Swimming and hunger

Pool swimming doesn't make me feel hungry. It does increase thirst though - you don't realise you have been sweating all the time you have been swimming.

Swimming in open water does increase my appetite, but that is more to do with losing core heat. I found it a good low calorie thing to have a flask of homemade soup and a chunk of bread to eat straight after and hot tea or coffee to get the core warmth back up again. Otherwise I can find myself eating loads when what I really need is hot liquids.

edit: do you know if it was lean or fat weight you put on over your swimming year?

Recent blog item in the NYT: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/ask-well-benefits-of-swimming/?_r=0

Text:

In some ways, the health effects of swimming are similar to those of land-based aerobic activities, such as jogging, walking or bicycling, said Hirofumi Tanaka, the director of the Cardiovascular Aging Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. Like them, swimming is a “rhythmical aerobic exercise that you can maintain continuously” to improve cardiovascular and muscular health, he said. Experiments by Dr. Tanaka and others have found that swimming “is very effective at reducing blood pressure and improving vascular function,” just as walking and other land-based endurance exercises are.

The unique advantage of swimming is that it is done in water, which provides buoyancy and cooling, Dr. Tanaka said. “So the incidence of orthopedic injury as well as the rate of heat-related illnesses are both low,” he said.

But swimming has a notable drawback. “It seems to stimulate appetite,” Dr. Tanaka said, more so than do vigorous land-based exercises like running. As a result, swimming is not particularly effective at promoting weight loss or maintenance. In a 2005 study of exercise habits and body weight involving more than 15,000 adults ages 53 to 57, those who briskly walked, jogged or cycled gained little weight over the course of a decade. Those who swam tended to pack on pounds.

Still, “there is no doubt that swimming is a beneficial activity for other factors,” particularly cardiovascular health, Dr. Tanaka said. Just skip the celebratory cupcakes after your laps.

I think it is largely to do with misreading the signals that body temperature is low rather than the body is hungry, so the tendency is to eat rather than drink a hot beverage or low calorie soup to bring up body temperature.

Could also be thirst signals being misread as hunger.

I've started pool swimming about three weeks ago after starting water aerobics last August. Believe it or not, I used to be on my high school swim team (200 lbs and 18 years ago!), but had just learned to swim at age 13.

Anyway, I noticed my weight has stayed the same since starting swimming (well, that's including the crazy holiday eating, so maybe this isn't the best time period to compare). I swim about the same distance as you (although the max I've swum so far has been 1750) about twice to three times a week and I do notice my appetite has been more. I love that hot soup and bread idea! Lately I've taken to packing a cup of Greek yogurt or a cup of protein shake for after to get a bit of protein after my workout and I'm usually okay. Although I just lowered my calorie count recently by another 50 calories to match my weight loss and boy, it's been a little tough staying under. But I'm not going to stop swimming! I just have to try not to eat everything not nailed down when I get home!!

ETA: Feel free to add me, a fellow swimmer!

My personal experience mirrors the research, I notice this increased appetite with swimming, but I also notice it with heavy lifting or extended heavy loaded hiking. Intensity seems to be the key for me, and I find if I do weeks of just walking and shorter lifting sessions I tend to lose more reliably than weeks of more intense lifting, hiking or swimming workout sessions. I don't tend to notice much of any difference at all in muscle strength over weeks of either type of exercise, and a few weeks should not make much difference in muscular weight. It seems to all be down to appetite stimulation, and my diary reflects this.

I'm always starving after swimming too. Great I'm not the only one.