Aging --- how are you doing it?
- Thread starter Snarky Oracle!
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I am 3 years away from 40 and regularly get taken for being in my early/mid twenties. Like all the time! Most of my working life I have been spoken to like I was some kid by someone who was probably at least 10 years younger than me. I have to explain my age a lot. I'm the same age as a co-worker's mother which blew my mind as she was born in 2000 and we get on so well. I could have a 20 year old child!
I think it's as much about how you feel, I just feel like I'm in my twenties therefor I am. Unless my back hurts and them in approaching 40. I don't smoke, never have. I like a drink but can go for weeks without drinking now. Moisturize every day, stay out of the sun, (easy where I live) and eat well enough. I don't exercise but my job is pretty active and keeps me slim. Would easily average 10000 steps a day. I have more silver threads in my dark hair now but still very much dark hair. I'm just going with the flow and I look and feel good enough for me. I have said for years I would like a little botox when I am 40 but the closer I get to it I don't think I need or want it. If I really wanted it though I would get it.
I think it's as much about how you feel, I just feel like I'm in my twenties therefor I am. Unless my back hurts and them in approaching 40. I don't smoke, never have. I like a drink but can go for weeks without drinking now. Moisturize every day, stay out of the sun, (easy where I live) and eat well enough. I don't exercise but my job is pretty active and keeps me slim. Would easily average 10000 steps a day. I have more silver threads in my dark hair now but still very much dark hair. I'm just going with the flow and I look and feel good enough for me. I have said for years I would like a little botox when I am 40 but the closer I get to it I don't think I need or want it. If I really wanted it though I would get it.
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I woke up with a new fold down the right side of my face -- from eye-to-bottom of my cheek. And it's not a 'crease' from sleeping on it. It looks permanent.
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I agree with Maurice Chevalier when he said “Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.”
I'm a little bit slower these days and I'll never match my marathon personal best again, my joints are a little stiffer than they were 20 years ago but I'm still in pretty good shape. I like the salt and pepper look I have with my hair but I mostly shave my head these days. My face is a little craggier but I think that give me more character.
I'm not concerned about aging, I embrace it.
I'm a little bit slower these days and I'll never match my marathon personal best again, my joints are a little stiffer than they were 20 years ago but I'm still in pretty good shape. I like the salt and pepper look I have with my hair but I mostly shave my head these days. My face is a little craggier but I think that give me more character.
I'm not concerned about aging, I embrace it.
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I look at aging like this. I can only control what I can control. I can motivate myself to stay fit and exercise and I can control my weight. But the things I can’t control I don’t worry about. My hairline has pretty much moved three counties over and out of my life for good. It bothers me but I just buzz it really short now and it looks much better. You can go with a hair implant and that’s fine for people who want that but it’s just not my thing. I’d rather just accept getting older
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I was more active last year than I’ve ever been. Walking just under 3900 miles during 2019. It would have been over 4000 but people were asking me to help with their PPI complaints deadlines, so I was finishing walking by noon on a few days a week for three months. I started running about. Plus jumping over fences and stiles. I had lots more energy. This year has been different due to illness, responsibilities that I’ll eventually evade and coronavirus.
I’m still getting mistaken for being a child.
I don’t have face lines or anything. Since childhood bouts of skin problems, I’m usually smeared in something, a few times a day. Especially with costume changes into identical outfits. And I smile a lot.
I have a secret weapon:
Filled with Honor’s tips on healthy eating, fitness, Honor’s healthy eating plan, Honor’s shopping tips, vitamins, Honor’s exercise tips, Honor’s skin care tips, Honor’s pampering tips, Honor’s timeless elegance tips, Honor’s tips on wearing leather suits and kinky boots and knowing yourself and being happy. And makeup tips.
I’m still getting mistaken for being a child.
I don’t have face lines or anything. Since childhood bouts of skin problems, I’m usually smeared in something, a few times a day. Especially with costume changes into identical outfits. And I smile a lot.
