If you have some excess body fat to lose and you have tried to shift it with diets or other quick fix solutions stop for a moment and consider an exercise based alternative. There are some very good reasons why a proper exercise program is a more effective and sustainable weight loss solution.

The most important reason is that the right exercise will boost your metabolism. This is the rate your body burns fuel and is your body's engine. This fuel burning rate can slow if you have been on repeated low calorie diets (anything under 1200 -1500 calories), because of aging or because you have not been doing enough activity to keep your motor running hot.

The key to successful permanent weight (fat) loss is about improving your metabolism.

If you have a higher metabolism, your body will burn more calories 24/7 even when you are not exercising. To do this though you need to build more lean muscle tissue which will shift your metabolism regulating your body's ability to become and stay lean.

To get this shift in your metabolic rate you need to perform a proper exercise program that includes strength training exercise and cardio interval training. A lot of people try and get this effect using the wrong exercise. They have been mislead and misinformed into focusing on long duration, low intensity activity like walking.

This type of activity is simply not intense enough to cause the hormonal changes that are needed to boost the metabolism. After all we all have legs and we all walk, but this does not mean we are all in good shape. As we are aware the overweight and obesity levels worldwide have never been so high.

Just by increasing your metabolic rate you will be able to burn off several hundred calories per day extra even while you are resting or not exercising at all. Over the course of days, weeks, months and years this will slowly but surely chew into your body fat stores and you will become a smaller, trimmer, leaner person.

You see, by now you must be aware that to lose weight, whether you exercise or not is simply not an option, it is really not negotiable. You need to decide how active a human being you are going to become. That decision alone will predict whether your future is as an overweight person or a slim person.

Just for now, agree to set aside what you think you know about weight or body fat loss. If what you have been doing hasn't worked as well as you would like, a fresh approach may be just what you need. Take the emphasis off your weight and ineffective exercise methods and try putting it on the correct type of exercise program that will give you much better results.

A fitness professional is the correct person to help you get set up on your program to give you the best results. It is so important that your exercise program is balanced and you will need to be shown how to do things correctly and your results monitored.

Shifting your metabolism not only depends on your approach to exercise but to nutrition as well as you need to support yourself with a whole food eating plan to give you the energy to be able to exercise at the right intensity.

This entire way of looking at weight loss will help "reboot" your whole mindset in a healthier direction that is naturally inclined to eliminate excess weight.