82. How to Love Your Menopause Body (Without Giving Up on Your Health)

When Your Body Feels Unfamiliar

Have you looked in the mirror recently, or maybe like poked and prodded somewhere on your body, grabbed a little chunk of skin, or maybe noticed your energy dipping, and thought, whose body is this? If you feel like your body suddenly changed the rules on you overnight, you are not alone. We spend decades criticizing our bodies. And then when midlife hits and our bodies naturally change and shift, that inner critic can get even louder. So today we're going to learn how to turn the volume down. We're going to explore how to accept our changing bodies, keep ourselves healthy, and finally find a way to be happy with who we are physically right now. Let's talk about it. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife Podcast. I want to say right here at the beginning, a big thank you to you who have reviewed Mind Your Midlife on Apple Podcasts. It makes such a huge difference to tell Apple to share this podcast with more people. And that way we're making more of a difference. Ellen Baker Novels recently wrote, I really appreciate Cheryl's warm, thoughtful, and grounded style and the helpful information she presents. The podcast is such a great resource for women in midlife. Thank you. Thank you for that. So if you're listening now, head over to the Mind Your Midlife page on Apple, scroll down, tap the five stars, and write a quick review, and maybe I'll read yours on a future episode. Okay. What's the reality of body image in our 40s and in our 50s? The reality is there are changes happening. Our bodies are changing. Period. Now, for every single one of us, those changes might be different. There are patterns, we'll talk about that. But all of us are completely different people, and our bodies are going to change slightly differently. Maybe you're frustrated about weight gain. Maybe you're frustrated about your skin being different. Maybe you feel like things are sagging. Maybe you've been dealing with breakouts. Maybe your waists on your clothes are getting tight. Your shape seems to be changing. Oh my goodness. Maybe you have these crazy injuries that are so silly that, you know, you were drying your hair with a towel and you hurt your shoulder or something. Ah, don't ask me how I came up with that example. Maybe you just are running out of energy and you feel like, why is my body not hanging in there with me? That's all reality. Our goal today, though, is to make sure that you're not fighting your own body as these things happen. We want to find ways to accept what's happening, to be pleased with ourselves, to be confident about our bodies, and to be focused on our health, as opposed to critiquing our appearance. Now, the reason I wanted to talk about this on the episode today is it's really been on my mind over the past few weeks. I went back in the fall to one of my nephews' weddings. That sounds like he was having more than one wedding. I went to the wedding of one of my nephews back in the fall. And when I saw the pictures later, my sister sent me pictures that the photographer had done, and they were, you know, big group pictures after the ceremony. I love the pictures. And who do you think I looked at first? We all do it. I looked right at myself and started critiquing. And I was wearing a dress I've worn for other things before. So I looked again and I went, that dress is fitting me a little differently. It seems to be that I have a little extra something going on around my waist. It seems like I don't have as much of a waist as I used to. And I can kind of tell that this dress looks different. So these things do happen. It is reality. And then I had to work on my mindset about that. I had to figure out what actions am I going to take? How do I want to talk to myself about that? And in my case, I had to remind myself that I had just started on menopause hormone therapy. And so that was probably going to make a difference. And spoiler, it is making a difference. But again, there are things that happen. There are body changes that happen in midlife that just happen. Our bodies are now, I mean, in my case, 55 years old. My body has been on this earth for 55 years and it's done a great job. I'm patting myself on the back. And it's different now than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. And so is yours. So let's just normalize this for a second because I think that it's gotten harder as social media has gotten bigger and has become a bigger part of our lives. There, there's just a bit more pressure now on wanting to look like we're, I'm gonna say, 30 forever, maybe even 29. There's, I mean, there's just the extreme of people who are, I guess you call it looks maxing and doing all kinds of crazy stuff to their faces. I'm not really talking about that. I'm just talking about we feel pressure to have the best camera angle, to look the youngest, to make sure we have the cutest clothing, the best outfit, that we don't look old, whatever that means. And none of those things independently are bad. We're gonna have a style episode coming up soon. I want you to have the cute outfit. I want to have the cute outfit. I want to look younger too. And I really kind of in my head am about 38, I think. So