need to lose excess!

[thingummyjig]

hi I've seen some excellent advice on here from people, so can anybody help me? I need to lose about 3 or four stone, and cant bear the thought of going to a gym, I do however love swimming and since January Ive been going either swimming or aqua aerobics two or three times a week. Previous to this I did no form of exercise, yet it hasnt made any difference to my shape at all! Rather than have regular weigh ins, I measured my bust, waist, hips, tops of arms but havent seen any change. I was hoping to tone up and most importantly lose some from my bust (I have a special dress!!! to fit into!) I did a bit of skipping on the nights I wasnt swimming, but that didnt last long as I could only do about 100 before I was worn out! Should I persevere with the skipping? When I go swimming, I am only really any good at breast stroke, but do alternate with doing lengths using only my arms or with a float using just my legs; what else can I do that will make a difference?

[Black Noir]

I have found that simply by cutting out my snacks between meals and eating sensibly 3 times a day a good start, as well as drinking 2litres of water a day.

I have also got roughly 3 stone to loose so I know the gym phobia well ! I bought Davinas Power of 3 and do it every other day and whilst this was hard going to start with I have persevired and have lost 9lbs over last 2 weeks.

I feel so much better in myself and much more energetic, so perhaps carry on swimming but do some aerobic type excercise at home as well?

Keep me posted on your weight loss - I hope this helps xx

[Bigeye74]

Its very easy to get into a rut with swimming, especially if you can do it well. You need to really push yourself to burn the calories. You have to come out really knowing you've worked. Try doing some sprint sessions etc to get your heart rate up and make sure that you avoid plodding up and down.
As for skipping, try to break it down into smaller sets then increase these. Make sure you do a little bit more each session. Keep a log to make sure.

[PinkFizz]

I have found that the only way is to combine both exercise with healthy eating. If you exercise without cutting down on the over eating then you will still have fat over the toned muscles and so will not see any difference.I have cut out all snacks, drank loads of water each day, walked 15 km per week and have lost about 15 pounds in 6 weeks.

[Panic Button]

Join a slimming club?

[thingummyjig]

lol a slimming club fills me with as much dread as a gym! I am absolutely useless at sticking to an actual diet, but have found that since exercising I've kind of automatically cut down as 1. I dont want to eat too much before swimming and wont eat anything when I get back, 2. I dont tend to eat as much as I subconciously tell myself I'll only have to burn off extra anyway!
I think you are right in that I must push myself further when swimming rather than plodding along (starting from this week!) Possibly I thought I was doing well because the two people I go with tend to do two lengths then have a ten minute rest lol., whereas I am at it constantly for a good 50 minutes.

Thanks all for your comments; these are points I will definitely try!

[DONNA1458]

OK I think we need to break this down first.
1. Weight loss can only be achieved properly with a good diet, concider the GI diet which keeps you full for longer, also your portion sizes.
2. Swimming is good exercise but is both cardio and resistance ie fat burning and muscle building, if you want to lose weight you dont want to do resistance as your muscles will go bigger and your weight will go up muscle weighs more than fat, the best advice I can give is to walk (not run) don't kill yourself do little and often but give yourself a rest day min 20 mins walk and dont forget to stretch.

Good Luck

[abranei]

Break your skipping into rounds like boxers do. 3 x 3mins skipping with 1 min rest.

The advice about walking not running does not put you in the fat burning zone. you need to perform excersise at 70% of you aerobic capacity for 30-60mins 3-7 times a week to furn fat. The bodys primary source of energy is stored as glycogen and this needs to be depleted before fat is used for energy. Walking wont deplete you glycogen stores

Its highly unlikely that you will build muscle while on a calorie reduced diet. Building muscle takes a surplus of calories which you wont be doing. Increased muscle mass mean you burn more calories and actually helps with fat loss. Muscle gives you shape and definition once you fat levels drop. Dont worry about becoming muscle bound you have to eat a shed load to put serious muslce mass on.

Let me put fat loss into perpective. In theory 1lb of fat = 3500 calories. If you need to lose 2 stone in fat then you will need to use up 98000 calories. If you take the average gym session which uses about 350 calories you will need to goto the gym 280 times. If you do one session a day then it will take you the best part of a year in theory. I say theory as our bodys are clever at keeping fat. Its how we used to survice before mass food product gave us all the foods we could ever want.

You need to purchase a skin fold caliper to find out what part of you to muscle and what is fat. I have the Accu-measure version which comes with some easy calculations to work out your body composition and a chart to help you track fat loss. Without tracking it you could spend the best of a month training and not losing anything. Once you know its not working you can reduce calories or increase training some more until it does work.

Last week I performed my skin fold test and identified I had stopped losing fat. I have increase my training to twice a day 4 times a week

[abranei]

DONNA1458 - People often use "weight loss" when they really mean fat loss.

If you weighed 16 stone but looked like a supermodel then weight would be unimportant.

Measuring Body compostion is important because you could lose 1 stone of fat but gain 1/2 stone muscle making you more defined and toned. By not using body compostion measuring and opting for the scales means you might only see 1/2 weight loss when in fact you have loss 1 stone fat and added 1/2 stone of muscle. The difference in body composition will be clear to see

[thingummyjig]

woohoo! Ive cracked it! Ive just been deep water aqua aerobics and I love it! WOW! I feel like Ive done something!

[Bigeye74]

never heard of it, am interested to know more

[thingummyjig]

You wear floats around the ankle, wrist and waist, which are fastened with velcro straps, It was done in the diving area of our local pool, which is 12.5 feet depth, and basically the fact that you are fighting against the floats which are trying to keep your arms and feet afloat makes it a really great work out! We also used dumbell shaped foam floats; imagine doing starjumps and ski-type exercises with these in your hands! It was amazing!