Maybe you've been exercising pretty regularly, but the bathroom scale hasn't budged and your middle is still about the same size.
You have probably made an improvement in your cardiovascular health, and that could be even more important than your pants size.
Researchers at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital report that moderate amounts of exercise is associated with as much as a 41 percent reduction in cardiovascular risk. While their study was done entirely on women, men can presumably reap similar benefits.
In various study subjects, body mass index changes accounted for just 10 percent of the reduction. Blood biomarker improvements accounted for about one-third of the risk reduction, and blood pressure changes were accountable for 27 percent of the improvements. Reduced cholesterol accounts for a 20 percent improvement.
The benefits of regular moderate exercise outweigh what the scale will tell you. The researchers found that the more study subjects exercised, the greater their cardiovascular health improved.
The surprise was that cardiovascular risk dropped by 27 percent for those whose activity burned just 200 to 599 calories per week.
The risk was reduced by 32 percent for those who burned 600 to 1,499 calories per week, and 41 percent for those who worked off 1,500 calories a week.
