Question about swimming

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kailyamie
kailyamie Posts: 130
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey I have a ?? about swimming? We got a pool last weekend, it's a big above-ground pool. It was a reward to our kids for getting good grades all year in school.. but I have been spending a lot of time in it with them swimming and playing and whatnot ... well I figured I would log it as an activity because it is definitely outside of my normal activity day-to-day... well the "swimming leisurely general" category... what does that MEAN? I mean, I'm not swimming laps by any means, but I'm swimming and playing with the kids in the water back and forth etc. so I'm wondering what is the appropriate way to log this? If I swim for 3 hours, that's a burn of 2 thousand calories for me? (before I get attacked... I burn MORE calories doing things b/c my weight is HIGHER) BUT this still seems like a lot. Or is it? I know that swimming burns a lot of calories. I just wonder what constitutes "Swimming, Leisurely, General" Does that make sense?? HELP! TIA!
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Replies

  • pauljsolie
    pauljsolie Posts: 1,024 Member
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    No, I don't think so. When you are swimming you use practically every muscle in your body. I was snorkeling quite alot last year when I was living on Guam and asked a local trainer if MFP calorie burn info was right and he said yeah, pretty much so. I think I would burn 700 caloires in about 55 minutes. It was awesome. You are lucky to have a pool. I would think leisurely swimming would be like treading water, goofing around, anything but doing laps.
  • deeharley
    deeharley Posts: 1,208 Member
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    Someone - I think it was a lifeguard - told me that a water workout is 12x a workout on land because of the resistance. So, yeah, I can see 3 hours in the water burning 2000 calories. Unless, of course, you're floating around on your back and who can do that with kids in the pool.
  • jessicajoy87
    jessicajoy87 Posts: 905
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    Thats how i log mine. But I am questioning it too because it is a really high calorie burn. So I usually don't eat back as much calories. I hope it's right because I love swimming!
  • Onesnap
    Onesnap Posts: 2,819 Member
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    My best advice is to custom add this to your list so you have it each time (because you should be logging those pool play times!)

    Go to this site:

    http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

    Scroll down to Swimming - moderate and enter your minutes, at the bottom you enter your weight. It calculates for you. Add it to your list so that it's there for you and each time just plug in the minutes. I do custom things like this for a few of my workouts. That way you're basing it on YOU.
  • Kiss0rKi11
    Kiss0rKi11 Posts: 1
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    Leisurely by definition is acting or done at leisure; unhurried or relaxed. If you are just playing around and having a good time, then I would consider it to be a leisurely activity. You're not swimming laps, doing backstrokes, or anything of the like. :)
  • withchaco
    withchaco Posts: 1,026 Member
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    Maybe someone who wears a HRM could answer this one for us :) by comparing leisurely swimming to more standard workouts like running?
  • JMCade
    JMCade Posts: 389 Member
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    I think it's correct! Even leisurely burns a bunch. Moving in water burns more than moving in plain ole air. I takes more effort to move the water!
  • mazu0060
    mazu0060 Posts: 2
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    The water resistance is true, and using every muscle in your body to move through the water. It's a great calorie burner! I am a swimmer, and out workouts requir me (midseason) to eat 5000 calories a day! But you are have little kids that you are playiing with in a pool for two to three hours (lifting them, throwing them, chasing them, playing games) then you are definitely burning a lot of calories! Swimming is a great way to burn extra amounts of calories! Just don't be floating on your back swimming... :]
  • kailyamie
    kailyamie Posts: 130
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    I don't intend to eat back the calories, I am just wondering if it is possible that I AM burning THAT many!! I LOVE having a pool, wish we had gotten one sooner!! I have 5 kids total... my 3 and 3 that I babysit full-time so it is pretty intense in there! I wait until my husband gets home from work to take them in so that there are 2 adults present b/c that's a lot of kids to manage at once in the pool... and no, definitely not floating around LOL!!! Though, last night after the kids went to bed my husband and I made a cocktail and floated around in there for awhile by ourselves, that was relaxing... but definitely not a work-out! Thanks for the info, I can't believe it's so many calories! I've been trying to do like, squats and water running when I can too, that's quite interesting in the water LOL!
  • alifer
    alifer Posts: 387 Member
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    there is a separate entry for swimming laps. When I take my son to the pool I log about 1/2 the time I'm in as water aerobics (and I do swim laps, but log that time as laps- light/moderate effort.) Not sure what anyone else does, but with all the walking and other movements in the pool I figure that water aerobics is about as close an activity to what I am doing as any. Without a HRM that is my best guess.
  • kailyamie
    kailyamie Posts: 130
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    I don't intend to eat back the calories, I am just wondering if it is possible that I AM burning THAT many!! I LOVE having a pool, wish we had gotten one sooner!! I have 5 kids total... my 3 and 3 that I babysit full-time so it is pretty intense in there! I wait until my husband gets home from work to take them in so that there are 2 adults present b/c that's a lot of kids to manage at once in the pool... and no, definitely not floating around LOL!!! Though, last night after the kids went to bed my husband and I made a cocktail and floated around in there for awhile by ourselves, that was relaxing... but definitely not a work-out! Thanks for the info, I can't believe it's so many calories! I've been trying to do like, squats and water running when I can too, that's quite interesting in the water LOL!
    Wait... that's TWO that I babysit... I can add I promise :p
  • messyhare
    messyhare Posts: 366 Member
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    Hi! TOTALLY jealous of your pool...

