Does swimming help you lose weight?

The key to losing weight is burning more calories than what you consume. Therefore, however amount of exercises you indulge in, as long as it is burns your calories more than what you consume, you are bound to lose weight. Swimming is an aerobic exercise, which burns calories and helps in shedding pounds rather quickly than other exercises. Here are factors that decide weight loss.

Time it takes to lose weight

Healthy weight loss must occur gradually i.e. at the rate of 1 to 2 lbs. per week. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people, who lose weight quickly, fail at keeping the weight off for long compared with those, who lose weight slowly. To be able to lose weight at the rate of 1 lb. per week, one has to burn 500 calories more than what he or she eats each day.

Number of calories burned

Swimming offers an efficient way to burn the number of calories one desires. An hour of swimming burns 763 calories for someone, who weighs 240 lb, 637 calories for someone, who weighs 200 lb. and 511 calories for someone, who weighs 160 lb. The stroke that burns the highest number of calories is the butterfly, which helps burn about 150 calories in ten minutes. The breaststroke burns about 60 calories.

Swimming compared with other exercises

Water aerobics offers moderate aerobic exercise and swimming offers moderate to intense aerobic exercise. The more effort you put in working out, the more calories you burn. An hour of swimming burns more calories than an hour of biking, walking, playing baseball etc. Activities that burn more calories compared with swimming include rollerblading, running, playing tennis, working out on a stair climber etc.

Health benefits of swimming

Swimming or other water aerobic exercises offer a variety of health benefits. If you perform 150 minutes of moderate water aerobics each week, you will have a reduced risk of stroke, heart attack, cancer, metabolic syndrome etc. Besides, regular activity of any kind improves one’s mood, promotes deeper sleep and prevents depression. Considering that swimming is not weight-bearing like those that are performed in the gym, they are safer for the joints and other parts of the body.

To ensure that your caloric value is balanced, make sure that you consult a dietician or measure your calorie requirements as per your weight before deciding on going for swimming for weight loss.

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