Swimming Might Make You Gain Weight

by Christina Ranon — July 10, 2008

Now that it's summer, more people are taking up water sports, and in particular indoor or outdoor swimming. There's no doubt that swimming is a great workout, but it might have a less than great side effect. If you're swimming for exercise and to keep in shape, swimming can work wonders, but it might not be as effective in weight loss efforts as non-aquatic exercise like jogging and biking. The American Journal of Sports Medicine published a study that found that swimming has virtually no effect on weight loss, and might actually contribute to weight gain without a controlled diet. In the study, recreational walkers and cyclists lost an average of 17 and 19 pounds over 3 months, but the swimmers actually gained 5 pounds. Since each group burned the same amount of calories, the most probable difference is that the swimmers consumed calories that more than made up for the calorie deficit created by the swimming workouts. Even Olympic and other competitive swimmers have higher body fat percentages than other athletes like competitive runners or cyclists. Researchers suspect that this might be due to the water, which keeps swimmers' body temperature down, since the heat generated by running or biking has an appetite suppressant effect. Swimmers stay cooler, so they don't get the benefits of hunger suppression, which leads to post-workout-eating out of proportion to the amount of calories they just burned. If you're a swimmer and you are concerned about weight maintenance or loss, this is something to keep in mind to give you a better perspective on post-exercise hunger.