Part of the whole losing weight includes exercise. I don't actually need exercise to lose weight, I lost about 15kg back in 2000 without exercise, but I want to lose weight at a certain rate, and that means exercise. I've used 3 types of exercise: swimming, running and elliptical trainer. Running is definitely the hardest, followed by the elliptical. It's not bad, the elliptical, but it's boring. I can drift off when I'm on it, and it gets my heart rate up to the recommended value, but there isn't really any enjoyment. Plus, it doesn't use as much energy as running, so things take longer. I can't really imagine going to the gym twice a day to use the elliptical.
Having grown up in a home less than 5 minutes walk to a large swimming pool, I have always loved swimming. Usually I'd go about once a week, but I didn't swim lengths, I'd just play around in the water. More than 30 years later, I probably would go swimming once every month or so, so not a lot. About a month ago, I got a 3 monthly swimming membership (about 3/4 of the price of a gym membership, which included the pool use) and started swimming lengths.
The first time I had difficulty, I managed to swim 50 metres, not a lot, before I was too puffed and needed to stop for a bit. That's not much, in fact it's useless. But I wasn't fit, and the muscles needed for swimming weren't really developed. However, I persevered, and today I was able to swim for 30 lengths (each length is 25 metres) with only 5 seconds between lengths where I turned around and pressed the lap button on my watch (to keep track of the number of lengths).
I would swim all day and lose weight at a huge rate, but for one problem: I get tired. Not only do I get tired after the swim, but I get tired for the rest of the day, so deciding on the most optimal number of lengths to do a day is quite difficult. Too little, and I don't lose much extra weight. Too much, and I need to have a sleep afterwards, and I'm tired. I don't know the ideal number, but I'm prepared to find out.
Also, to spread the load over the whole day, I plan on swimming most days twice. Swimming is the one form of exercise that I could do twice a day and not start to hate. Some days I simply won't be able to go twice, but apart from that, if I can go, I hope I will.
My gym membership was pretty much a waste of money, because I didn't go as often as I should have. This time for the pool, I want to keep a record of how often I go, and what I achieve. Why that never happened with the gym, I'm not sure, especially as writing it down on the blog would have been a good idea!
So here is what I've achieved so far:
20th Jan 30 lengths
19th Jan 30 lengths
18th Jan 52 lengths (I wanted to see how many lengths I could do, as it was I ran out of time and had to finish without getting exhausted)
Let's see how many days in a row I can go swimming! I'll aim for a range, at a minimum 30, and a high enough number without overdoing it to the extent that I'll be tired for the rest of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment