Overview
Exercise is one of the two best methods (along with diet) for losing weight, and cardiovascular exercise is the best kind of exercise to help you reach your weight-loss goals. Swimming freestyle can be a good choice because of its intense cardio burn and the integral resistance workout from pushing your body through the water. Consult your doctor before beginning any new weight-loss regimen.
Weight-Loss Basics
To lose weight, you must burn more calories through activity than you take in through eating. This forces your body to access energy you've stored as fat cells. Burning that energy reduces your body fat, and you lose weight. Swimming freestyle can help you burn extra calories, directly contributing to your weight-loss efforts.
Calorie Burn
According to health resource website HealthStatus, a 170-pound person will burn about 380 calories in 30 minutes of vigorous freestyle swimming. Heavier people will burn more calories in the same session; lighter people will burn fewer. That's about the same number of calories the same person would burn in 30 minutes of running at 6 miles per hour, and 100 more calories than he would burn in a half-hour of high-impact aerobics.
Variables
The calorie burn listed by calorie estimators is not an exact count of the calories you will burn swimming freestyle. Each workout will vary based on variables ranging from the water temperature to what you've eaten to what kind of mood you're in. Further, the muscle-building aspect of your swimming workout will increase how fast your body burns calories over time. In other words, the more you do your freestyle swimming, the more calories each subsequent session will burn.
Diet
Losing weight works only if you create a caloric imbalance that forces your body to burn up its fat stores. However, your body will naturally want to eat more calories in response to the increased demand created by your freestyle swimming. If you give in, you may slow or stop your weight-loss progress by eating extra calories. This is why the best weight-loss results come from a combination of exercise like freestyle swimming and a weight-control diet plan.