let's let's let's be that. We don't have to be mired down and saying to ourselves how old we are all the time. And when those things all pile on top of us and become pressure and become reasons why we're telling ourselves that we are not okay and there's something wrong with us, that's when it becomes a problem. And I just want to say to you that aging is a privilege. You get to continue to be here on this earth doing your amazing things that you're doing. And I say this jokingly to my dad sometimes, but let's think about what the alternative is. The alternative to aging is what? Not even being alive. So whatever, whatever crazy things your body's throwing at you, it's better than the alternative. Aging is a privilege. So thank your body for carrying you through. Let's just start with that, just down to the very basics. Now, I've given you some examples. I've told you things are happening to me. Ah, body image for me is goodness, it's it's quite a thing. When I was younger, I gained weight. I guess I'm gonna say in my early 30s, I gained maybe 20 pounds over time just because I wasn't exercising and I was eating fast food and running around with the kids and stuff. And I didn't really realize it at the time. And then when I did realize it, I changed how I was eating. And I'll talk about that in a few minutes. The key being over time, I was able to lose that weight. And the problem with that is sometimes we get into our heads a picture of what we look like. And I don't think of myself as a thin person. And yet my friends will say to me, Oh, you're thin, you don't need to worry about this. So our brains, our minds, our subconscious brains are so wacky about how we look at our bodies. That's why I'm calling it body image, which is expanding beyond like actual body, the measurements of your body. There is a definition of what your body looks like that you see in your subconscious brain. That's your body image. So our bodies are changing. It's not just you. We have a subconscious picture in our minds of what our bodies look like. And this picture may be accurate or it may be completely inaccurate. And we have hormones. You know, I had to bring in hormones. We're talking about midlife body image. So there are true physical symptoms of these hormonal changes that are happening in midlife. It could be weight gain. It could be particularly weight gain around your waist and hips. It could be that you're having a harder time either building muscle or maintaining muscle mass. And maybe you're not, you know, bodybuilding or anything like that, but it's possible that it's getting harder to get up and down, or it's you're getting slower on the steps. Those things could be related to your core or your legs being weaker. Maybe your joints are getting creakier. I if I'm speaking for myself, as you probably know, I go to Pure Bar, I go to bar class, and there is one class version called a line that is Pilateslash yoga. It slowed down a bit, a bit of relaxing brought in versus the other class types. And I went to that a few weeks ago, and I kid you not, my knees were cracking so much. I was so embarrassed. I was hoping that the music was on loud enough that I was the only one who could hear it. And I don't know if that was the case. No one looked at me weird or anything, but it was very relaxing music at that point, and my knees were going. Anyway, you know what I mean. If this is you too. Maybe you're just having weird injuries, and you're you're having to deal with the realization that you need to be careful how you walk and you need to be careful how you move, and quick movements could be a problem. Maybe you're losing flexibility. Maybe you're having some of these just a little bit more unexpected changes in your body that have to do with hormones, like itchy ears that you've heard me talk about, or dryness in your skin, all various areas of the body, or maybe your hair is changing. There's just there's so many things that are changing in our bodies right now. And if those things are particularly obvious for you when you see a picture of yourself or when you put on your clothes and they feel different, that can really get in your head. And that's what we want to see if we can work around. So if you want to hear more about these various symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, go to the show notes because I had a great conversation with author Megan Rabbit in episode 77, and you'll want to listen to that. Could be sudden changes, could be slow changes, and it's going to tell you how to advocate for yourself through that. I want to focus on this subconscious body image today. So let's say, because this happened to me. I told you about my wedding picture incident. Let's say that you are suddenly noticing that the waist of your pants is tighter. And maybe it doesn't even have to be a lot, but just enough that you're a bit more uncomfortable. It's exactly what was happening to me in the fall. And maybe you see a picture of yourself like I did, and you go, oh, who put that middle-aged woman without a waist in the picture? There's some realization that you have that your body looks different. The first thing that often happens is some really self-critical talk in your head, some negative self-talk. And so the first