I have a secret weapon:
Filled with Honor’s tips on healthy eating, fitness, Honor’s healthy eating plan, Honor’s shopping tips, vitamins, Honor’s exercise tips, Honor’s skin care tips, Honor’s pampering tips, Honor’s timeless elegance tips, Honor’s tips on wearing leather suits and kinky boots and knowing yourself and being happy. And makeup tips.
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I need this in my life.
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So many people worry about losing their hair as they get older but I think gaining hair is a bigger problem. I sometimes think the hair on my ears is growing at such a rapid rate that I will soon be able to plait it and my nostril hair will soon be long enough to put in curlers.
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Someone asked me, rather contemptuously, the other day (when I was complaining about my aches and pains): "Are you even 40 yet??"
I assured them, indeed, I was not 40.
Of course, whenever I shave, it shocks even me. I'm so young-looking, it's stupid. At least, facially. (When I have a beard, which I often do out of laziness, I look considerably older -- all that grey chin hair and whatnot). I have precious little grey on my scalp -- still a full head of dark hair, almost no silver (which I get from my mother, who had dark hair until she was 70, and only then started to get some sprigs of obvious grey around the temples).
All that fresh melon-scented biomoisturespheres have paid off.
I had a health situation last year, and I wasn't please with how I was looking below the neck. But after reducing my carbohydrate consumption for months to a mere fraction of what it once was, certain things -- my butt and chest -- started tightening up again. Even at my advanced geriatric status... The sagging has stopped and even reversed itself (although I now have an unfortunate huge scar on my hip from surgical intervention circa 12 months ago). But I learned the lack of carbs helps with "buoyancy" which I've reclaimed to a nice degree.
Only problem now: because my pancreas is functioning once again and, hence, it's producing insulin, I'm struggling to keep from gaining weight.... So, it's like Type 2 to almost Type 1 back to potentially Type 2 again.... But remember: too much protein can also spike your blood insulin, if not quite as much as carbs.
Woo-hoo!
I assured them, indeed, I was not 40.Of course, whenever I shave, it shocks even me. I'm so young-looking, it's stupid. At least, facially. (When I have a beard, which I often do out of laziness, I look considerably older -- all that grey chin hair and whatnot). I have precious little grey on my scalp -- still a full head of dark hair, almost no silver (which I get from my mother, who had dark hair until she was 70, and only then started to get some sprigs of obvious grey around the temples).
All that fresh melon-scented biomoisturespheres have paid off.
I had a health situation last year, and I wasn't please with how I was looking below the neck. But after reducing my carbohydrate consumption for months to a mere fraction of what it once was, certain things -- my butt and chest -- started tightening up again. Even at my advanced geriatric status... The sagging has stopped and even reversed itself (although I now have an unfortunate huge scar on my hip from surgical intervention circa 12 months ago). But I learned the lack of carbs helps with "buoyancy" which I've reclaimed to a nice degree.
Only problem now: because my pancreas is functioning once again and, hence, it's producing insulin, I'm struggling to keep from gaining weight.... So, it's like Type 2 to almost Type 1 back to potentially Type 2 again.... But remember: too much protein can also spike your blood insulin, if not quite as much as carbs.
Woo-hoo!
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when a friend turned 40 in (2015) she had just turned it like 3 days prior she told me she already feels it i said that fast? she goes yeah she's 3 years older than i am.
i have a maybe 1% of gray hair or starting to a tiny bit in my beard, a couple if you look hard enough in my hair i'm gonna be 44 this year so what can you do ? complain ? yes you can complain until to use an old term until the cows come home but it's not gonna change a damn thing. though on the plus side i still am told i look like i'm in my 20's. people say mid 20's. when i was 10 years old or even 12 i was getting told i looked younger than i was so i've heard it all my life. starting i'd say in my teens i was telling people when i turn 40 i hope that people say i still look like i'm in my 20's. . now i say when i'm 60 i hope people are saying i look like i'm in my 40's. lol
i have a maybe 1% of gray hair or starting to a tiny bit in my beard, a couple if you look hard enough in my hair i'm gonna be 44 this year so what can you do ? complain ? yes you can complain until to use an old term until the cows come home but it's not gonna change a damn thing. though on the plus side i still am told i look like i'm in my 20's. people say mid 20's. when i was 10 years old or even 12 i was getting told i looked younger than i was so i've heard it all my life. starting i'd say in my teens i was telling people when i turn 40 i hope that people say i still look like i'm in my 20's. . now i say when i'm 60 i hope people are saying i look like i'm in my 40's. lol
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A lot of individualistic "I look good for my age" in this thread, which is somewhat overlooking the bigger picture. From Gen X onward, people are just aging better. Broadly speaking, Boomers and their parents aged terribly. Smoking was probably their biggest downfall, although drinking and poor nutrition certainly didn't help.
