Move it till you lose it: pound for pound, exercise really counts

Shape, Sept, 2008

If you can out-spin all your friends in cycling class but are still carrying a few extra pounds, you may want to step up your weight-loss efforts. Active overweight women have a 54 percent higher chance of developing coronary disease than their healthy-weight peers do, according to a recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Elevated body weight plays such an important role in the risk of heart disease, it's unlikely any amount of physical activity alone can reverse it," says Amy Weinstein, M.D., an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the study's lead author. If you consider yourself fit but fat, cut 100 to 200 calories per day from your diet and add high-intensity intervals to your weekly cardio workouts. (The fit but firm category is the one you really want to be in.)