thing that we want to do is start reframing that. So I just want you, and this is always going to be my advice when we're trying to make a change. I first want you to notice are you looking at pictures of yourself and heading right to these new changes that you are not happy about and just ripping into that picture of you? I can't believe I look like that. I I look like I have a tire around my waist. I look like my grandma. Like, I don't understand. Why does my hair look like that? My skin is terrible. Is that what you go straight to when you see a picture of yourself? Or when you look in the mirror? Is that frustration and self-criticism just front and center? And particularly, do you stand in front of your mirror? Maybe you're getting ready in the morning, and just kind of catalog all the problems. My cheeks seem saggy. Why are my eyes puffy? My hair is kind of blah. Look at those gray hairs, and I don't understand what's going on with my neck. And it really is this, is this what you're standing at the mirror doing? That is what I mean by self-critical, negative self-talk. It's okay to notice things that are different, of course. I'm not ever going to recommend that we live in this la-la land where we never notice anything that's wrong or anything that we don't like. No, we want to feel all the feelings. And at the same time, that self-criticism, as soon as you look at yourself, it seeps in to your confidence. It seeps in and creates emotions, frustration, embarrassment. It creates emotions in you that will affect the things you do. And I don't care what changes are happening to your body, you and I, we all absolutely can be out there in the world doing whatever we want to do. Period. So how do we get to the point where we actually believe that? It's first noticing this self-talk, catching yourself. Because when you realize that you are looking at a picture and just criticizing everything or standing in the mirror and cataloging all the bad stuff you see, it's going to be a little surprising because even now, as I'm saying this, it's possible you're thinking, yeah, maybe I've done that occasionally. I see what she's saying, but I don't do that all the time. So catch yourself and figure out whether you do. If you don't, great. I am so happy for you. If you do, I want you to recognize it. And I want you to be kind to yourself. This is very typical. Does not make you a bad person that you are this self-critical. It is very normal. And we can change it. So this change comes about completely by shifting your mindset so that you can see the good parts of your body and you can appreciate your body for what it does for you. What do I mean by that? Try standing at the mirror, getting ready, and look for one or two features that are your favorite features about yourself. Whenever anybody asks me to do this, I focus on my hair because my hair, if you've seen pictures of me or seeing me now on the video, is curly. And some days it is not my favorite feature because curly hair does whatever it wants to. But I really I love it, it has personality. I appreciate my hair. I enjoy that. I'm happy with that feature. But look for at least one. Ideally, two, three, four. Gradually finding more. Look for features that you like about yourself. And I want you to notice. And I want you to say, huh, look at my smile. My smile looks good today. Oh, I'm having a good hair day. Wow, this shirt really shows my waist nicely. And I feel like my shoulders. Oh, I like my shoulders. Whatever. Making things up, whatever. Notice it. And even though your brain might still be going to the negatives, at least you can mix this in. If this is a big struggle for you, and that negative voice is just chat, chat, chat, talking, talking, talking to you, then tapping is something that can help. Because what we want to do is we want to change that saved recording that's deep in your subconscious brain about what your body looks like. So let's say this is something that Maxwell Maltz wrote about in psychocybernetics, which is a book I've recommended on the podcast before. Let's say that you've recently lost a lot of weight. Let's not only talk about weight gain. Maybe you've lost a lot of weight. Sometimes people who've even lost a lot of weight can't see themselves in that way. And I struggled with this for a while. They still see themselves as the heavier person that they were before because it's stored. It's a saved tape deep in your subconscious brain. So how do we shift that? Well, like I said, step one, start by noticing features you like. Step two, tapping is amazing for this. And tapping, if you haven't heard me talk about it before, means tapping on acupressure points on your body and saying things about your body. And you can be saying things you don't like, and then you can gradually move to saying things you like. I have a tapping practice for you about your body image in a confidence deep dive episode. I'm gonna link it in the show notes. Go check it out because that technique is going to help you change that self-talk and release, move through some of these negative emotions about your body and start creating that positive body image. And you can repeat it and you can repeat it and you can repeat it because repetition is the power here for