Does Swimming Help lose Weight?

If you want to get fit and don't know how try swimming. There's hardly a better sport that can build your body, soothe your mind, regulate breathing and stimulate circulation better than swimming and that too without putting extra stress on the joints. It's an ideal exercise for just about everyone. You can achieve many things from cardiovascular fitness, flexibility to strengthening your muscles.

Effective stress buster
How do most executives de-stress after a long day's work? By taking a swim. Yes, swimming is a great way to unwind and let your tensions float away. It is believed that water has a positive and soothing effect on the human body since water makes up 60 per cent of our bodies. Ever tried floating in the pool? It is surely one of the great pleasures of life. The buoyancy and soothing qualities help your muscles relax and ease away the tensions.

Swim to lose weight
If you are specifically looking to lose weight through swimming it is a highly debatable issue. According to some studies, swimming is not a good activity if you want to burn calories while others hold that swimming can help in losing weight. Many researchers believe that swimming can actually make you fat! This school argues that swimming may actually slow down fat loss in some people because of the natural and innate survival mechanism found in the human body. According to them since fat helps in floating and saves from drowning, it is difficult to lose fat in water.

Further, that layer of fat provides protection against hypothermia in cold water. There are other theories too, which do not support swimming as a good weight loss exercise. According to these theories, swimming does not provide the same calorie-burning effect as land-based aerobics because calorie burning is a complex mechanism that can get affected by many factors like your weight, the intensity and speed of your motion, and the resistance created by moving your body through space and against gravity. These factors change considerably in water and thus hamper the weight loss process.

The other side of the picture is that swimming can actually help in weight reduction. Regular swimmers develop long lean muscles that are incredible fat-burning machines and further toned muscles produce an overall slimming effect. This school also believes that swimming, like all aerobics, contribute to weight loss and has a calorie-burning potential of 350-420 calories per hour.

Thus the debate continues. However what is irrefutable is the fact that swimming is a complete fitness activity that treats the mind, body and soul. So for all you water babies, dive now!