I"m 23 years old, 6 foot, male, and 135 lbs (very skinny) with a high metabolism. I'm a very busy and poor college student. I'm not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination. I have very little experience with any kind of exercise or diets? All I know is that I swam a short distance the other day and got exhausted. Then my ripped army friend came walking by. I decided to get serious about being generally healthier, increasing stamina, gaining weight, and have some kind of musculature. But doing all of that safely and smartly. I have done some research and I want to start swimming as my exercise activity.

Does anyone have any advice to help me with this? book suggestions? diet plans? recipe books?

While swimming is a full body workout, you may also want to add weight / resistance training to build muscle more.

What are you eating now? To gain weight, you need enough calories. To gain desirable weight (i.e. with muscle, not just fat), you need enough protein and sufficient amounts of the right kind of exercise (and doing exercise will use up some calories, so you'll need to add even more calories).

Your not going to gain much muscle just swimming.

Endurance and stamina, yea. Muscle? Not so much.

tjl: I haven't started any kind of eating regiment yet. I'm learning about it first and finding out everything that goes into it. I don't want to be big, just some toning and definition. Would I need weight training even for that? If so, what are some good ways (or places where I can find out how) to do both swimming and weight training with an already busy schedule (i.e. work out plans/schedules)?

Yes. Swimming alone will not give you a "toned" body. I know plenty of great swimmers who swim miles and they are still skinny-fat.

As for weight training, if your schedule is busy. just do a full body workout 3x a week.

Both swimming and weight training typically need dedicated time, unlike some other forms of exercise. For example, running or bicycling can be used for commuting purposes, allowing you to get a cardio or HIIT workout cheaply (in terms of time). You may get some weight training effect if you have a manual labor job lifting heavy things, although that won't be as "structured" as going to the gym and lifting weights (or running or bicycling a commute, where you can vary the intensity as desired for your running or bicycling commute).

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