sure. Okay, so we've got a sense for how we can start working on our mindset about our body image, that saved picture of yourself that is deep inside your brain. What else can we do? I think taking good care of yourself it helps interrupt some of this self-criticism. Because if I'm taking good care of my body, then I'm honoring it, right? But if if I'm just putting junk in my mouth all the time and I'm never really moving around much, and I'm just looking at myself and critiquing all the time, it it's gonna make it. Worse. So even when you are looking at you in the dress like I was and seeing a little bit more around the middle that than you might want, you can start making small changes. Shifting the focus of how you eat, because it's very possible that when you get in this very self-critical phase about your body, you're you're falling into a trap of eating and then sort of punishing yourself. And maybe just punishing yourself by critiquing yourself for doing that. Or maybe you're not eating, which also is not healthy, right? Your body needs a little bit better care at this point. It has been in this world for 50 years, give or take. It needs a little bit of extra care. So how do we do that? I want you to think about the concept of food for fuel and food for celebration. So fuel food and celebratory food. Generally, most of the time, look at your food as the gas you would need to put in a car. Is this that I'm eating right now at this meal gonna help me have energy for the next chunk of my day? And if I know it's not, maybe I make a beta different decision. Is this food going to fuel me for the next little while? What kind of foods do that? Proteins, vegetables, fruits, staying away from processed food, staying away from white carbs. We know, right? We know variety. And then there's celebratory food. Eat the cake, have the cookie, go out for the drink at the happy hour. Celebratory food belongs in 15, 20% of the time. Fuel food belongs in the rest of the time. And sometimes we get that out of whack. And even on a GLP one, one of the biggest pieces of advice that people I know who are taking GLP1s is please eat enough protein. Eat a variety of foods, make sure you get fruits and vegetables, protein, protein, protein. So food still needs to be fuel. We need to take care of ourselves. And I don't want this to become an obsession, a second job, too much, too hard. So I'm also going to link in the show notes episode 75, how to take a little bit better care of yourself in midlife. And we're going to talk about some of that, as well as some mindset habits that you can do that are not super complicated. So if you catch yourself poking and prodding at your stomach or your butt or your cheeks or whatever, just laser focusing in on the parts of your body that you are not happy about. It's okay and it's not helping you move forward. It's okay because it's normal. We're all self-critical. And if we can figure out a way to shift that self-talk, it's going to make a huge difference. And my last little tip here on mindset is to try an affirmation. Now, I have one that I've been saying for a long time, and I'm going to tell you what it is, of course. And I'm going to say this might not be the first jump for you. And here's why. My affirmation about this particular topic is I am lean, fit, strong, and healthy. I'm not saying anything about skinny or thin or any of that. Lean, fit, strong, and healthy. And I've been saying that for such a long time that my brain doesn't argue with me. And I do notice that I eat better when I've been remembering that affirmation and really identifying with it. Your brain is so powerful. But if you were to say something like that to yourself and your brain went goes, that's ridiculous. It's not true. I'm not strong. I'm not lean. I'm not fit. Then you need something else. And I've talked about this on the podcast before too, but maybe you need a butt affirmation. There's a butt in the middle. I was really unhappy about my body, but I know I'm getting stronger every day, or I know I'm getting healthier every day. Something that is kind of a transitional affirmation. It's about changing the tape that is playing in your brain. And I'm saying tape on purpose because I know you know that's how we grew up. Making mixtapes, listening to tapes. Anyway. See if you can take one of these steps towards appreciating your body, thanking your body, thanking your body for being alive, thanking your body for making it through 40 or 50 or 60 years. Try one of these things I talked about. Go take a walk just for the joy of it. Don't worry about the time and the counting and the whatever. Listen to one of these past episodes and try something. And you heard me talk about the green synergy elixir and the fizz that I mix together in a big water bottle and use every morning. Go and check it out. Maybe adding that little bit of extra kind of healthy stuff in the morning is a good thing for you. That's at CherylPFischer.com slash greens. I just mix them together in a big old 24-ounce water and drink them easy. And in the meantime, keep remembering midlife is your time, just like we talked about, to take just a little bit better care of yourself. On the outside and on the inside. Just a little bit better makes a huge difference.