Stop trying to be who you were and start loving who you are.

[crowhen]

Women make me sad. In my short life, the majority of women my age that I have come to know have all at one point or another said, "I need to lose weight! I don't fit into my old clothes anymore!" Then I would ask why they don't just buy new clothes (something I really enjoy when I have the money and the need), to which they would reply with, "But

Comments

[sambucivox]

I believe that the women that you are talking about focus more on the media and the opinion of others than in maintaining a healthy, age-apropiate weight and size. I don't feel comfortable when I gain weight -not only because my clothes no longer fit, but because I can not move as swiftly as before, nor run as fast to catch the bus, and, most importantly, my boobs hurt more when I get my period. I also have less energy and I am atracted to additivized and highly addictive food, like gummy bears and twinkies. Being overweight goes far beyond the aesthetic consequences or having to change your whole wardrobe because your size changed.
Size is only an indicator, like your heartbeat rate and the number in the balance. There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay as fit at 40 as you were at 20, because in the end, being fit is a healthy option. Loving yourself also includes taking care of your body and making sure that you make the right choices to keep it in top form for many, many years.
It is true that women's bodies are constantly changing -monthly, with the menstrual period, and during their lifetime, starting with puberty and menarche, strenghthening and rounding in the teen years, with maturity, pregnancy and menopause thrown in to add color and new forms to it. However, that doesn't mean that the natural changes should be used as an excuse to abuse sedentarism and fast food, which will do nothing to keep the natural beauty of the female body in all its stages.
That said, people that complain about their weight instead of acting about it should really follow your advice and buy new clothes that will at least make them feel slightly more comfortable in their own skins.

[crowhen]

I am not saying people should be happy to be sedentary. I am saying that if you gain ten pounds when you go from 30 to 40, don't freak out and make yourself out to be an overweight cow when you still look perfectly normal and fine. Bodies change throughout our lives and stressing out over every little pound is silly. All sorts of businesses cash in on the false notion that we are meant to look now exactly as we did ten years ago. But that's not how it works.

Bogus creams, dangerous surgeries, fad diets that harm your body more than help it, these things all turn a tidy profit by "helping" you reach an impossible goal: to turn back time and remain forever at a certain age. The creams don't work, the surgeries don't actually make you a fitter or younger person, and the diets usually fail as well.

The only real preventative for aging is a healthy lifestyle, but even that doesn't stop the process. You can't stop the changes, and you shouldn't feel bad when crows feet show up and you gain a few pounds because it is normal, and you are not a freak.

So please do not misunderstand that I am advocating women give up and allow their bodies to fall into decay. But eternal youth cannot be bought in a bottle, nor should you desire it for it is unnatural and unneeded. And I'm very sorry that we live in a society that would rather make a woman feel bad for being normal than encourage her to embrace each stage of her life as she approaches it.

[sambucivox]

I agree, as I believe that eternal youth is something that you have to drink from a wooden cup found in the crescent moon of a far-away desert... And even them, if you mistake the cup you may quickly become something hidden in a clock at Dr. Frank-n-Further's mansion... ;-)

Creams, surgeries (except in some very specific cases, such as skin repair and stomach implants for the morbidly obese) and specially fad diets are definitely not the way to it. Crow feet are beautiful, and if they are very marked usually indicate a lifetime of smiling, not a lifetime of sacrificing bulls to the god of beauty. And bathing in its blood.

I realize that christian, pagan and rocky horror icons have crept into this post.