If you are serious about fast long lasting weight loss than you need to look at both your diet (nutrition) and your exercise.

We're going to focus on exercise in this article.

Many people believe that aerobic exercise that involves extended periods of consistent movement is the best exercise for weight loss. These people usually don't really understand the mechanics of what your body goes through, and what it requires when losing weight.

So am I saying that cardio type exercises are not the best exercise for fast weight loss.

No I'm not, what I'm saying is that if you just do cardio then you're not optimizing your weight loss. And if you want fast weight loss, you need to optimize each workout so you burn the most fat.

So what else can you do?

With any exercise program that's designed to get you to lose fat fast, you need to lift weights (a type of anaerobic exercise). It is just as crucial as aerobic exercise.

Why?

For two main reasons.

Firstly, it to builds more muscle, or at least maintains what you have got when you are in a weight loss plan. You want this because muscle burns off fat much more efficiently than other types of tissue in your body. The lower the fat to muscle ratio in your body, the more calories you burn off in a day - and so the easier it is for you to burn fat.

Secondly, weight training is also great because burn fat directly after your workout. Studies show that your Basal Metablic Rate (BMR) (which is how fast you burn calories) remains elevated for up to 15 hours following a weights session. So even though you may not burn fat directly during the workout, you burn fat calories through the rest of the day, and you give your metabolism a permanent boost by maintaining your muscle mass.

You see, aerobic exercise burns calories during exercise but it is not as effective at burning calories after the workout. Its estimated that your BMR remains elevated for only one hour after doing aerobic exercise.

So if you want to set up an exercise program to lose weight fast, you need to incorporate both aerobic and anaerobic exercise in your training. To really get into the difference between them, please visit our article "Aerobic Exercises Vs. Anaerobic Exercise".

Just before we wrap this up, I know many people who get pumped up when they start their exercise program. So much so that they often try and do too much at once in the beginning. To make sure that you stay active for a long period so that you continue to progressive lose weight, read our article on "Weight Training Safety."

Ok, so now you know what to do, how do you do it.

As far as exercise programs go for long lasting weight loss, I recommend two programs.

Tom Venuto's "Burn The Fat" ebook is the first recommendation because apart from containing a great section on exercise (he's a natural bodybuilder and personal trainer), he also has the best overall book on weight loss - from the many I've reviewed.

If you're only interested in the exercise section, then I believe Craig Ballantyne's "Turbulence Training" is best for you. His nutrition package may not be as comprehensive as Tom's book, but his exercise section is just killer. It is the best one I've seen that's targetted for weight loss. He even covers bodyweight exercises in his course (which is using your own bodyweight to simulate weight training without the weights).