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I also think styling is a huge part of it - it struck me when I watched Cloris Leachman in Phyllis how badly they aged her with styling, because she had a banging body for a 50/51 year old at the time.
A few years earlier...
On one hand, people of a "certain age" seemed to almost convert to looking and being styled "old" back in the day, which could age them into certain age groups pretty quickly. On the other hand, we've gotten so youth-obsessed that people aren't really allowed to age- and we almost become shocked when someone even dares signs of physically aging.
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Yes, a few decades ago, people in their late-thirties looked like folks in their fifties do today. Of course, short permed grey hair, granny glasses and doily dresses would make most people look worse -- even if they're 17.
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I recall on this very site a member posted the famous slapping scene from A Summer Place, where Constance Ford slapped the stew out of Sandra Dee, causing her to fall and turn over the Christmas tree. The whole discussion started about 'that lady slapping another lady so hard she knocked over the tree". I pointed out Ford was playing Dee's mother; Dee was playing a 15-16 year old who got knocked up. Even as I was familiar with the film (from around 1960), I could see how the mistake could be made, since teenaged Sandra Dee sported a dowdy hairdo, pancake makeup and a shapeless raincoat as wardrobe. She was not dressed or made up in a fashion we would consider "teenager," and in fact did look twice her age.
It wasn't until some time later that designers and image-makers started marketing to the teen sensibility, selling a "look" unique to younger people that was neither "little kid" clothing nor "boring adult" clothes and promoting the idea of "dressing your age". I guess the increasing standard of living in the 1950s and materialism of the 1970s helped that happen.
It wasn't until some time later that designers and image-makers started marketing to the teen sensibility, selling a "look" unique to younger people that was neither "little kid" clothing nor "boring adult" clothes and promoting the idea of "dressing your age". I guess the increasing standard of living in the 1950s and materialism of the 1970s helped that happen.
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Although the '80s materialism left the '70s in the dust --- I mean, Gucci bags versus mood rings...??
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To me the most interesting case study is perhaps Joan Collins. Four decades ago, she was marveled over for looking so great past 50 but, from the vantage point of 2022, I think she looked older than 50. If I saw a woman who looked like that now, I'd assume her to be well into her 60s.
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From Gen X? hell yeah i'm Gen X
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I just take it a day at a time!! 
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Yes, the perspective has changed. In the '70s, Angie Dickinson became the first over-forty female sex symbol on TV, and in the '80s her buddy Joan Collins became the first over-fifty female sex symbol (both actresses are Aries Rising/Moon in Taurus, for those keeping score). Today, they look merely "pretty good" in those old reruns, because people today just look younger than they once did -- perhaps because people smoke less, maybe drink less booze, and perhaps it's a dose of contemporary mind-over-matter.
Myself included. I tend to lazily not shave these days, with my grey, scraggly mountain man beard and baseball cap, I look pretty invisible (and that's how I like it).
But when I'm freshly-shaved, even I'm surprised: I have this baby face which looks many years younger than my geriatric birth certificate would suggest... In some ways, I like my face now better than I did 20 years ago -- aging has added character to my face without adding any noticeable years.
Below the neck, on the other hand, I'm a bit less pleased... A year ago, I was flirting with Type 2 in that my pancreas wasn't producing insulin (which makes you lose weight) and I became skeletal; six months ago, after good carb management and Metformin, my pancreas starting working again and so I started to gain weight -- only now I want to gain too much.
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