<p>I’m 50. Lost weight a couple of years ago and have kept it off…back to my h.s. weight. I think I look appreciably better than I did 50 lbs. ago thanks to a complete change in diet and LOTS more exercise. I’ve become a runner in my old age and it has really had a positive effect on my body and how I feel about myself. Buying size 6 instead 16 has been a confidence booster for me. I still have cottage cheese upper thighs that I hate. Thankfully, my eyelids are not droopy and I don’t have bags. Face and neck are pretty wrinkle-free. No flappy upper arms thanks to lots of push-ups!</p>
<p>My thick short dark hair has been graying (for 10 yrs now) in a streaky way that does not seem unattractive to me (think Jaime Curtis-ish). I get compliments on my hair so it can’t be too bad. I don’t have any plans to dye it. I feel like once I started I’d never be able to stop (ala my 82 yr. old MIL w/ her garish dyed rust colored hair). DH doesn’t seem to mind. He’s graying too. We’re a very active/outdoor/no frills kind of a couple.</p>
<p>When shopping, I often find clothes that I think are really cute but then I think…was this intended for a 50 year old? I don’t want to look old and dowdy but also don’t want to be one of those 50 yr. olds that are trying to look like their college daughters…ugh. </p>
<p>Has anybody else noticed that as we get older your pierced holes in your ears are sagging/elongating. That annoys me. </p>
<p>All in all I think I look better at 50 than I at 40. Most people are surprised when I tell them my kids are 23 and 26 years old.</p>
<p>gloworm – that’s funny. Maybe I can get D to think of my old clothes as “vintage”.</p>
<p>2016BarnardMom – I know what you mean about hair dying. The single process thing gives you a flat overall color (yes, it hides the gray, but I think it actually looks more aging because there’s no depth to the color). I have now started asking for highlights with the color, which ups the cost, but it looks more natural. </p>
<p>At some point I’ll let it go and hope I look like Meryl Streep in Devil Wears Prada.</p>
<p>Yes, and the hair dying thing is compounded because my hair is naturally very dark. I cannot get my natural color without it looking more flat. I’ve been going with a medium brown because the way it dyes the grey is different than how it dyes the darker hair giving it that depth. I was really worried about age discrimination when seeking a new job which is why I started dying. My boss is a couple years older than me and keeps getting promoted and hers is very naturally partially grey- similar to mine if I let it go natural. That’s making me less paranoid about the grey. I’m really thinking I’ll start doing the 28 day colors until the grey grows out more and eventually the color will fade away more naturally. I really don’t have the time, energy, patience or money to have it colored professionally. Maybe when I’m done with grad school… I stopped having my nails done for the same reason. There are only so many hours in a day and trying to make/keep appointments has been more difficult.</p>
<p>The 28 day dyes don’t give you as flat a color. I will stop coloring my hair because I hate old people with fake hair. I’ll probably give myself a short Jamie Curtis style cut too.</p>
<p>But I was just at my high school reunion and my one friend with gray hair (someday!) looked so old compared to the rest of us. Though the person who looked best doesn’t die her hair - she just inherited incredible hair genes. Her mother was the same way.</p>
<p>ha ha, a word from a 1945 book is “old English”!?! </p>
<p>We had a thread awhile back listing examples of words that our kids were unfamiliar with. One of my kids didn’t know what a “hatpin” is and the other didn’t know what a “slip” is (for under a dress).</p>
<p>I found my 1st gray hair on my 19th birthday, though I held off on the coloring until I was 40. D was entering kindergarten and I was way older than all the other moms. I just didn’t want to look so old for her, even though I frequently got carded until I was in my mid-thirties. Immediately people told me I looked 10 years younger.</p>
<p>I’ve been wondering about how and when to go gray. My brothers and Dad were almost completely gray in their mid-30s, as am I under this hair color. If anyone has done this - how did it work while the gray was coming in? Did your stylist mitigate the effects somehow? That line of demarcation between the gray and the hair dye looks pretty awful, and I don’t think I’d want to suffer through it for several months. </p>
<p>If I can ever get my husband to move, I want to arrive in our new location with gray hair so I don’t have to let it grow out in my 70s. I work in a senior center and know from experience that many 80-90 y/o ladies are still dyeing their hair brown or red. It is not a good look on an octogenarian.</p>
<p>I just had a new driver’s license photo taken and my first thought on seeing it was, what is my grandmother doing in that picture? She was a youthful grandmother, but still.</p>
<p>I just turned 50 this year and it didn’t hurt one bit ;). </p>
<p>Sure, I’ve notice changes in my looks. My body is changing due to perimenopause - thicker around the waist, my sleep patterns have changed, my face seems to be losing its elasticity. I used to be able to lose 5 pounds by just walking and now I have to do more. </p>
<p>But while it could be somewhat depressing to all of a sudden see things going “south” physically, I have never felt better mentally. With two of three kids in college, I have returned to work part time. I exercise more regularly and eat better and I enjoy it! DH is also on the exercise bandwagon, running 3 times a week and doing yoga. </p>
