How to Love Your Body After 50

Let’s talk body love! I know many of you wonder how you can possibly love your body after 50. It sounds like a great idea but also sort of impossible.

However, the relationship you have with your body will be the longest and most important relationship you will ever have.

Here are five steps to take that will help you truly love your body right now! 

I’m going to give you a clear pathway to creating love for your body. This is so worth your time. When you truly love your body, you take better care of it.

Body acceptance rather than body dissatisfaction is some of the most important self-care you can provide yourself. 

The better you take care of your body, the better you will look and feel. I believe self-acceptance and appreciation of your body can even improve your mental health.

You cannot hate your body into looking the way you want. Hating is a destructive force and it will literally cause you to ruin your body.

Look around at all the health problems women have. Research shows that most health issues are because of lifestyle choices.

Some problems are inevitable; but you actually have more control than you might have thought.

But when you are stuck hating your body because it doesn’t look like some artificially created standards you see on Instagram, then you put yourself at more risk for health problems.

As I have said often, thin does not equal health. Healthy habits create health.

I’m going to put it very simply here.

Loving your body is a decision—it doesn’t just happen.

Your body shape and physical appearance cause a lot of shame in women. I really want to show you a different way to view your body and help you create a positive relationship with your one and only body.

Why Women Hate Their Bodies

Many women believe that if they lose weight, they will finally love their bodies. Trust me on this one my friends—a thinner body over fifty will probably be just as hard to love!

You will always have imperfections or some aspect of your body that you aren’t thrilled with. A positive body image is way more than just the size of your thighs or tummy. 

Another reason women find it hard to love their body is that they only decide to love based on what they think they look like in the mirror.

Most of us don’t even know what actual naked bodies look like. The only nearly naked ones we see are models, photoshopped, or even created by computers.

Even thin women hate their bodies. Sometimes they hate their bodies even more. There is no abuse quite like the abuse a thin woman can put her body through to remain thin. That is NOT love my friends.

The second reason is related to the first. We think of our bodies is only in terms of how they look on the outside. Yet our bodies are literally the most amazing works of engineering and magic that has ever been.

Your body that you hate on, has millions of things going on all at the same time, perfectly coordinated to not only keep you alive but giving you all the senses you have to enjoy the life you have.

How to Love Your Body After 50

Like I said above, loving your body is a decision. It is the most important decision you will ever make.

Here’s why.

• We take care of things we love.
• We don’t take care of things we hate.
• Your body needs love more than it needs to lose weight.
• It probably needs love to even consider losing weight.

So, loving your body doesn’t require you to have that visceral feeling of love when you look at yourself in the mirror yet. Baby steps!

A negative body image probably feels normal at this point. But it’s not and it’s not good for you. It is damaging to look in the mirror every single day and say mean things to yourself. 

If you need motivation, I want you to think about that. If you were saying the things to someone else that you say to yourself, how would that affect that person?

Well, it’s affecting you too!

5 Steps to Loving Your Body After 50

Here we go. Take these in order.

One of the problems I see is that most people want to jump right to actions without creating the foundation that will provide support. This is why we so often start things and then give up.

I don’t want you to give up on your body! I want you to love it and enjoy it for as long as you have it. Your overall physical health is way more than your weight, size, or shape.

Body confidence requires committment, compassion, and self-love.

Positive self-talk might seem weird at first, especially if you don’t believe it. My intention is that you will be more open to it after reading this post.

Make the decision to love your body

Everything starts with a decision. You aren’t going to magically fall in love with your body. This is a decision AND a commitment.

Deciding in advance leaves nothing to chance!

You might not know exactly how this is going to work out but when you make a decision and you stick to it—you will get there.

You don’t have to wait for your body to look a certain way or even be perfectly healthy. You can simply decide to love your body, no matter what.

This is one decision that you will never regret.

You can also decide to have self-compassion. To turn away from diet culture. And for sure ignore unrealistic beauty standards.

Your body is lovable even with the scars, stretch marks, and cellulite. 

Spend time thinking about all the amazing things your body does

I recommend doing this in writing to build up your list. Then you can refer to it mentally as often as you want.