    It's difficult to gauge true calorie burn without a heart rate monitor. I tend to find the mfp database gives a higher calorie burn when I compare it to what my hrm says for the same activity. SO what I do (when I'm not wearing my hrm & just going by the database) is drastically cut my time and enter that into the database. For example a few weeks ago I was doing some major gardening - pulling weeds etc for about 1/2 the day. I was only going to log 3 hrs but that in itself said I had burned almost 900 calories which I just didn't buy. SO I ended up putting in 30 mins or something else to bring that calorie burn down a bit and then I ate most of those extra calories.

    If I were in your shoes, I would probably put in an hour or so as actually exercise and that would probably balance out to the calories burned that the database would give you. And then I myself would eat those extra calories.

    It's kind of a puzzle for each of us individually to figure out what works for us. Have fun this summer!
  • BethanyMasters
    BethanyMasters Posts: 519 Member
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    Wish I could do some more swimming. I'm gonna be spending a lot of time up at the lake this summer.
  • Flyntiggr
    Flyntiggr Posts: 898 Member
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    I've been a swimmer for years. Playing in the water with the kids is a great workout. When I'm doing the same with my niece, I usually take my 'pool time' and half it. So if we go to the pool for three hours, I enter 1.5 hours of leisurely swimming. I figure I have a good amount of time that I'm also just standing there doing nothing and watching her swim. The calorie burns on here are a bit high IMO, so I try to take that into account as well....

    Hope that helps!
  • Flyntiggr
    Flyntiggr Posts: 898 Member
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    I've been a swimmer for years. Playing in the water with the kids is a great workout. When I'm doing the same with my niece, I usually take my 'pool time' and half it. So if we go to the pool for three hours, I enter 1.5 hours of leisurely swimming. I figure I have a good amount of time that I'm also just standing there doing nothing and watching her swim. The calorie burns on here are a bit high IMO, so I try to take that into account as well....

    Hope that helps!
  • kailyamie
    kailyamie Posts: 130
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    OH!! And my husband and I discovered that if we take turns, one of us wraps out legs around the waist of the other for support.. .... we can do mad ab crunches in the water too. My husband is gonna end up with a 6-pack before I lose half of this weight LMAO!!

    I also noticed that this week I have been combating hunger really badly, I feel like I am starving to death and my husband keeps insisting that it's because of the extra calories I'm burning in the pool with the kids. Does that sound reasonable? I love him, but sometimes he's a know-it-all :-p
  • BJC78
    BJC78 Posts: 324 Member
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    Wow! We just moved into a home with a pool and with this crazy weather in california we haven't been ableto use it just yet...but now I am SO excited!
  • BJC78
    BJC78 Posts: 324 Member
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    Wow! We just moved into a home with a pool and with this crazy weather in california we haven't been ableto use it just yet...but now I am SO excited!
  • paddlemom
    paddlemom Posts: 682 Member
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    All I can tell you is that I have been swimming as my primary exercise and logging it in MFP. When I used the MFP calculations for calories burned and followed the numbers as presented here for logging and eating back my calories, I lost exactly as predicted on the site.

    I'm not saying that everyone is going to have the same result, but I would say that you can trust the calories used in their calculator. Swimming or any movement through the water which creates resistance takes more energy than you realize. Using the HRM isn't even going to reflect that benefit because due to the water pressure on your body your heart rate does not elevate in the same way for water exercise.

    And absolutely yes! you are hungry because you are burning more calories. I bet the kids are starving when they get out of the pool - we used to have peanut butter sandwiches ready for ours to devour after swimming. Have a good quality protein snack yourself when you get out of the pool and it will help you manage the hunger before it gets out of hand.
  • kailyamie
    kailyamie Posts: 130
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    All I can tell you is that I have been swimming as my primary exercise and logging it in MFP. When I used the MFP calculations for calories burned and followed the numbers as presented here for logging and eating back my calories, I lost exactly as predicted on the site.

    I'm not saying that everyone is going to have the same result, but I would say that you can trust the calories used in their calculator. Swimming or any movement through the water which creates resistance takes more energy than you realize. Using the HRM isn't even going to reflect that benefit because due to the water pressure on your body your heart rate does not elevate in the same way for water exercise.

    And absolutely yes! you are hungry because you are burning more calories. I bet the kids are starving when they get out of the pool - we used to have peanut butter sandwiches ready for ours to devour after swimming. Have a good quality protein snack yourself when you get out of the pool and it will help you manage the hunger before it gets out of hand.

    YES! THIS! My kids are STARVING! This entire week, they have begged for dinner as soon as they got out of the pool and then devoured their food like they hadn't eaten all day - and for my 6 and 3 year old boys... that's a first. Especially my 3 year old. He barely eats anything at all. The other night I made pulled pork with BBQ sauce, and my 6-year-old ate a man-sized bun full of pork and 3 slices of cheese. I couldn't believe he ate so much. He never eats like that! He's 6 and weighs 35 pounds with 5 pound weights in his pockets, KWIM? lol They certainly are hungry after swimming - and tired! They have slept really well this week too. So that totally makes sense. Thanks!! :) Now I'm really excited about having this pool. I never thought about it like this when we decided to get it - I just wanted a good activity to keep them busy all summer & to get them out exercising (my 8 year old step-son is a TOTAL slug... even HE loves the pool... so mission accomplished!) :)

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