Waiting for Stephen to show up - his story is great for encouraging newbies around here.

Swimming can be more intense than running! Front crawl does burn more than breast, as a general rule, but if you push yourself hard you can get your heart rate really high no matter what stroke you're doing. Try doing 'sprints' where you push yourself really hard from 20 strokes, then easy 20, hard 20.
Regardless of how many calories I've burned, swimming is the most fantastic weight loss tool I've found - because the best exercise isn't the one that burns the most calories, it's the one you'll keep doing. I was also a 'fish' when I was little, so swimming was that for me.

Heart rate isn't a great measure of power output (calorie burn) for swimming. The water pressure actually helps your heart pump more per beat, which means it pumps rather slower (bpm) than on land. It's actually pretty hard to get a good estimate of calorie burn in the water, since it is *so* dependent on how efficient a person's form is.

I don't wear ear plugs. I do swear by Swim-Ear, which are drops you can use after swimming to clear out any residual stuck water. They help prevent outer ear infections (swimmer's ear).

ETA: Swim-Ear

One thing to watch out for with swim and weight loss: it can make you REALLY, REALLY hungry. Some kind of physiological reaction to being submerged in water (colder temperatures). I sometimes have some luck limiting post-swim appetite by either standing in a hot shower for a little while (my gym does not have a hot tub or sauna, but the study that examined this effect found some benefit from one of those) OR by doing a little land-based cardio, bike or jog.

It's totally worth it, though! For fun+cardio+full body resistance+easy on your joints (except shoulders, haha), you can't beat swimming!

Heh ...how can I not post now ...so yeah I totally recommend swimming for weight loss. I started out 6 months ago with a 20 year couch potato habit and having never had any formal swim coaching/team experience. But my diabetic nutritionist wanted me to start doing something every day to burn off excess glycogen in the blood. I am heavy enough that I was worried about joint damage from many types of workouts, but swimming is easy on the joints. Most bodyweight exercises are more difficult because of excess weight, but with swimming it just makes you more buoyant. And when you compare burn rate on most exercise calculators swimming is generally considered to have one of the higher burn rates. Unlike a class or team activity I don't have to depend on anyone else's schedule for my swims (and my gyms lap lanes are 24/7/365). Lastly, and most important for me is that when I finish a swim I feel cool, clean, refreshed (and tired). Instead of hot, dirty, stinky (and tired) like I do with most drylander workouts.

Per my doc's advice I started doing 30 minutes/day every day. And I added 5 minutes to that every two weeks until I got up to an hour. for the first three minutes I was mostly concerned with 'establishing the habit'. I would occasionally count/time my laps just for information. But as long as I was 'putting in the minutes' I didn't hold myself to any specific performance goals. (Although I still saw significant improvement during that time). Once I had been doing 60 mins/day for two weeks I started actively trying to add drills, improve aerobic fitness, and work on performance goals to continue to challenge myself. (And I still am).

The results have been excellent. When I first started I was getting in about 625m in 30 minutes. My first 'mile' swim was in my first '55' minute week (actually took me 56 minutes). By the end of my 2nd week of 60 minute workouts my mile time was 52 minutes, and I was swimming about 1850m total. Now I swim about 2050m on a good timed day, best mile time 48 minutes. ALSO, after 6 months of swimming my Doc has taken me off my diabetes meds entirely. And I have dropped 106lbs. I'm now occasionally doing drylander workouts that would have been entirely impossible for me 6 months ago.

I want to reinforce some things others have said.

Adding in sprints is still the hardest thing for me, but is definitely also the best way to increase the challenge of your workout and burn rate. When I first started 50% of my lengths were backstroke because that allowed me to 'catch my breath'. I eventually started increasing my ratio of front crawl, because the breath control factor made that stroke hardest. But forcing myself to do more of them also does the most to improve my aerobic fitness.

Also, swimming definitely decreases your heart rate. It is a combination of the cold effect (which actually increases your burn rate). And the fact that being mostly submerged decreases the amount of pressure your heart needs to output to circulate your blood. And that your body is mostly horizontal instead of vertical which also makes circulation easier on your heart. I cant remember where I got this number, but I think the 'swim factor' is about 15%. So compare your swimming heart rate to a heart rate 15% higher. Also because of design factors many HRMs don't work well in the water. Many of the optical HRMs do not anticipate the light bending effect that water has on the laser used to monitor your pulse. Many of the chest-strap models are not designed well for dealing with the hydrotubulence that swiming generates so they will slip out of place or flip over, or otherwise change positions to give inaccurate measurements.

