Jamie is a 30-something-year-old married mother of three who works part-time at the career position she held before having children. Her sister, Marie, also 30-something, is single and self-employed. In spite of their very different work-life responsibilities, neither woman feels like she has enough time in her daily routine to accommodate exercise as much as she would like.

"I know I have to, and I want to, and I try to, but it just seems that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done," Jamie said.

"I do try to stay active and exercise, but probably not as much as I’d like to," said Marie.

Peter Haberl, EdD, a sports psychologist with the United States Olympic Committee, says the sisters’ lament is a familiar one to many women regardless of age, employment status, or marital standing: There just isn’t enough time.

"It’s extra difficult for a woman because she still generally does more of the housework [if she’s working outside the house], there’s less time for a woman to get exercise in," he said. "They have more role expectations on them than male professionals do."

Most women see the changes brought on by the aging process and insufficient exercise reflected in the bathroom scale.
"The average woman is actually losing about five pounds of muscle and adding 15 pounds of fat every decade," said Wayne Westcott, PhD, Fitness Research Director of the South Shore YMCA. "So, an average 40-year-old woman has about 40 pounds poorer body composition than when she was 20. Furthermore, her metabolism is going to be reduced by 10 percent. She’s going to be dragging, she won’t be as fit or as energetic, and she won’t look as good or feel as well or function as well as she should."
Westcott said new research shows that women can experience tremendous gains in their physical and emotional well-being even with limited exercise.

"Most people give ‘time’ as the reason they don’t exercise," Westcott said. "The strength-training protocol that we use and we’ve researched for years is roughly 20 minutes a day, two or three days a week. In about eight to 12 weeks they will replace three pounds of muscle and recharge their metabolisms by about 7 percent. You’ll lose about nine pounds of fat in about two or three months."

For many women, trying to make the time to exercise can itself be a stress-inducer. Haberl and Westcott both point out the psychic advantages of exercise.
"Obviously there are benefits to the physical health but one of the things that gets overlooked is the great psychological advantages to exercise," Haberl said. "Your self-esteem is better, you’re feeling better about yourself. You’re probably more balanced. Often, people get very good ideas, they are tuned into the more creative aspects of their brain when they exercise."

"In a major study from Harvard University, 87 percent of the participants [all were clinically depressed] who did strength training were no longer clinically depressed after 10 weeks," Westcott said, compared with the control group which received standard therapy and saw only 35-40 percent improvement.
For women who think that time spent exercising is time spent away from work, home, or other responsibilities, Westcott says you’re actually making yourself a better person to handle those other tasks.

"Because women are doing much more varied tasks – work, kids, home, etc. – and each one has its own deadlines, and stresses, and expectations, they desperately need to do something to maintain their strength to handle such a complex lifestyle," he said.

For women who still think they can’t fit exercise into their schedules, Westcott and Haberl take a very simple, ‘no excuses’ approach.
"In some of our studies as little as 10 minutes a day of strength training is very effective," Westcott said.
"Any amount of exercise counts," Haberl said.

Maureen Mullen is a freelance communications professional in the Boston area. She specializes in writing, public relations, video production, and multimedia production. She can be contacted at mullen_maureen@yahoo.com.