Beginner Swim workout/diet questions

[bradley8302]

Hi all, I'm new here, but have lurked for a little bit and gotten some really good info and insight from you all. I've come up with a few questions though about my workout that hopefully you guys can help me out with.

First a little about me to let you know where I'm coming from. I'm a pretty active guy that generally likes to play sports, exercise and be outside. Back in December I had to have shoulder surgery to repair what my doc called one of the worst bankhart lesions he'd ever seen. During that time I obviously couldn't do much in the way of exercise since I had my shoulder strapped to my body until around the first of March. The result was some unwanted lbs. Fast forward to today and I'm about a month in to picking up swimming, and love it by the way!

My goal is to basically trim up, get fit, and stay fit.

My workout consists of swimming 1600m, mainly doing freestyle(b/c of my shoulder), with 400m or so with paddles and a pull buoy. Starting out it was taking about an hour to complete this task; however, as I've gained confidence and stamina I've been able to wittle it down to 45min, and plan on adding distance to make up the time. I used to do at least 30 min of cardio post swimming as well, but have recently changed it up to add more of a weight workout(lots of pushups/pullups/plyometrics/arm workout) in instead of the cardio.

Here's my issue, and please feel free to comment or suggest some different things that I can do. While I'm not tied to the scale by any means, I'd like to be able to jump on it once a week or so and notice the numbers going down. I eat between 1500-2000 calories a day and haven't seen a change in the scale yet. However, I can definitely tell, and been told that I'm starting to look slimmer, which is definitely a plus. I would just like to occasionally get on the scale and seem different numbers(hopefully smaller!). Can anyone help me out with some suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[Miranda]

Hi Bradley8302

I don't know anything about swimming workouts but I wanted just react to your question about not losing weight.
It seems to me that with your workout you are building a lot of muscles especially now that you started doing weight workouts after swimming.
Now are muscles heavier than fatt! So I am sure you are definitely losing fat and as you have noticed yourself become slimmer. However your scale does not tell you that because I think you are building up lots of muscles at the same time! So maybe you should just forget about the scale and trust your and your friends' eyes

Keep enjoying the swimming!

Miranda

[Michael Heather]

X2 on the scale watching. The thing to watch is your clothing. When they start fitting looser, you are getting in shape.

In your workouts, I presume that you are mostly swimming non stop. Take the time to do some intense parts of the workout on intervals. Maybe do 2 or 3 100s on 4 minutes as fast as possible. Then go back to your regular workout. It will give you a benchmark for your swimming speed and endurance.

[Miller]

Might want to check out Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories, or Why We Get Fat, And What To Do About It. The former is a tome, but extremely informative, while the latter is more concise. After many years of reluctance, I've converted to belief in the low-carb approach. One year into it, and I'm fitting into waist size from 30 years ago, when I was a junior in high school. Best wishes for a healthy new year!