Weight loss, fat-burning, and exercise

Ok, I give up, I have read countless articles on this, and still it's
like listening to economists and nutritionists : guess work and confusion.

Is it better to do vigorous exercise for shorter periods of time, or
moderate to leisurely activity for long periods of time.

P.S. I've also heard that swimming is not great for weight/fat loss. How
can that be ? Seems to be one of the best if not THE best exercise in
terms of aerobics combined with resistance and muscle toning etc.. so
many muscle groups involved and not hard on any joints, etc...

Aren;'t calories calories in terms of burning them ? So, how can
swimming be less efficient than running or other sports for weight loss ?

Thanks,

deeply confused

PB wrote:
Is it better to do vigorous exercise for shorter periods of time, or
moderate to leisurely activity for long periods of time.

In vigorous exercise, the muscles burn glucose for energy. This is called
anaerobic, and it can not be continued for a long period of time because
the glucose is depleted and lactic acid is formed. In moderate exercise,
the muscles use oxygen and fat for energy, which is called aerobic exercise
and can maintained for a good while.

Aerobic exercise builds endurance, anaerobic exercise increases speed/power
for short durations. Both aspects are important for fitness. Don't choose
one, do both. :-)

P.S. I've also heard that swimming is not great for weight/fat loss. How
can that be ? Seems to be one of the best if not THE best exercise in
terms of aerobics combined with resistance and muscle toning etc.. so
many muscle groups involved and not hard on any joints, etc...

I love swimming. It has not hindered weight loss for me. However, after
swimming for an hour, I am ravenous. This could be one reason why it has
the reputation for making the body "hold on to" fat. Maybe the body tries
to hold on to it with a disproportionate hunger response compared to other
activities?

Aren;'t calories calories in terms of burning them ? So, how can
swimming be less efficient than running or other sports for weight loss ?

The argument goes that if you swim regularly, the body wants to keep its
fat for warmth and bouyancy. But where else is it going to get the
calories from? I'm with you, I've not seen any solid evidence for such a
claim.

Regards,
Scott

"PB" wrote in message
.. .

Aren;'t calories calories in terms of burning them ? So, how can swimming
be less efficient than running or other sports for weight loss ?

The reasoning is probably something along the lines of it's not a weight
bearing exercise. It's a perfectly acceptable exercise if it's done
consistently. I know that when I need to do something very intense and have
only a little bit of time I will swim because it kicks my butt. I have a
very hard time staying above water since losing weight.
--
the volleyballchick

PB wrote:

Ok, I give up, I have read countless articles on this, and still it's
like listening to economists and nutritionists : guess work and confusion.

Is it better to do vigorous exercise for shorter periods of time, or
moderate to leisurely activity for long periods of time.

Mixing between both works better than either alone. If I had to
chose either-or, I'd pick aerobic over resistance, but that's a
matter of preference without good support. I'd rather take hour
long walks or ice skate than do boring weights and my personal
preference comes out even in how I word it.

P.S. I've also heard that swimming is not great for weight/fat loss. How
can that be ? Seems to be one of the best if not THE best exercise in
terms of aerobics combined with resistance and muscle toning etc.. so
many muscle groups involved and not hard on any joints, etc...

Aren;'t calories calories in terms of burning them ? So, how can
swimming be less efficient than running or other sports for weight loss ?

You'll only get further speculation from me. Look at a human and
at our nearest relatives - chimps, bonobos, gorillas, organgutans,
gibbons. Look at our smooth swimming skin, our nearly fin-like
feet, our need for table salt.

It is well known that our ancestors went from brachiating in the trees
to walking in the savanna around 5 million years ago and therefore
walking long distances is one of the best exercises available. But
given the differences I list above I am convinced that our ancestors
lived on the shoreline and spent at least a million years evolving
towards swimmers before inventing fire and moving back inland
(very little evidence exists for my stance so it's a hypothesis aka
a guess not a theory).