Get writing and think of as many reasons that your body IS amazing. I know that not everyone will have everything on this list. Concentrate on what you do have.

I’ll get you started.

Things you don’t even have to think about!

• Your heart beats 100,000 times a day and your blood system does all kinds of things
• You take 22,000 breaths a day and your body takes what it needs from that
• The food you eat is transformed into energy that you can use right now and saves some for times of need
• You have balance and can move in a variety of ways without even thinking about it

Your body allows you to have pleasure!

• Holding and touching someone you love
• Seeing all the beautiful colors in nature or in art
• Moving and feeling your muscles do their thing
• Laughing
• Sex
• Listening to music
• Reading, seeing and understanding words
• Riding a bike

Use positive affirmations about your body

I know most of you are well-versed in negative affirmations about your body. Can we at least agree to have a cease-fire?

If you do nothing else, please quit saying mean things to yourself or to your reflection in the mirror. You would never say these things to anyone else!

Instead, start practicing saying nice things to yourself. And pick a phrase or two that you can use to remind yourself that you do indeed love your body.

One of my clients use this one successfully to lose weight:

I will always take care of myself, no matter what.

Notice the word always and no matter what. She didn’t say, “just as long as you lose some weight.”

Here are a few more:

• I am worth it
• This is so good for me
• I only have good words for myself
• This body of mine is worth taking care of
• My body is freaking amazing, and I love treating it with love
• Loving my body is the best way to take care of it

Practice feeling love for your body

Now that you have a huge list of the ways you love your body already and some affirmations, it is time to build your belief through practice.

Loving your body isn’t once and done. It requires a steady diet of self-compassion, compliments, and appreciation. 

At first it will take consistent effort to keep reminding yourself how amazing your body actually is. We are confronting decades of negative thinking here—it won’t disappear overnight.

Yet, the more you practice loving thoughts, the more you will feel the love.

Here’s the secret. When you feel love for something; you take better care of it. The more you truly love your body—the more you will want to care for it.

Take actions based on loving your body

I hope by the time you take the previous four steps; you are beginning to love your body. This is key to taking actions that will have great results.

Now it’s time to consider how you will take care of your body when you love it.

HEALTH

When you love your body, you feed it instead of depriving it. Not sure how to do that, check out this post on how to eat to lose weight while loving your body.

Moving your body is a wonderful way to show it some love. For too long, exercise has been considered punishment. If it feels like punishment, don’t do it!

Find exercise and movement that you love to do. Some people do love hard exercise. I am not one of them. But I do move on a consistent basis, and I make sure I get a balanced variety of movement throughout the week. Exercise is to make me feel good—not hurt!

Get to your appointments. Take care of your eyes, teeth, and body.

BEAUTY

You can be beautiful in any body. I believe that beauty is also a decision. You get to decide if you are going to be beautiful or not.

I decided in my mid-fifties that I wanted to be beautiful. I know, that was kind of late to decide that, but better late than never.

I spend time caring for my skin, hair, nails, and teeth. I do most of this at home, myself.

REST AND RELAXATION

Taking time for rest and relaxing is essential for loving your body. Stress and overworking are hard on the body.

So many women tell me that they don’t rest until they are exhausted and can’t do any more. This is not optimum for your body.

I know it is difficult for some of you to rest. It is worth the effort to find ways that work for you.

For me, my rest is laying on the couch with a book or going for a leisurely walk. I take as much time as I need and I don’t feel bad about it.

When I’m rested, I do better work, more efficiently, so I don’t lose out by resting my body.

Not resting can even affect your weight. Stress can raise the hormones that cause us to lose weight.

How to Love Your Body After 50

The bottom line is that loving your body cannot just be based on how it looks or what it weighs. This is not healthy nor good for you.

Your body is complex and amazing and is definitely worth caring for. When we only care for it with the idea that it has to look a certain way, we do not take great care of it.

Caring for your body now, no matter what it looks like, will help you have a better life overall and in the long-term.

When you don’t love your body and you don’t treat it with love now, you sacrifice your long-term well-being.

Above all, loving your body is about appreciating all the ways you do enjoy your body and appreciating all that it does for you.

This is a life-long relationship!