Making Peace with my Pouch
I turn 56 soon. I am firmly Middle Aged. I never thought I would get here. I don’t know what I thought really, that I was going to be in my 30s forever? Then I turned 40, and I looked young, we have good genes in our family. However, the time came for me to turn 50 and that’s when I realized Father Time doesn’t stop for anybody.
I took up cycling when I turned 50 and suddenly became very active, and I had lost 20 lbs during my divorce (I am a stress-under-eater), about the only upside of my divorce. However, on turning 51, I noticed that my mushy-menopause-midrif was beginning to make its presence known in the form of a pouch. I didn’t want to diet or count calories because I had never done that. What now? So I caved and began to count calories. I am exercising more now than I have exercised in my entire life, and I still have a spreading figure. I suppose I could seriously curtail my calories, however, because I ride my bike so hard and so far at least twice a week, I am always hungry.
I guess I just have to make peace with my pouch and try to at least keep it from getting out of hand. Despite my muscles being a lot tighter than they used to be, the spread, thigh to waist, is still lumpy. I do some intermittent fasting, or if I’ve made a real pig of myself on a particular day, I will fast the next day just to purge all the rubbish I’ve eaten.
But I really don’t want to diet, it makes me miserable. You see, I love food and I love eating, when I’m not sad or stressed out. It’s not that I eat a lot of rubbish because I don’t, I don’t even drink alcohol, I like things like nuts and avocados and eggs and fish and chicken, salad and berries, and chocolate of course. For a number of years now I have tried to eat as healthily as possible i.e. keeping my food sources as close to their original form as possible. I also take supplements because I have suffered through the Pauses, Peri, Meno and Post. What us ladies have to endure.
Admittedly, it’s not just my bloated pouch that’s a problem, there’s an awful lot else that’s wearing and tearing on this aging body. My mouth, for example. The smile creases are becoming more pronounced and southward facing. My eyelids are creasing down and spreading crow’s feet across my cheeks. And my hair… According to my hairdresser my “natural blonde” is coming in. So the decision was: do I remain the eternal blonde like my mother and her mother before her, or, do I break the mold, grow old gracefully and let my natural hair color come in? I’ve decided on the latter. There’s a whole movement out there of grey-is-beautiful, I’ll join that tribe.
My goodness, when I put myself under the microscope, I could be a suitable candidate for my local senior living residence.
And the scrutiny continues. I am my own worst critic. What’s with the spidery veins that are creeping around my ankles, and my toenails that are getting harder to trim? Why is food getting stuck in my teeth? It never used to. Why are my upper arms and neck becoming chickenish, and my all over skin getting a bit papery. Why can’t I wear high heals any more? And why do I have to ask people to repeat themselves, again?
However, despite all these obvious signs of aging, I remain fabulous! I refuse to buy into any lie that says that, because my body is aging, I have become less valuable. In fact, I believe that as we age we become more valuable because we bring experience and wisdom to the table wherever we are. We also don’t care as much about what people think, and are more likely to tell it as it is. I’ve always been a little bit of a truth teller, but, now that I’m over 55, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you my truth anyway in the hopes that you will feel comfortable telling me yours, and I might find some nice way of telling you your truth as I see it.
Yes, being in middle age I am coming to terms with a lot including the fact that I maybe didn’t achieve all that I would have liked to. However, I produced three amazing boys that I birthed myself and raised well, even through a divorce which, according to them, their dad and I did well. I guess I would like to have had a career in something or other but nothing ever panned out. I would like to have achieved an undergraduate degree but there just never seemed to be the personal support or time to do that. Therefore, I’m left with what experience I have garnered, my curious mind, and a personable demeanor.
So, as well as making peace with my pouch, which is actually making peace with my aging process, I will also make peace with loving to eat and loving who I really am. I will continue to learn to be a better me, inside and out, and remain open to learning new things. There is a big, beautiful world out there and I am a unique part of it.
