Unlike walking, running, cycling it doens't push against your natural gravity, in fact the more fat you have the more buoyant you are so it has the reverse impact.
Also its the bodies natural reaction to spending time in water colder than air temperature to put on some fat as insulation.
Don't get me wrong, swimming is a great exercise as far as cardio, health and lack of injuries goes and it will create muscle which does in turn boost your metabolism but if you're trying to lose weight and you're only swimming its nigh on useless.
Studies have also shown that swimming in cooler water stimulates the appetite and unlike people that take up walking, etc a lot of people who take up swimming find they put on weight.
Its only really effective if you can swim very fast for quite long periods of time but there's more effective ways of spending that time.
I really enjoy going for the occasional swim with my kids and find it great for my cardio which can allow me to do other things down th track like jog more effectively.
BUT comparitvely speaking swimming compared to other exercises is useless as far as weight loss only goes.
Walking, jogging, riding, sports or lifting weights are all much more effective, of course with a good diet.
Speediest weight loss is something like jogging combing with a good diet and lifting weights.
Get yourself a good heart rate monitor, I find them very effective for improved fitness and weight loss too.
The other thing to take into account is your body will stop gaining as much benefit out of one thing if you continuously do it, the best way to keep good weight losses is to to "shock" it into new and wondeful things.
I'll also look at writing a more comprehensive guide down the track but in the meantine if people have further questions I might be able to help them with go ahead as I've read up on and experienced just about everything as far as weight loss goes now.
...you and anyone else can always start afresh in the New Year
