Oh boy this is long!
Our resting metabolism post exercise is increased based on how long and hard we've exercised. I've never heard of our metabolism rate having to do with the body temperature and not sure how that would work. I know when our bodies are cold we do burn more calories trying to keep warm...
When looking at calories used during exercise, there's obviously different intensities of exercise and (again generalising here big time) when people swim, their exercise can be more stop start stop start at the end of laps in comparison to something like walking or running which are more continuous actions.
I agree swimming or walking is great on SS/SS+ (but take it slowly) and just as importantly do some light resistance work to help prevent muscle loss. Doing some core work like Pilates will also help you no end.
With the low calorie intake we are on, there's no way you'll develop muscle and rest assured muscle doesn't weigh more than fat, but it will help you to tone up.
While we are having this discussion (and I love it
), you may also be interested in doing a bit of reading about heart rate zones. I'm keeping this fairly brief but depending on the heart rate level you train at, your body will either try to tap into your fat resources (and believe it or not this is actually at the lower end, approx 60-70% of heart rate zone) and as you move further up the scale into higher heart rate zones, the body will go for the glycogen.
Now as you know on this program, we don't have much of a glycogen store. I've been doing a lot of searching through the archives (truly I have no life) and there's a lot of people that have lapsed after a hard work out session. My theory (and really I have no idea) is that they've pushed their bodies too hard and so the body is really sending out feed me signals. In addition, I also *think* this is what can slow down the weight loss when people have been exercising. Again, I saw a lot of examples in the archives of people whose weight loss slowed down when they started exercising which *may* be due to them exercising at a too high heart rate.
I'm waiting for my new heart rate monitor to arrive and I can't wait to start testing this theory out. It may be all b*ll*cks so I'll let you know
Woo. Did anyone actually read this far
Seriously I hope that helps!