Welcome to the board!
I'll try and answer your questions. If I misunderstand/leave out something you want to know, let me know and I'll respond again.
Swimming will make you swimmer, but that's because real swim training is in a different stratosphere of cardiovascular training that just about any sport in the world. The increase in caloric intake that comes with real training is usually such a huge load that it takes people time to adapt, and therefore yes, they would lose weight.
Actually, swimming and low weights go hand-in-hand. The majority of swimming-oriented weight lifting is with low weights at high repetitions.
Can you get a "cut" body from swimming? Yes, of course you can. However, swimmers often seem a lot more muscular than they really are. Until they add big weight lifting routines, swimmers usually don't get all that big in the arms. They develop wide shoulders, and very strong backs, and this can give the illusion that there much bigger than they are. Of course, swimmers are known for the famous "V", which it sounds like you'd love to have.
Here's the issue. If you have not trained swimming before, it's going to take you some time to achieve real, physical results. Many people are uncomfortable with the feeling of breathlessness that comes with heavy swim training, when compared to running, where you can breathe at will. Swimming 50 laps a day at just a slow pace will not get you what you want. It will take a lot of hard swimming, with brief rest, then back into more hard swimming before you'll feel comfortable putting your head back in the water. Coming from a weight-lifting background, the problem you'll find is that you'll give out cardiovascularly (and maybe with intestinal fortitude) before you've done enough to build the muscle you're looking for, and you'll spend a lot of time breaking down muscles due to the repetitive nature of the motion before you'll be able to build up. The yardage you're going to be looking at before you start to get that really cut look is probably going to be around 3000-3500 meters, 4 or 5 days a week. And you still won't look like Phelps or Bosquet.
You're still young enough at 22 where you can hope to learn proper technique and kinda get the hang of the nature of swimming. I don't want to discourage you, more I just want you to know what you're getting in to. I'm always a huge proponent of people finding Masters' programs. A good one will have teammates and a coach there to help make sure you're working, but at the same time will be supportive of you and your abilities. Also, before trying to go it alone, it's a huge help to get on with a coach to learn the proper form (to prevent injury), methods, and strategies of training. So many people try to get in a pool, swim 20 or 30 or 50 laps straight, and then get out, because that's what people do when they run. Unless you're simply interested in cardiovascular health, that will never get you the physical results that you're looking for.
To make it analogous to weight lifting, you wouldn't ever suggest that someone just walk into a weight room and just go nuts, because they used to bench press in their buddies garage, or they used to do squats in junior high gym class. The person would either hurt himself, or wouldn't get very good results because he had no clue what he was doing.
Hope this helps, and let me know if I need to clarify or elaborate on something!
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