There is a big confusion among people who want to lose weight (fat) with regards to the right type of exercise that will help them achieve their goal quickly and with maximum results.

The biggest issue is that many people still wants to lose weight that will show on the scale and help them get into the clothes which are 2-3 sizes down. But the common practice is that the lost weight usually comes back much faster than it takes to lose it. Usually people spend 6-8 weeks on a low calorie diet and some kind of "cardio" exercise in order to lose 6-8 pound of weight, but once they stop with the weight loss program the lost weight comes back in a week or two!

The reasons for that are purely physiological and predictable. In order to keep the lost weight off, a completely different fat loss approach has to be implemented.

Losing weight is relatively easy and doesn't require much knowledge and effort. Simply go on any low calorie diet, or as I like to say starvation diet and you will lose weight. By dramatically cutting calories in your diet you will start losing different tissues and also water that is contained in those tissues. The problem is that most of the lost weight through a starvation diet will be from muscle tissues and in smaller amounts from body fat. By losing (reducing) your muscle tissue you will start slowing down your metabolism and automatically slow down the fat burning process. The body doesn't burn fat while your metabolism is slow. Because of the calorie restriction your body will go into starvation mode and slow the calorie expenditure process from body fat. So, although you will lose quickly some weight in the beginning of your weight loss process, the rate of weight loss will than slow down. The longer you stay on the starvation (low calorie) diet, the more you will be triggering your body to reverse the whole process, which will force you back into the old overeating habits.

Very few people can make it longer than 8 weeks on a low calorie diets. The body will be desperate to stop the starvation mode and regain the lost tissue; in the first place the physiologically so important muscle tissue.

But the problem arises once you start eating again as you ate before. Since you were starving yourself for a long period of time, you have slowed down your metabolic rate. Low calorie diet and long cardio exercises are the best way to do so. Once back on more food, but now with your slower metabolism, the weight that you will gain back will be mainly fat. You will literally end up fatter than you have been at the beginning of your low calorie diet and cardio program. Most likely you will not just regain your old weight, but also put some more weight because this is the way your body over compensates the period of starvation. It would rather gain more weight in case you decide again to experiment with another starvation procedur.

So, in order to lose mainly body fat and preserve muscle tissue, energy and strength, you should do literally everything opposite. The best way is to start with positive mental attitude and understanding that weight loss doesn't matter while fat loss is what you want to achieve. Losing body fat will only require keeping your metabolism fast or even speeding it up. The only way to do that is to preserve your muscle mass or even increase it! By increasing you muscle mass you will even speed up your metabolism. As it takes up to 100 calories to maintain 1 kilogram of new muscle tissue, adding extra 5 kilograms of muscle tissue will burn fantastic 500 calories daily. That will add up to 3500 calories weekly, which is exactly what you need to lose one pound of body fat. The best way to achieve a deficit of 3500 calories weekly is to increase your lean muscle tissue by 5 kg. If you gain more than 5 kg of lean muscle tissue you will burn even more body fat.

How Can I Increase My Lean Muscle Mass?

The only way to increase your muscle mass is to start weight training. For men as well as women, high intensity weight training 4-5 times per week will help increase lean muscle mass and kick off fast metabolism instantly. Men will make muscle gains faster and more than women, but nevertheless women will be tightening faster with strength (resistance) exercises than with anything else.

Correct weight training program have to be supported by adequate diet high in quality protein, essential fats, vegetables and some fruit and not calorie restricted.

In regard to so popular "cardio" training: there is simply no such thing as cardio exercise! The only possible exercise can be only muscular exercise. Cardio vascular system is there to serve muscular system, not vice versa. We can therefore talk only about different types of muscular exercises: high intensity and short duration exercise such are weight training, sprint, short distance swimming, gymnastics, and similar. On the other side there are low intensity long duration exercises like walking, biking, running, swimming, etc.

High intensity short duration exercises speed up your metabolism for many hours after they are finished and increase the size and strength of your muscles. Low intensity high duration exercises don't speed up your metabolism and do not increase the strength and size of your muscles, quite opposite they will literally decrease the strength and size of your muscles! And this is the last thing you want to experience. Loss of strength and muscle size is also the first sign of aging in all living creatures.

Back again to the original question: should I mix cardio with weight training for fat loss, I hope that you have already got an answer. Regular and effective weight training and proper diet is all you need to lose fat. What often happens is that people gain new weight in form of muscle tissue while losing weight from burning body fat ending up with the same weight but with totally different shape. If you lose some weight in the process, so be it. But, you should not lose any weight from your lean muscle tissue which is metabolically the most expensive (fat burning) tissue in the body.

For the ones who simply cannot imagine themselves without some type of running or swimming; you will be better off running few sprints 2-3 times per week separated from your weight training or swimming few fast lanes 2-3 times per week rather than jumping or floating for hours without making any serious effort.