat pasta (convert from white pasta :-D). I eat well but portions are a huge problem for me so journaling is the only way. I love the idea of a nutritionist and also love knowing that you are successful at dialing it in.
Hi Whitney: I'm reading a book called mindless eating - it's about food studies - and it focuses more on those calories that make you gain 10 lbs in a year vs maintaining weight and it's really such a small difference. It's too bad we can't cut those calories as easily as we consume them without realizing it.

I also feel that when I swim a few hours multiple days in a row my body just holds onto the weight because it's in shock/stress/wondering what the heck is going on! And the days that I don't train the scale shows the losses. I have two weeks till my race and now it's time to taper. Today is my last push day. If I was running or probably even biking as much as I swim, I'd be a huge muscle instead of still overweight. And yes, if I tracked better I would have lost more weight. But I'm not giving up. Thanks for your responses yesterday.

__TMac__

Haven't gotten through it yet, but I'm reading "Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald. Maybe there are useful bits in it for you.

ellenphant0203

I will check that out. Thank you.