How Data and an Old Bra become agents of change

One of the four pillars of the foundation of my approach to this year of learning to love my postmenopausal body is to look at data. We tell ourselves so many things about our bodies (usually negative), and so I thought that it would be interesting and maybe even helpful to get some objective, impersonal data on my body and how it is operating.

Being a bit of a closet-gadget-nut I invested in a Samsung smart watch. OK so I know that this could be regarded as a bit frivolous, a bit of a luxury. Probably not completely necessary. But I was curious to see if it would help me rewrite some of the stories I have been telling myself over the years about my body. I confess that I was nervous at the prospect of being faced with cold hard data. I figured that in doing this it would give me a truer picture than what my own thought processes could give me.

So deep breath. Here are some stats. I am in my mid-50s. I am 168cm. I weigh 85 kilos. My Samsung Gizmo tells me that my skeletal muscle is 26 kilos, body fat 40.7%, BMI 30.1, body water 36.7 kgs (whatever that means). Basically, it’s telling me I need to lose around 15 kilos or so to be in my healthy weight for my age range and that everything is currently too high, too much, and too heavy.

That's a bit depressing, but not unsurprising.

This data shows me that I have edged out of the healthy zone for women of my age. Let me just say that again, for women of my age.

It’s easy when thinking about getting in shape, to want to try to get your body back to how it once was. And how it once was usually means something like when I was 26 or 35! The reality is I am a postmenopausal woman in midlife. Maybe you are too which is why you are reading this. My body (your body too) is not and never will be again the body of a 26-year-old or a 35-year-old. The Gizmo is actually being kind because it’s giving me data geared around helping me get into the zone for a healthy and hopefully even rather fabulous midlife woman (NOT a 35-year-old).

I can discard the idea of having a 35-year-old body again and think about how to feel good in myself as a woman embracing midlife.

Accepting where I am in life has the potential to be profoundly liberating as it means I can discard the idea of having a 35-year-old body again and think about how to feel good about myself as a woman embracing midlife. I’m meant to have curves and it’s OK if things wobble a bit. I’m thinking about preparing my body so I am well-equipped to enjoy life at this moment and weather the vicissitudes of aging. Riffing on this theme, I get this image of me as a wise-woman-earth-mother-elder sitting on a hill with my bosom and hips and belly all healthy and full like some neolithic goddess carving. When I look at myself like that I'm kind of excited about getting to know and nurture this midlife body of mine.

Speaking of bosoms. Do you do that thing you know where you have some items of clothing that you wore when you were much younger and much slimmer, and you keep them in the cupboard because you think one day I may fit those again? I was going through a box of clothes like that recently and in amongst it all, I found an old bra of mine. I remember buying this bra from Agent Provocateur, a luxurious and deliciously decadent lingerie shop in London. This bra was gorgeous! It’s delicate and beautiful and my boobs (I probably didn’t call them boobs then) looked fab in it! But OMG I couldn't believe how small it was compared to how I am today. I just looked at it and thought did I actually fit that?  Were my puppies once nestled in that tiny bit of gossamer lacy lingerie perfection? Today it would be like one of Cinderella’s ugly sisters trying to force her big chubby foot into a glass slipper. It ain't gonna happen!

This became another ah-hah moment.

The combination of sensing the empowerment of embracing my postmenopausal being, the cold hard objective truths of data and the discovery of teeny tiny sexy lingerie in a box of favorite clothes in the cupboard…. made me really think hard about who I am now. I loved that lingerie, and I loved those clothes, but I am at a different point in my life. I realized that holding on to the idea of the body I once had, was holding me back from embracing and loving the body I have now.

I realized that holding on to the idea of the body I once had, was holding me back from embracing and loving the body I have now.

So that box of clothes is in the car and making its way to a charity shop. I want to focus on who I am now and who I will be going forward. This journey is about progress and acceptance and nurture, not nostalgia.