Love it. Looooooooooove it. L O V E I T.
I learned to swim very very badly when I was about 10 years old. I would go to the local pool and huff and puff, take in huge gulps of air and struggle to get from one end to the other. Then I'd have to hang on to the edge of the pool to recover my breath. That went on for years and I didn't enjoy it at all.
Then when I was 50 I went swimming one day with a determination to get to the bottom of it - I was sick of watching other people effortlessly going from one end of the pool to the other, having conversations with each other!!!
So I stopped swimming, stayed in one section of the pool and just began PLAYING in the water and EXPERIMENTING with movements. Lo and behold I discovered that swimming takes little effort at all and that if you just keep still in the water and breath NORMALLY IN AND OUT, it will hold you up.
We have a brand new leisure centre which is bright and airy and I now go 3 times a week if I can manage it and I do my own swim strokes, I doggy paddle, I wiggle from side to side like a fish, I do a modified backstroke and roll from side to side like a whale. I don't OVERDO it, I don't OVERSTRETCH, I don't think about burning calories but I get a good, gentle workout which keeps my joints supple and my muscles working and which I thoroughly enjoy. I can spend an hour or more in the pool now without stopping moving and that's something I never thought I'd ever be able to do.
Once I've got my BG under control I'm going to give the gym a go but I intend being gentle with myself.