Reducing Cardiovascular Risk Factors in

Background: The impact of a 6-month lifestyle change intervention on cardiovascular risk fac-tors in obese, sedentary, postmenopausal women was examined. A secondary aim of this in-vestigation was to determine whether the addition of self-control skills training to an em-pirically supported lifestyle change intervention would result in greater cardiovascular risk reduction. Methods: Forty-four women were randomly assigned to receive either a lifestyle change or a lifestyle change with self-control skills intervention. Pretreatment and posttreatment weight loss, body composition, physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness, diet, blood pressure (BP), blood lipids, and psychosocial functioning were assessed. Also, at 1-year posttreatment, weight loss, body composition, self-reported physical activity, and psychosocial functioning were assessed. Results: The women significantly increased their physical activity (39.6%) and cardiores-piratory fitness (13.5%) and reduced their body weight (6.5%), fat mass (7.4%), body fat (2.4%), BP (SBP 6.2%, DBP 9.2%), total cholesterol (7.4%), triglycerides (16.5%), an