To think I can lose weight swimming?

[PattySlapper]

I've always been a typical yo yo dieter, basically losing and gaining the same 3 stone over the last few years. My problem, like many people I'm sure, is that I love good and hate exercise! I've put on a lot of weight again recently! I've had some success before exercising on a small trampoline at home, but I'm thinking about taking up swimming. I do enjoy swimming, but don't really enjoy the experience in a public pool. My dream to have one of those endless pools, I swear if I did I'd be skinny! but will have to make do with the local pool! I'd probably aim to do three sessions a week about 30 minutes a session. Has anyone lost weight / toned up doing similar? And how can I get motivated to actually go this?? It would mean some days going before work, and as mentioned I hate exercise, and love sleeping, so I can see me struggling! I plan to do this alongside following Slimming World.

it started absolutely lashing it down so I chickened out.
you are familiar with the concept that you get wet while swimming?

Patty you have to boot yourself up the backside a bit to go, you have to commit to going and then JF go.

I'm a swimmer, now a Masters swimmer and My OH and i go 2x a week for that and more in casual sessions assuming our coach has not tried to kill us in the masters sessions (which is most times tbf) we're up at about 2-3 miles a week now and easily did a mile a day in the sea on our hols, even we've noticed the difference in our swimming between last year and this.

I/We loathe public sessions, the gen pub are frequently bloody awful, have no concept of lane manners, think they are WAY better than they are and think it's 'cute' to have their kids in the lane with them. or walk. in. the. lanes.

You have your unlimited pass now, so work out how many times a week you need to use it to justify it, look at the time table and prioritise it over everything else.

Once you are into it, swimming is about the most addictive thing ever.

Then that passes when you get a killer coach and you have sessions where you say to yourself "im never swimming again"...

... and then you get a personal best and the love affair starts all over again.

I've lost 3 dress sizes since I started swimming, am stalled a bit now because i have got into the habit of allowing the swimming to facilitate eating whatever I want... but a small adjustment there and i can start dropping fat again.

My arms and legs (and well hidden core/abs) are rocks of muscle, losing the fat will give definition... which I understand is good, but I'm swimming because I love it, the challenge and the peace it creates in my mind while I'm ploughing up and down.

There is a Swimming thread on here, it's fab, join us and we'll keep you motivated :D

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/exercise/3036775-Swimming-for-fitness-part-3-Dive-in

Massive well done to edwinbear am in awe! I read 2 books about swimming this holidays and it's such an enormous feat to cross a great body of water, I'm WELL short of that myself, but am a work in progress.

Hi all, hi @PattySlapper, well I finally got back in the pool today after a few days of chesty swollen glands hacky lurgy - but it was with DD! She has come on leaps and bounds and is swimming 30m back stroke as fast as my breast stroke, so I had a 'good' swim. She was diving in at the deep end over and over so my exercise came from treading water - okay not calorie burning ideal, but it was still activity that I wouldn't normally be doing.

Swimming is a great cure for a hangover! I discovered that by accident .

I'm feeling quite low today about my weight. It was a family friendly swim and all the other mums were in bikinis! Okay not all, but most and I was the chubster.

I'm 14stone11lbs and 5'8, I need a kick up the bum too, I'm still to get to one of the aqua aerobics classes, I suffer from anxiety especially about my weight so I think I'm using DD as my crutch and using any excuse not to go when she's at her Dad's!

Aargh - I used to be so fit and slim. I swam my mile at 9, have my bronze, silver and gold lifesaving awards - I could never do crawl though - I'm managing to do my own head in about getting in the pool every day because I look crap in a swimsuit!

Rant over, somebody talk some sense in to me!!

Aw @cheesemongery I'm really sorry to hear you're feeling low, I know what it's like and it's horrible. I try to think that it doesn't make me inferior to be overweight and at the end of the day if we're doing something about it then we should be proud of ourselves and try not to let worries about been in a swimming costume stop us doing something we enjoy. I bet there was less people who looked good in a bikini than you thought in reality, it could have just been your perception. And everyone has their own body hang ups.

I know saying all that stuff doesn't necessarily help when you're feeling crap, but I hope you're feeling better about things today and can carry on enjoying swimming.

@hissy ha ha I know there is an irony in thinking it was too rainy to go swimming! it was sheets of water out the sky though!

At the minute I'm doing 4 lengths of crawl in every 10, and hope build this up to 6 in the next few days and then hopefully build up further. I'm back at work tomorrow though so the test of fitting it in round dirk begins! And won't be able to go tomorrow as have to go into work early for the first day back.

Any exercise will burn calories and, if done regularly, will help you tone up whether it's swimming, walking, cycling, dancing, running or whatever.

It annoys Me on these threads when people come on insisting that unless you do weights, or swim at least ten miles or jog across twenty fields every morning your wasting your time. So unhelpful.

@lydiaatthebarre I appreciate everyone's advise on here loads, but I do think there's almost two extremes when exercise is discussed - not just in this thread. There's the school of though that walking more in day to day life, getting off the bus early etc will be enough, then the other school of thought is that you need to be doing something really intensive. It's a bit of a mindfield for those of us who are trying to take up exercise! I just hope I can keep things up and use my own experience eventually to figure things out!

Patty

I think, as long as it's regular and in conjunction with shaving a few calories off here and there in your everyday eating ,(small things adding up to a lot kind of thing,) you will build up heathy habits and keep the weight off - it's working for me