<p>I may look like someone in my early 40’s but I don’t have any desire to go back in time. To me, my looks show I’m more relaxed and happy.</p>
<p>I am 63, and in some ways I think I look younger, in some ways, older. I am overweight - have lost about 12 pounds very slowly on the Weight Loss for Dummies thread but have around 20 to go. This, of course, is aging. I’ve been having my hair colored for a number of years now, and the roots are a real problem because I have a lot of gray. My natural color is very dark brown, and the dye color is a bit lighter. My hair looks quite good, it’s thick and the dye looks good, not flat. My skin is quite good. I don’t have many wrinkles, but I am getting some sagging. I’ve watched a couple of makeup tutorials for “mature” skin, and I look nothing like the women they use. The skin around my eyes is much less droopy and crepey. I was at the dermatologist last month, and she commented that I have no sun damage. My neck doesn’t look great but it is not really saggy.</p>
<p>I have never in my life worn foundation - when I was younger I had no need for it. I’m thinking now that it might help, but I have no idea how to do it (therefore, the makeup tutorial videos). My only makeup is brown powder eyeliner (very soft) and brownish-black mascara. I’ve never worn lipstick and I’m afraid of that, too. I used to use some eyeshadow years ago.</p>
<p>S2 is 14 (I had a surprise pregnancy and he was born when I was almost 49) so I think some people assume that I’m younger than I am. I don’t think I look quite my age but I don’t look 10 years younger, either.</p>
<p>When I was going through fertility treatments (S1 was IVF), I responded quickly to the egg-producing drugs and always had lots of eggs (once I had over 30, and I was 40 at the time). The doctors told me that I had the ovaries of a much younger woman. The fertility problem was “male factor”! </p>
<p>I would probably look younger if I lost more weight, unless it made my skin sag. I would surely look older if I let my hair go gray.</p>
<p>H is considerably older than me. His hair is 95% lovely silver white. I am letting mine remain natural. I think I look about my age or younger at 55 and am content. My D is 23 and can look her age or like a young teen, depending on her mood and attire. :). S is 25 and probably looks about his age.</p>
<p>We had a thread awhile back listing examples of words that our kids were unfamiliar with. One of my kids didn’t know what a “hatpin” is and the other didn’t know what a “slip” is (for under a dress). >>>>></p>
<p>mimeograph. sp? I know some of you remember them.
Heck, I’m still excited about Xerox machines.</p>
<p>Life creeps up on you and demands more and more of your time as family and other responsibilities grow. Then, when you have more time, it’s harder to get back into shape because your joints may not be able to handle it. All of the incorrect information on nutrition that the ag-fueled government provides doesn’t help either.</p>
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<p>My former manager had corneal replacements done and eyeglass technology continues to get better. I imagine contact lens technology continues to get better too. I expect electronic augmented vision in the future though I don’t know how far into the future that will be.</p>
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<p>I heard that videogames help. Doing a lot of software engineering may help too.</p>
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<p>Things are getting better for some of us. More strength, fitness and endurance than when we were younger. Knowing that there are and will be replacement parts for stuff that fails in the future.</p>
<p>In numerical terms… At 19, I could run a sub-19 minute 5K. At 35, I could barely walk a 5K. After turning 40, I looked back and did not like what I saw. After fixing what was broke, I can now run a sub-24 min 3.2 miles …</p>
<p>Just a few days ago, I met an acquaintance whom I met once before at an academic event at a musical event he was assisting in. Upon finding out I stopped playing video games around the time a video game he loved playing as an adolescent came out, he asked me how old I was and was surprised I was a thirtysomething. </p>
<p>He thought I was either in undergrad or just out of college…not someone whose graduating college class is going to be holding its 15th anniversary reunion in a few years.</p>
<p>Well, mom was right after all about some things. I hated my acne prone, large-pore oily skin as a teenager, but she told me I’d appreciate it when I was older and my porcelain, tiny pore friends had wrinkles. And it’s true! Plus I did use sunscreen before it was really popular, and I think that has helped me stay younger looking than some of my peers. My HS BFF tans incessantly and her skin looks wrinkled and much older.</p>
<p>I also hated being tall but I think that helps now too. Tall just equates with being younger to a lot of people.</p>
<p>I highlight my hair and it is really effective to blend in with the gray. My mom did the same thing and never had to go to single process coloring, the gray just gradually took over and it never looked like she drastically changed hair color at any point.</p>
<p>While I am at a very healthy weight, I still think my legs give away my age. My veins show, which I hate. Not like spider or varicose veins, just a roadmap of blue and reddish veins, that have been there my whole life. Plus my knees look lumpy, what’s up with that??</p>
<p>Sometimes I do look down and see my mom’s hands instead of mine.</p>
She was a youthful grandmother, but still.</p>