Irvine : Study Finds Swimmers Did Not Lose Weight

A UC Irvine professor has found that swimming doesn’t always lead to trimming.

In a recent study, UCI’s Grant Gwinup, professor of endocrinology and metabolism, tracked the effect of 60 minutes of exercise a day on groups of “moderately obese women.” One group did brisk walking, one group rode a stationary bicycle and the third group swam laps in a pool.

Gwinup found that the walkers and bicycle riders lost weight, but the swimmers gained weight slightly.

Gwinup’s findings are scheduled to appear in the May-June issue of Sports Medicine magazine. In his study, the women were not on a diet, and they were advised to eat whenever and whatever they desired. However, they were given precise instructions on how vigorously to exercise, and they were required to keep exact records, which were examined every two weeks.

After six months, the women assigned to walking lost an average of 10% of their weight. The women cyclers lost 12%, but the women swimmers gained an average of 3% in weight.