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Three Swim Workouts

Three Swim Workouts

Lisa Eirene

About Lisa Eirene Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

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14 Comments

  1. Jordan @ food, sweat, and beers

    As a swimmer recently out of retirement, this is GREAT to see, and I’ll have to print these up to bring to the pool with me next time!! I’m still working on doing longer amounts of swimming at once without getting bored (either with the stroke or with just being in the pool alone in general) so it’d be great to have some extra structure to my workouts.

    PINNING IT!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Thank you, Jordan! I appreciate the pin too!

      Swimming is something that I love and always will love but yes, the long boring cardio can be mindless. It’s not like running where you can change up your route to see new scenery. But switching up the strokes often changes perspective. At least for me.

  2. Esther

    Haha, I was just thinking about swimming, since we just joined a new gym with a fantastic pool. Granted, I probably can’t do any freestyle or breaststroke yet. What I’ve been wondering though, is what kind of food do you eat *before* your swims? Do you eat a full meal or a snack, and then eat a full meal afterwards?

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Good question! It took me years to figure out WHAT to eat before a swim because I’d be famished if it wasn’t the right thing.

      Two things seem to work for me: a toasted english muffin (about 120 calories) OR greek yogurt. Everything else I tried was a massive fail. I eat my snack at work right before I leave–so about an hour before I’m actually in the pool. It gets me through my 60 minute swim and then I eat dinner when I get home (or lunch if it’s a weekend day).

      1. Esther

        Sounds like a plan! Since I’d be going in the mornings, I just wasn’t sure whether to eat a lighter breakfast and then lunch when I return (I have to take the bus back to my house from the pool). I don’t think I’ve had an English muffin in about 10 years LOL.

        Speaking of Greek yogurt, I thought of you when reading this post about making your own and thought you might be interested!

        http://annies-eats.com/2012/03/08/diy-greek-yogurt/

        1. Lisa Eirene

          If you’re going early in the morning, then I’d probably have a snack (maybe the greek yogurt) and then eat breakfast when you get home. I like English muffins as a pre-gym snack because it’s about 120 calories and doesn’t upset my stomach or make me feel too full. Some days it doesn’t work and I am famished mid-workout (like last night).

          I’ve never tried to make my own Greek yogurt. It’s something I’ve been curious about. I did make my own sour cream once! Thanks for the link.

  3. Deb

    I am so far from being able to do any of those workouts, though once upon a time, I got in the pool and swam a mile twice a week without stopping. It took an hour, I’m slow, but I did it. Then 2 other days a week I did 80 minutes of water aerobics. *makes muscle man pose* LOL I need to get back to that again!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      You can tailor it to anything you can do! Make it 2 laps of this, one lap of that, do lots of resting…whatever you can do! That’s great that you used to swim so much!

      1. Deb

        I’m waiting on a few things before I get back in the pool again. To shake a few more pounds so my swimsuit actually fits properly again, and well, that’s mostly it to be honest… lol.

        It took me a long time to work up to being able to do a mile at a time, and I was still so slow! 1MPH! haha

        1. Lisa Eirene

          Haha! 1mph! I’m about 1.5mph. LOL

  4. Simply Life

    swimming is SUCH a good workout! I don’t do it often enough but always feel great afterwards!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      It really is! The entire body inside and out gets a workout. Swimming made it so much easier to transition to running for me because I had all that breathing training down pat.

  5. Jill

    This makes me want to get in the pool and give it a go. I want to like swimming. I think it boils down to self discipline for me. If I get bored, or want to stop- it is hard for me to keep going unless I am in a class setting. Do you ever struggle with that?

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Not really. I understand that, and yes sometimes I get bored. But for the most part swimming is my “relaxing” workout. I can disconnect, not think about anything, meditate, or fantasize. I like it!

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