My guess suggests that humans are so evolved for swimming we're
too efficient at it to be able to use it for weight loss. It's why
both
swimming and walking are good for general health but not enough
on their own for weight loss.

Doug Freyburger wrote:
My guess suggests that humans are so evolved for swimming we're
too efficient at it to be able to use it for weight loss. It's
why both swimming and walking are good for general health but
not enough on their own for weight loss.

Travel by foot has many speeds -- walking, jogging, running, and
everything in between. The same goes for swimming. For a fit
person, walking is not a strenuous activity. However it can be a
good exercise for someone who is not fit. One chooses the speed
he needs to get a workout.

We use more energy swimming than we do walking. I have a copy of
a study which lists the energy used in a variety of activities,
measured in METs (1 kcal per kg body weight per hour). [1]
Walking slowly (2.5 mph) uses 3 METs while light effort swimming
(50 yards/minute freestyle) uses 8 METs. In order to reach 8 METs
on foot, you must run 5 mph (12 minute mile).

--Scott

[1] Ainsworth, Barbara, et al. 1993. Compendium of physical
activities: classification of energy costs of human physical
activities. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, pp.
71-80.

Scott wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:

My guess suggests that humans are so evolved for swimming we're
too efficient at it to be able to use it for weight loss. It's
why both swimming and walking are good for general health but
not enough on their own for weight loss.

Travel by foot has many speeds -- walking, jogging, running, and
everything in between. The same goes for swimming.

That suggests a spectrum to work within. Start at your current
point on the spectrum and work up. One extra point - there is
no such thing as a marathon among hunter gatherers. The
marathon is a "modern" invention among civilizations. The first
one killed the person who ran it, so now marathons are about
doing something that can kill the under-prepared. By the time
one has started training to do marathons, the fitness level
exceeds anything that an ancient would have considered in
the normal range.

For a fit
person, walking is not a strenuous activity. However it can be a
good exercise for someone who is not fit. One chooses the speed
he needs to get a workout.

I suggest this is some sort of baseline of who is in poor
shape and who is in okay shape. If you can walk an hour on
the flat without problems, then further improvements are going
from okay to better. If you can't walk an hour then that's your
first goal.

We use more energy swimming than we do walking. I have a copy of
a study which lists the energy used in a variety of activities,
measured in METs (1 kcal per kg body weight per hour). [1]
Walking slowly (2.5 mph) uses 3 METs while light effort swimming
(50 yards/minute freestyle) uses 8 METs. In order to reach 8 METs
on foot, you must run 5 mph (12 minute mile).

And so people walk, run or jog distances that few could even
attempt to swim. Compare the swimming, running and biking
phases of an ironman triathelon.

Doug Freyburger wrote:
I suggest this is some sort of baseline of who is in poor
shape and who is in okay shape. If you can walk an hour on
the flat without problems, then further improvements are going
from okay to better. If you can't walk an hour then that's your
first goal.

I agree.

We use more energy swimming than we do walking. I have a copy of
a study which lists the energy used in a variety of activities,
measured in METs (1 kcal per kg body weight per hour). [1]
Walking slowly (2.5 mph) uses 3 METs while light effort swimming
(50 yards/minute freestyle) uses 8 METs. In order to reach 8 METs
on foot, you must run 5 mph (12 minute mile).

And so people walk, run or jog distances that few could even
attempt to swim. Compare the swimming, running and biking
phases of an ironman triathelon.

Yes. So I am confused about your comment that humans are efficient
swimmers, or at least in comparing swimming to walking and saying a
person can't lose weight doing either of those things. It seems to
me that compared to walking, we are inefficient swimmers and that in
terms of energy expenditure, swimming is more on par with running.

Regards,
Scott

When you exercise you burn a mix of calories from carbohydrates and from
fats.
Until you have exercised at least 20 minutes, most of them are from
carbohydrates.
Once you cross the 20 minute point the situation starts to reverse.
The longer you exercise, the more of the calories come from fats and the
less from carbohydrates -- but you never burn only calories from fat.

