Every once in a while, it helps to be reminded of the benefits of exercising. For those of us who would like to shed a few pounds, we should remember that exercise has many levels of health benefits. Even if we do not see the pounds coming off (or they are not coming off as fast as we would like), don’t forget that exercise is improving our health, conditioning and cardiovascular fitness. All too often, we tend to think of exercise solely in terms of our goal to lose weight. And when we don’t see results we get frustrated and quit.
In fact, researchers at Indiana University recently published a study in Obesity that looked at the fitness benefits of exercise in overweight individuals. They looked at 16 overweight men–8 active and 8 inactive. They found that active men had significantly better vascular function than the inactive men, regardless of how intensely the active men were exercising.
So bottom line: even while you can’t see the results of your effort, you are still improving your health so keep exercising!
June 30, 2008 at 1:40 pm |
[...] “Adults of all shapes and sizes gain health and fitness benefits by being habitually physically active,” including overweight or obese individuals (we have talked about this previously). [...]