you are only going to gain muscle mass by taking in more calories than you are burning. typically when someone is doing a lot of swim training they eat a lot of calories to compensate and sometimes they overshoot and eat too much. since swimming is such a shoulder driven activity, a significant portion of mass gained during swim training (only if you have a positive net calorie intake) will go to the upperbody. all of this can be avoided by just eating healthier, and eating less, i.e., burning more calories than you are eating. if that is the case, it doesn’t matter if you are swimming, running, or biking, you’ll lose weight. now, on the other hand, if you are trying to lose weight for your IM and you keep a heavy swim schedule(5-6 times a week) your body might struggle to lose mass in the shoulder area because you are utilizing them more. however, it seems like you’ll only be swimming 2-3 x a week, so if you maintain a negative net calorie intake, you’ll eventually lose some mass from the shoulders.
in layman’s terms, eat less food, keep training in all 3 disciplines, and you’ll get to where you want to be body weight and body shape wise.
Take this with a grain of salt, but I bulk up when I eat more, lose weight when I eat less. Swim more. Run more. Bike more. Eat less. The weight will fly off, till eventually you find a happy (read lighter) point of equilibrium.
I went from 325 down to 185 where I am now (6’2"). I still want to lose another 20 to hit race weight for fall marathons, so trust me when I say I know how hard it is.
People assume they will lose wight while training for IM but I have rarely seen it. I think it is easy to get to your desired race weight if you put as much thought and effort into your nutrition as you do your training. It is amazing to me how many athletes that spend hours each week documenting and analyzing there efforts in SBR but dont spend even the smallest amount of time even thinking about how they fuel their engine.
Not long ago someone made the recommendation for myfitnesspal.com and I think it is the single best advice I have seen on this site. It makes it really easy to see what you are putting in and a good idea of what you are burning off. Makes it much easier to not overeat because we have such inflated expectations of serving size.
People assume they will lose wight while training for IM but I have rarely seen it. I think it is easy to get to your desired race weight if you put as much thought and effort into your nutrition as you do your training. It is amazing to me how many athletes that spend hours each week documenting and analyzing there efforts in SBR but dont spend even the smallest amount of time even thinking about how they fuel their engine.
Your post really resonated with me because I am “that guy”. I am going to give this nutrition thing a go and see how it affects my Los Cabos race. I loaded the myfitnesspal app tonight and logged my first day. Thanks for the virtual kick in the ass.
Of the three sports, swimming is my strongest. When I am swimming a lot (2/3xweek) I do bulk up, no question about it.
Swimming 2/3x a week is NOT a lot. Moreover that alone should not affect any weight gain. I swim 6/8 times a week and have been losing weight.
Just like biking and running you will burn calories swimming. Studies suggest that swimming in colder (ie below body temp) water triggers excess hunger (search online for info, CBF looking it up myself) i.e. you eat more than you actually need post swim. My guess is that (as other people have said) you are eating excess calories. A big newbie mistake is thinking they need to fuel up epicly, pre/during/post rides. One other poster on another thread was saying he was having 3 gels in a 60min run, let alone stuff before and after.
Studies suggest that swimming in colder (ie below body temp) water triggers excess hunger (search online for info, CBF looking it up myself) i.e. you eat more than you actually need post swim. I l
Research does show that exercise (it doesn’t have to be swimming) in cool/cold water does stimulate caloric intake afterwards, by up to twice as many calories, compared to the same exercise on land or in warm water. The excess appetite appears to be triggered by reflexes from the cold skin. Similar but less severely increased appetite occurs after exercising in cold water while wearing a wetsuit. The take-home message is if you want to suppress your excess appetite in a swimming program and can’t avoid cold water: Completely warm up your skin (especially face, hands and feet) before eating.
do yourself a favor…take a pic of everything you eat/drink for few days (iphone pix will do) and i mean everything you eat/drink
create a slideshows and watch few times over then again and again
then ask yourself…is what i am eating healthful? will eating this lead to me to having a body composition i want? etc…
seeing is believing and when it comes to food we, humans, lie to ourselves. we are really good at justifying junk food by saying i will run, bike or swim extra mile to burn it off…it never happens.
i’d say 90% of dropping unwanted weight is having proper healthful diet…being active helps but it’s all about food you eat.
Get ‘myfitnesspal’ app and log everything that you eat. Very easy to use and like most people who start using it you suddenly realise just how many calories you take in but forget to count! Its really made me think about what I’m eating and is worth it even for those folks who want to educate themselves about food not just lose weight.
As has been discussed in a number of threads that I’ve participated in (and no doubt many more that I haven’t), weight gain/loss in the end comes down to net calories. However, there is some subtlety in figuring out whether you are net positive or negative. If you are a bit OCD and are willing to keep some detailed logs about what you eat, how much you exercise and weigh yourself regularly to calibrate whether you are making errors you can certainly determine this for yourself (I have done this and it is effective but a bit exhausting). Or you can just wing it. If you are winging it, it is worth knowing as another poster pointed out that swimming does seem to make you more hungry than running or biking. It generally doesn’t take much extra eating to offset a couple hours of swimming a week, so no doubt if you just go by your hunger alone you can gain weight swimming. My advice is to be aware of this effect and to try to plan what you are going to eat ahead of time on the days you swim and stick to that plan so you don’t overindulge due to post swim hunger. I wouldn’t cut the swimming just for weight management, although it may make sense for you to cut swim training because you’ll get more bang for your buck improvement wise with cycling or running if you have a strong swim already. Good luck.
I am 5’9 and around 193. I have no problem putting on muscle mass and sadly fat as well.
Of the three sports, swimming is my strongest. When I am swimming a lot (2/3xweek) I do bulk up, no question about it.
You can’t create mass without taking in “extra” energy. If by bulk up you mean gain upper body muscle mass, the excess calories you’re eating to convert into that muscle would have simply ended up as fat otherwise.
If you have access to a sauna where you swim, 15-20 minutes in the sauna does wonders for warming you back up and curbing those hunger pains. I try to do this almost everytime I swim. When I do, if I swim more, I lose more weight.
Certainly there is some weight (fat) to be lost just by improving my diet and the miles I am going to put in training for an IM.
^^^
that’s all you need to do.
I disagree. I can get very fit, as in Ultra distance fit, and still be 10-12 pounds over my ideal race weight. Training for IM is not a “all you can eat” free pass for MOST people, especially if you are over 40.
I know you are basically asking a question about more swimming vs. less swimming but if you are serious about losing some weight read “Racing Weight” by Matt Fitzgerald. He has some simple ways to manage your weight as far as figuring out calories in vs. calories out that you may benefit from. However, simple does not mean you don’t have any work to do. There is some tracking/logging and figuring to do but anyone halfway decent with a smartphone can easily git 'er done. Hope you get to where you want to be; good luck!
