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Swimming weight loss
Competitive swimmers typically burn many calories during a regular training session. However, their body fat levels are often higher than those of runners or cyclists who expend a similar amount of energy when they train.
Some female swimmers, for example, find it extremely difficult to keep their body fat under control. Some of them have to add extra training (such as cycling or running) to their routine to avoid gaining excess weight.
What's more, research published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine shows that in the absence of a controlled diet, swimming has little or no effect on weight loss.
Professor Grant Gwinup compared three exercise programs for three months. Each program began with up to 10 minutes of daily exercise. The length of each workout was increased by five minutes every week.
Test subjects following the walking program lost 17 pounds of weight during the three-month study.
Those following the cycling program lost 19 pounds of weight.
However, subjects following the swimming program actually gained 5 pounds.
It's also worth pointing out that the walkers and cyclists didn't lose much weight until they reached 30 minutes of exercise daily.
Appetite
Unfortunately, Professor Gwinup offers little explanation for the lack of weight loss in the swimmers. Previous studies show that ethnic groups spending a lot of time in water have the most body fat. The same holds true for Japanese female pearl divers, who are very fit but also very fat — despite swimming for several hours each day.
Assuming that all three groups burned a similar number of calories, the swimmers must have compensated by eating more.
"Presumably," speculates Professor Gwinup, "swimming in cold water stimulates the appetite to increase caloric consumption."
Indeed, there are suggestions that swimming doesn't cause the same drop in appetite that accompanies heavy running and cycling training. Many people feel extremely hungry after training in the pool, and may simply replace all the calories they've burned with a large post-exercise meal.
Although there's no definitive explanation as to what's causing this increase in appetite, it could be due to the cool temperatures in which swimmers train. Most other forms of exercise, such as weight training, running, or cycling, leads to a rise in body temperature, which can suppress your appetite — at least in the short term.
Of course, this study isn't meant to put you off swimming. Any form of exercise, provided you expend a sufficient number of calories doing it, will help you lose weight. However, if you do want to use swimming as part of your weight loss program, make sure to guard against the tendency to eat more.
Nou... als je wilt aankomen.. dus naast KT alleen nog maar zwemmen.. maakt extreem hongerig!
Al denk ik dat gewoon ergens zijn waar het koud is.. vries-afdeling van een super ? al genoeg zou moeten zijn..
Doei... ga weer fietse....de kou in .. brrr!