How To Complement Swimming With Your Weight Loss Medications Routine

Swimming is one of those forms of exercise that almost nobody dreads the way they dread a run or a gym session. There is something about being in the water that makes effort feel more like pleasure.

Maybe because no one is watching your form. And it only takes about 40 minutes of swimming for you to feel refreshed.

This is the same reason why you should couple your weight loss medications like Wegovy or Mounjaro with swimming and make it a part of your weekly routine.

Once you get a grip on how swimming and weight loss are related, and how it can help you lose weight, you will be motivated to incorporate swimming as a habit.

What Your Medication Is Already Handling

GLP-1 medications like Wegovy and Mounjaro work by reducing appetite, slowing how quickly food leaves your stomach, and helping you feel satisfied with far less than you used to eat.

The results that come from this are both measurable and consistent. Patients on SheMed's weight loss programme lose close to 7% of their starting weight within three months, and just over 11% by the six-month mark.

Eating behaviour changes noticeably too. Before starting, close to 45% of SheMed patients described their portion sizes as large. By their first refill, that number had fallen to under 5%.

Snacking multiple times a day, something nearly 40% of patients did before their prescription, had dropped to fewer than 10% by the same point.

What medication does not handle automatically is muscle mass. As weight comes off, some of it can be lean mass rather than fat if there is no activity involved.

Swimming addresses that gap directly.

Is Swimming Effective for Weight Loss?

The Full-Body Case

Is swimming effective for weight loss? Absolutely. Swimming works out all muscles in your body and provides a great aerobic workout for your arms, legs, back and core, without putting the kind of high-impact stress on your joints that running does.

Water creates resistance all around you, which makes your body work harder than it appears to be working when viewed from outside the pool. When you swim at a consistent rate using the breaststroke and/or other strokes, your body will have to do more than many people realise.

What About Fat Specifically?

Is swimming good for fat loss as opposed to general fitness? Yes.

Swimming keeps your muscles active throughout. Even if you are not moving forwards, just floating uses a few muscles that means you do end up working out even if you are still.

This work done with heart rate elevated (cardiovascular) and continued resistance (muscle) converts into fat reduction when done over a longer period of time (compared to only seeing results from an initial 3-6 sessions).

Does swimming help you lose weight beyond calorie burning alone?

There is evidence to suggest that swimming can also increase metabolism (through hormonal regulation) beyond simply burning calories alone. The hormones that are released during and after swimming also mimic how GLP-1 medications work in your body.

How Many Calories Does Swimming Actually Burn?

When you go fast, you burn calories swimming faster. The number of calories burned varies based on how much you weigh, what type of stroke(s) you use, & how hard you are working.

For example, an individual weighing approximately 75 kg & swimming at a moderate pace for 40 minutes will burn between 250 & 400 calories.

Hence, swimming for a set time is the same as running for the same amount of time minus the pain in joints.

The freestyle stroke will burn more calories at a steady rate than the breaststroke (~easier for sustained durations). Conversely, the butterfly stroke has a higher energy cost & is much more difficult to maintain for extended periods.

When beginning swimming, using both the breaststroke & freestyle will provide you with many opportunities to make large individual fitness gains over time if you swim for 30-40 min/session.

Can Swimming and Medication Work Together?

Can swimming help you lose weight more effectively when combined with medication than medication alone?

Yes, if done together, swimming combined with medication can lead to weight loss greater than just using medication alone.

The reason for this is that while medication limits how much food you eat, swimming will allow your body to consume more calories through exercise than what your body was generating before. As a result of working together, both of these components enable you to create a much larger calorie deficit. Consequently, you will have the ability to sustain that deficit beyond just willpower.

Will swimming help you lose weight if you are starting from a very low activity baseline?

Absolutely. At SheMed, close to half of patients describe themselves as just getting started with physical activity when they first join the programme. Over time, that figure shrinks as more patients move into the fairly active category.

Medication helps make that transition possible by reducing the fatigue and appetite that usually derail exercise attempts in the early weeks.

Swimming provides mental benefits as well. It is a kind of exercise that can improve your focus because of its repetitive nature. After doing it only for a few times you will start looking forward to swimming rather than avoiding it.

Timing Your Swims Around Your Medication

If you're on GLP-1 medication, don't be surprised if you experience a little bit of nausea. This is most typical just during the first 1-2 weeks of taking them. You should not swim when taking your medications without having eaten anything beforehand.

The best course of action is to have eaten a light meal 1-1.5 hours before swimming. We recommend a meal that contains both protein and carbohydrates, in order to provide you with energy while you are swimming.

After your swim, eating a protein-rich meal can assist in recovering muscles, preventing your lean muscle mass from being lost as you lose weight.

Building a Routine That Actually Holds

If you are just starting out, you should aim to swim 3 times a week and no more. Each session can be around 30 to 40 minutes long which also lies within NHS recommendations for weekly physical activity. This routine will give you the necessary recovery time it needs.

Do not try to outdo what your body allows naturally. It's important to have consistency over several months before any changes will be seen.

Once you've developed enough stamina, it's normal for you to add time and/or intensity to your workouts without you having to force it.

Pay attention not only to what the scale says but how you feel in conjunction with it. As a swimmer, you will likely notice that you sleep better at night; have more energy during the day; and have significantly lower levels of discomfort in your joints than you did before starting your fitness program.

It may take longer for changes on the scale to occur, but these earlier indicators are just as important as any change on the scale.

Things To Keep In Mind While Swimming

Drink water, consume electrolytes. When you are in water, you can't tell whether you are sweating or not. And dehydration can amplify GLP-1 side effects.

Keeping a snack around is advisable. Could be anything from a fruit to some nuts.

And if standing at the edge of a pool right now feels like a stretch, that is completely fine. A considerable share of SheMed patients started their programme having done almost no physical activity whatsoever. The starting point does not define the outcome. Starting does.

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