The reason why many people to start and continue with an exercise programme is to lose weight or avoid weight gain. Nowadays, a great number of people are looking to lose weight and getting back in shape is an ideal motivating factor to begin exercising.

Whatever type of exercise you choose, you can guarantee that it will help you increase your calorie burn. But when you're looking to drop a few kilograms, you want to know the most suitable type of exercise to engage in to hit your target.

So what's the best training approach for weight-loss? I have put aerobic and resistance training head-to-head to give you the verdict on the best way to help you lose weight — and importantly, keep it off...

Aerobic training burns calories — full stop.

Aerobic training is continuous exercise that gets you slightly breathless but still allows you to hold a conversation with your training partner at the same time. So, if you’re looking to lose weight, aerobic exercise is a must.

Look to exercise for a minimum of 20 minutes at a time, three times per week in order to get measurable gains. Walking, jogging, running, cycling, rowing, kickboxing swimming, or gym cardiovascular machines such as cross-trainers are all good examples of aerobic exercise with the most effective ones being those which require you to support your own bodyweight.

Therefore, an hour spent running will burn more calories than an hour spent in the swimming pool because in the pool, your bodyweight is supported by the water, which requires less energy than if you have to support it yourself.

Typical advice for aerobic exercise is that it should be low intensity to burn body fat, however; by making your aerobic exercise sessions more intense — by simply working harder, you can get many more benefits from your workouts including:

Increased fitness

An equally beneficial by-product of spicing up your workouts with some short, fast efforts are the fitness improvements that you will enjoy. By working harder, even for short periods of time, your body will step-up to the new challenge and your fitness will improve.

Resistance training and calorie burning

Exercises using weights and/or your own bodyweight should form an integral part of your weight-loss programme. One or two weekly sessions of approx 45 minutes will bring about noticeable improvements and will complement your aerobic training on different levels, namely:

Increasing muscle mass

If you have toned muscles, the ‘energy cost’ of maintaining that muscle mass is greater than that of body fat. Hence, toned muscles gives a greater calorie burn, even when not exercising, resulting in an elevated metabolic rate 24 hours-a-day! Increasing your muscle mass doesn’t mean that you have to resemble a bodybuilder, simply carrying out a correctly structured resistance training workout will give you the required gains.

Tighten-up and pull-in

By toning up your muscles correctly, you will find that everything gets 'pulled in', particularly around the stomach, so as well as burning extra calories, your shape changes as you slim down. Not strictly weight loss but an extremely visible and tangible benefit of carrying out resistance training.

Best resistance training exercises

The best exercises to do are ones that use the large muscle groups; the legs, back and chest together with abdominal exercises, which usually is a target area.

Who's the Daddy?

Aerobic training

Resistance training

Get it off and keep it off is everyone's target for losing weight. For your exercising weight loss strategy, always look for long-term results rather than any 'quick-fix solutions'. Quick fixes may produce short-term gains but they won't deliver long-term. Therefore by combining both resistance training workouts with aerobic exercise you will not only reach your goals faster, the kilograms won’t pile back on afterwards.

In addition you'll feel better, be fitter and stronger and will develop a fantastic, positive lifestyle that will bring about benefits for the rest of your life. Now that has to be worth a few exercise sessions!