Think of it like a candle. Candles have carbohydrate wicks and the wax is a
fat. You must burn some wick or the wax will stop burning. But the farther
you burn, the proportionally more wax you burn compared to wick.



"PB" wrote in message
.. .
Ok, I give up, I have read countless articles on this, and still it's like
listening to economists and nutritionists : guess work and confusion.

Is it better to do vigorous exercise for shorter periods of time, or
moderate to leisurely activity for long periods of time.

P.S. I've also heard that swimming is not great for weight/fat loss. How
can that be ? Seems to be one of the best if not THE best exercise in
terms of aerobics combined with resistance and muscle toning etc.. so many
muscle groups involved and not hard on any joints, etc...

Aren;'t calories calories in terms of burning them ? So, how can swimming
be less efficient than running or other sports for weight loss ?

Thanks,

deeply confused

Scott wrote:

Yes. So I am confused about your comment that humans are efficient
swimmers, or at least in comparing swimming to walking and saying a
person can't lose weight doing either of those things.

The comparison point for a human swimmer is a chimp or gorilla
swimmer. Our nearest relatives swim like furry rocks. Sure,
compared to sealions, seals or cetaceans humans are lousy
swimmers, but those animals aren't the ones to compare against.

It seems to me that compared to walking, we are inefficient
swimmers and that in terms of energy expenditure, swimming is
more on par with running.

Then again think about what "efficient" means. it doesn't have to
mean speed. It can, in fact, be about whether an activity causes
weight loss. Try to get an orangutang to swim long distances
without dying and I bet the amount of energy lost would be
enormous compared to what happens to a human.

Humans have some amount of adaptation to swimming. Compared
to a chimp it's rather a lot of adaptation. Compared to a sperm
whale it's a trivial and tiny amount of adaptation. But a human
who is a good swimmer can do the side stroke or back stroke and
end up covering distance where the energy expended is on a
par with walking though the speed acheived is slower than
walking.

None of which is relevant to the original topic in any direct way.
Humans are what humans are and comparisons with other types
of animals do little to help figure out what type of exercise to do.
Find stuff you enjoy and do that.

Doug Freyburger wrote:
Scott wrote:

Yes. So I am confused about your comment that humans are efficient
swimmers, or at least in comparing swimming to walking and saying a
person can't lose weight doing either of those things.

The comparison point for a human swimmer is a chimp or gorilla
swimmer. Our nearest relatives swim like furry rocks. Sure,
compared to sealions, seals or cetaceans humans are lousy
swimmers, but those animals aren't the ones to compare against.

OK. But this has nothing to do with whether humans burn enough energy
to make swimming a good weight loss exercise or not.

It seems to me that compared to walking, we are inefficient
swimmers and that in terms of energy expenditure, swimming is
more on par with running.

Then again think about what "efficient" means. it doesn't have to
mean speed. It can, in fact, be about whether an activity causes
weight loss.

That is what my post was about. I never talked about efficiency in
terms of speed. Since the thread was about excercise and weight loss,
that is the definition I took for efficiency -- the relative energy cost
per kg of body weight for any particular activity per unit of time. You
said that for humans swimming was comparable to walking in terms of
efficiency. I said that slow swimming uses nearly three times the
energy as slow walking, and thus the energy used in swimming is in fact
more comparable to running. The body burns three times as much energy
per unit of time when swimming than it does when walking. That makes it
a better weight loss exercise than walking, and a comparable exercise to
running or bicycling.

Try to get an orangutang to swim long distances
without dying and I bet the amount of energy lost would be
enormous compared to what happens to a human.

I think this is were we got derailed. I was comparing the efficiency of
humans swimming with humans doing other activities. You were comparing
it with the efficiency of other species swimming. We may be more
efficient at it than other species, but my argument is that we are not
so good at it to make the energy expenditure comparable to walking.

--Scott