Oh ...and when i first started I pretty much considered all the 'swimming equipment' to be superfluous add-ons of the obsessive pool rat. Until I was swimming every day and my eyes felt like sandpaper, my hair felt like straw and I was half-deaf from water in my ears. Now I love my swim cap, goggles, and earbud/earplugs ...and I keep thinking about buying fins for hands and feet, and maybe my own pullbuoy and kickboard.

stephenrhinton wrote: »

Oh ...and when i first started I pretty much considered all the 'swimming equipment' to be superfluous add-ons of the obsessive pool rat. Until I was swimming every day and my eyes felt like sandpaper, my hair felt like straw and I was half-deaf from water in my ears. Now I love my swim cap, goggles, and earbud/earplugs ...and I keep thinking about buying fins for hands and feet, and maybe my own pullbuoy and kickboard.

Don't forget the bag to carry it all in, too!

Welcome, Beachy! Stephen covered it all splendidly. I've been swimming for about 10 years 2-3 times a week and still managed to gain a bit of weight (about 10-15 lbs) over that period, so like anything else, you can't swim your way out of bad eating habits. Definitely watch the hunger after swimming. Like Kida said, anything you stick with is a good thing and chlorine can be addictive.

I do wear earplugs. Got tired of swimmers ear.

After the third doctor told me I need to stop martial arts training and avoid any impact exercise due to the degenerative osteoarthritis in my feet I decided it was time to stop those things.
Of course, I didn't immediately replace it with other activity. Weight crept up to over 300#.
I finally got tired of seeing my chin sitting on my collar bone.
I had been swimming a mile a few times a month but nothing consistent. I started making the time to swim every day. Stayed at a mile for a little while. They I started challenging myself to add a quarter mile. Then a half, before long I doing 2 miles a day and a 5km once a month. Then the 5km was every weekend. Then the 5km became my 'short' swim. Now my daily swim is 4 miles. And I'm about 100# lighter with more to go.
So yes, swimming can be part of your plan.
My resting heart rate used to be 85. Now it is 61.

Yes of course it can help. But sadly for most people losing weight is a lot more about calories in, than calories burned.

But being fitter makes you feel 100x better whatever your weight. The motivation might start as earning calories to make the diet less hard, or getting a better shape, or burning off fat - but In time it is just good to be able to bounce up the stairs, and know your heart is healthy and happy.

I first joined MFP to lose a bit of weight and get a bit fitter. I did both, but the fitter bit proved more lasting. I need to lose some pounds again now, and to do this I will have to cut back more on cake even more than add crawl. But I'll do a bit of both.. now I am fitter, and feel fitter, I am much happier in my skin....and I am carrying my extra cuddly bits an awful lot better than before anyway.

So yes swimming is great - if it becomes an excercise you can get into!

gentlygently wrote: »

Yes of course it can help. But sadly for most people losing weight is a lot more about calories in, than calories burned.

But being fitter makes you feel 100x better whatever your weight. The motivation might start as earning calories to make the diet less hard, or getting a better shape, or burning off fat - but In time it is just good to be able to bounce up the stairs, and know your heart is healthy and happy.

I first joined MFP to lose a bit of weight and get a bit fitter. I did both, but the fitter bit proved more lasting. I need to lose some pounds again now, and to do this I will have to cut back more on cake even more than add crawl. But I'll do a bit of both.. now I am fitter, and feel fitter, I am much happier in my skin....and I am carrying my extra cuddly bits an awful lot better than before anyway.

So yes swimming is great - if it becomes an excercise you can get into!

Gently, I could have written this! I need to start logging again (I did, several times, but not consistently). I did buy a bunch of new skirts for work this summer, and all (YES, all) were a size too big. I bought one at the "scary small size that I have never been" and wore it today. Go figure. Still, I'm about 10-15 lbs away from where I should be.

AquaticQuests wrote: »

So true!
80% of the weight loss is the calorie/ food intake and 20% exercise!
So even an ideal exercise regimen is unlikely to undo the damage of continuing bad calorie/ food intake control!

I break it down to a simple concept for me. "Eat to lose weight. Exercise to eat more "

How about 0 to 700 (yards)?

One of the things that program suggests is to mix up swimming and deep water running (with or without a flotation belt). Pool running is one of the more boring ways to spend time in the pool, but I love it in that it can be as hard or as easy as you need it to be on a given lap.

Yeah like LR2 said when I was starting out 'just keep moving' was my goal. So I alternated front crawl, backstroke ...because on my back I can get my breath back. And really when I first started the backstroke lengths were very much 'slow easy' lengths. Eventually I got to the place where I was still catching my breath, but my effort/heart rate wasn't slowing. And I faithfully added 5 minutes to my swim time every 2 weeks until I built up to an hour.