Is my "Workout" enough to gain / stay in shape?

Only recently, I have started going swimming before school (I hate the gym - it's boring for me) once a week where I spend 30 - 45 minutes swimming 1 kilometer (40 lengths) or more, practicing all four strokes (Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke and Butterfly). I have also started working out for 5 minutes a day (that's all I can be bothered to do, as fitness is not a priority for me) where I do 50 sit-ups, 50 push-ups, and 20 pull-ups.

I know diet has a role in fitness as well, which I refuse to change dramatically, but instead of having no breakfast, I now have a bowl of porridge most mornings, as well as a minimal lunch, but then the usual family dinner.

As far as I'm concerned, I am already in good shape, probably as I cycle to school everyday and I skateboard occasionally. I already have a well defined chest and visible abs, but I just want to tone up and loose a bit of fat.

Bearing in mind that I never used to work out, is this enough to stay in relatively good shape and tone up? And would anyone recommend any other exercises that can be done at home that work on the upper body?

Cheers!

Hi,

I think this is a good plan to stay in shape. I go to the gym but I only do free weights and I go cycling. I also run and swim and I manage to stay in a pretty good shape.

I think for a person who has never worked out before, this is good because you're keeping healthy. Your diet should change a little bit though; the porridge is a good idea as it's slow energy release but for lunch you should eat something that contains carbs to make sure your body is able to keep going until the evening. I think the best thing is to eat moderate portions but often. For example, I have breakfast at 7am, then I have a piece of fruit at 10am, lunch is usually a salad for me at around 12-12:30pm, then I have dinner at around 5pm and a small snack, such as natural yogurt or some dried fruit in the evening, around 7pm. You need to ensure that your body is getting all the nutrients it requires, especially if you swim a kilometer and you cycle everyday.

I hope this helped a little

Swimming is very good for health, I'd probably concentrate on a certain stroke or two - personally when I was doing a lot of swimming I was concentrating on training my butterfly, with some crawl, but that was a personal preference. Keep building the distance, you could do sprints/ interval style training and also working on drills as well to improve stroke/ kick etc

I don't think your pushups/ situps etc will achieve anything tbh. If you can do 50, you're not getting anything out of them

Trying to eat a bit more protein, whether that be in a shake form or some chicken for lunch etc, would be of benefit to you

I'd say your routine / workout looks pretty darn good. Swimming is always a great work-out, I used to do around 100 lengths every weekend and would have kept it up if I still had access to a pool. My favorite was the front crawl and freestyles, which my laps would almost always descend into.

When it comes to breakfast, I think having something that will keep you full through-out the day is more important. Try not to fall back into eating nothing, as this is proven to be much worse for you in the long term. Always eat something if you can. Get something green in there as well if you can (veggies etc) as well as some protein. Personally, there's nothing better then some lean chicken breast.

You'll probably develop some bad habits if you've never really exercised before, but those are easily overcome. Switch it up if you can (or want to) every so often to try something new. I ended up making the switch to running after cycling for years, was a bit of a shock to the system at first. Once I'd got over the high impact, I really enjoyed trying something new in my routine. Get some of these post-workout muscle massage oil treatments for good results, as well as some protein shakes if you decide to target your fitness more.

For now though, I'd say your doing just fine