How I'm trying to show my body love even when I don't like how it looks

It may be the work of a lifetime.

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I had the below photo taken as part of a professional photo shoot last fall. When I got the photos back from the photographer, I glanced at this one and immediately put it in the mental “reject” pile. I missed all the things that were lovely about the photo - my hair, my smile, my surroundings - and focused right in one one thing: my midsection. Bigger around than I wanted to see; wider than I thought was “me”.

I considered this part of my body rejected - and not just in this photo.

Who is your body today: friend or foe? In recent months, mine has much too often felt…not exactly like an enemy, but a frenemy I can’t stop fretting over, as I admitted last week. In the wake of a wedding-planning season in which my appearance felt front-and-center for months, complicated by slow-and-steady midlife body shifts, I’ve been working to tamp down the full-on fixation I developed with how I look: in particular, my body’s shape and size. This preoccupation wasn’t just unhealthy; it was getting boring. I vowed to put it behind me, and was having some success.

Until I wasn’t. The other day I unsuccessfully tried to wriggle into a pair of pants that I could have sworn fit me just fine, like, six months ago (but did they really fit before? And was that really just six months ago? And who really cares, right?)

The sheepish realization that I’d reacted to a nominally-squishier midsection with something like horror reminded me that unlearning messages we’ve been absorbing, and repeating to ourselves, about our bodies for decades is not the work of a single season, decision, or blog post. It takes time. Maybe it’s the work of a lifetime, actually. After all, it took me my current lifetime to get where I am.

In midlife I’m finding that there are a lot of things that used to seem easily within my control - for example, the ability to quickly drop a few sizes via dubious means such as simply not eating - that are no longer so quick and easy.

It’s like my body is beginning to finally reflect the realities that youth kept temporarily hidden: Things change. Bodies age. There is more to us than our looks.

And one of the hidden blessings of this shift is that it forces me to grapple with what loving myself - and by extension, loving this sacred earthly meat-vehicle that navigates me through all these amazing experiences I get to call “life” - really means.

Friends, for me loving my body can simply no longer mean setting conditions for its value. I’m over (or, to be more accurate, working to get over) brutal self-punishment, ruthless self-criticism… or even, endless self-improvement. At some point “self-improvement” can start to feel just as unloving as self-criticism, after all, because it’s still based on the idea that how my body looks or performs could always be better.

It’s like my body is beginning to finally reflect the reality that youth kept temporarily hidden. One of the hidden blessings of this shift is that it forces me to grapple with what loving myself - and by extension, loving this sacred earthly meat-vehicle that navigates me through all these amazing experiences I get to call “life” - really means.

But not fixating over what my body looks like isn’t the same as not thinking about my body at all. I think about my quite a lot, actually - I’m just trying to shift those thoughts away from judgment and control, and toward nurturing and pampering. Here are some practical ways I’m working to loving my body into practice:

1. I’m embracing it in comfortable clothing - that actually fits. There’s a reason midlife women joke about entering our “soft pants” phase. We’re tired of forcing our bodies into ill-fitting clothes and shoes that look good but feel bad. I have a theory about why: as the looks good : feels bad ratio starts to tip ever more heavily toward “feels bad” we are finally forced to confront the diminishing returns of everything from painful body-shapers to too-tight waistbands (or any waistbands at all, come to it.) Look, I’m not in my muumuu years yet or anything like that. I’m just saying there is a way of dressing that doesn’t punish us, and it starts with making sure there are no marks on your body when you remove your clothes.
   
   

2. I’m lavishing it with feel-good body-care. I’m totally embracing All Of The Things these days when it comes to trendy body-care practices, and I realize that may seem pretty naive - but guess what? For me, it’s not really about the “anti-aging” possibilities - whatever that means - of this product or that technique. Pockets of cellulite and sagging skin are going to be with me as I age, but whether it’s dry brushing and gua sha or slathering my body with quality products, I find the ritual and pampering pleasurable and a means of showing my body care. This doesn’t have to mean dropping a ton of money - there are tons of homemade recipes for natural scrubs, lotions and oils out there, and TJ Maxx often has a great selection of high-end products at deep discount - but if you feel like investing a little in your body-care routine, please let me recommend The Mega Moisture Duo from OSEA, which bundles two of my favorite products - the Undaria Algae Oil and Undaria Collagen Body Lotion - at a discount. These two products smell wonderful, feel luxurious going on, and blend together wonderfully on the skin, especially right after the bath or shower. Use code REINVENT for 10% off your first order and let me know what you think.
   

3. I’m challenging it with movement, both gentle and strenuous. Let me tell you a little tale. Last summer during a family camping vacation, I slept funny and woke up with a slightly-stiff neck and back. Instead of working through this pillow-injury with movement, I let the stiffness demoralize me - and stopped exercising at all.
   
   Within a matter of weeks I barely had any range of motion in my upper body. I was that person who has to turn their entire torso to check their blind spots while driving. I suffered for months and I’ll admit, it kind of spooked me. I was afraid to get back to exercise because on some level, I worried that maybe my body was wrecked for good.
   
   Guess what, though? When I finally started moving again regularly - a mix of easy stuff I can do without putting on a sports bra, like gentle yoga and walking, and harder workouts including more vigorous yoga and weight training - the stiffness and pain went away. The thing I was avoiding - challenging my body - was the only cure. Lesson learned: my body desperately needs the regular challenge of movement, both gentle and strenuous. When I do both every week, I feel good. When one starts to slip, I feel…less good. I won’t make the mistake of letting them slip for too long again.

4. I’m supporting it with good nutrition. For me this means good food, of course - with plenty of protein and healthy fats and veggies and fruits included amid the chocolate and cheese - but increasingly, it also means judiciously-chosen supplements. I’ve got a finely-tuned bullshit meter that tends to be skeptical of the idea that food alone isn’t enough to meet all our nutrition needs, but I started to notice some things over the past few years, such as:
   
   -When I don’t get enough magnesium, the muscles in my feet and legs hurt. Taking a supplement magically makes it better.
   -When my Vitamin D drops in November, I feel like crud. A supplement brings me back to life.
   -My digestion gets sluggish at times. A good probiotic helps it get moving again. --It’s really hard for me to get enough protein for strong muscles with food alone. Collagen powder, flax seed, and hemp hearts sprinkled liberally over my food make it easier to get what I need without eating chicken breasts with every meal.
   
   All that said, it still raises my eyebrows when women, especially vulnerable midlife women, are told we need dozens of supplements a day to secure basic nutrition. A targeted approach, supported by a healthcare provider (and evidenced with lab testing when possible) seems a lot more judicious (and less expensive) than automatically loading up on every supp we’re being sold.

   

   When I first saw this photo, I fixated on the width of my midsection rather than the light in my hair or the beauty of the wildflowers. What a shame!

   5. I’m adorning it, just for the fun of it. With all this talk about self-acceptance and body love, did you think I’ve left behind all vanity entirely? Pshaw! The very idea! I still love the sensual pleasures of adorning myself with cute clothes, a well-chosen lipstick color, just the right earrings, or an lash-luxuriating sweep of mascara.
   
   Humans are as naturally prone to preening as any other animal, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to look pretty. I’m just trying to give that preening the appropriate amount of importance…and refrain from letting the natural signs of aging, whether a droopier jawline or jigglier thighs, remove all the pleasure from that self-adornment.
   
   In other words, my body and face are worth fixing up and flaunting however I please, no matter their size, shape, smoothness, or tautness.

Loving my body isn’t always easy. But I find that the more I think about everything my body does for me and the ways I can show it appreciation, the less I worry about things like the stupid ill-fitting pants that made me doubt its value, even for a moment. It’s not a quick fix, but a practice worth showing up for, again and again.