<p>One of our managers made the comment that I looked like a university hire after losing so much weight.</p>
<p>Hah, one of my friends told me last week that the first time she saw me after my weight loss she thought I might have cancer( or some other horrible illness) and she hadn’t heard about it. Thankfully,no.It’s weird the things some people will say to you after weight loss. </p>
<p>Wow, Bunsen, that’s a speedy 5K…and here I was so proud of my 28:23 5K yesterday.</p>
<p>I am extremely happy that I look the way I do now, and not the way I looked 15 years ago. Or 25 or 35 years ago. I’m told that I’m considerably better-looking than I was, too.</p>
<p>I have always been the kind of person that other people are compelled to ruffle my hair, or fix my collar or admonish me to tie my shoe.
Ive learned that by buying my wardrobe at REI is more practical for my actual lifestyle, than silks and wools from Nordstroms.
I don’t think looking young is necessarily a sign of health & beauty.
Have you * seen* how some young people dress?
Their clothes don’t fit, they are not appropriate for the occasion and even if they fit they aren’t flattering.
Having decades of shopping under my belt has given me an eye for what looks good and although my height (5’2") and general appearance can give the general impression of youth or at least its * memory*, 
my health which for the past past ten years has been declining, which doesn’t help in how I feel- (culminating in a total knee placement 10 days ago, )will hopefully turn that around.</p>
<p>I am pretty happy with how I look for the most part, although I am looking forward to being able to move easier and be able to take off these inches that are now enconsed around my middle. How you feel has so much to do with how you look.</p>
<p>My friends seem to be about 14 years younger than I am ( my music friends) or 12 years older. When I am with my younger friends, I am not really aware of the age difference, until we are lined up at the bathroom counter- especially with overhead fluorescent lighting :p. ugh.</p>
<p>I admit I did get an ego boost the other day when I was showing the neighbors out of town friends around my garden and one of the couples admitted that they assumed I was their age ( which made me guffaw as they were very attractive and in their early 40’s, I am in my mid 50’s), but I think it was my extensive knowledge of local music that fooled them.
( but c’mon, like I am not gonna know the * other big band* Matt Cameron is in?)
</p>
<p>When I am with my older friends however, I feel like I should feel younger, except I am more decrepit than they are. One in particular, is especially gorgeous, although her hair has been white for as long as I have known her, ( well over ten years) & she easily could give Helen Mirren a run for her money(also British with a lovely voice.)
But in general, I am happy with my appearance, my husband still tells me I am beautiful everyday & neither Patagonia or The North Face think that I am too large/hideous to wear their clothes. so life is good!</p>
<p>I am happy with just about everything, I like that I know my body better and understand it more. I feel more healthy and energetic than I have in years, partly I think due to the now empty nest allowing me to do things for me and to get enough sleep.</p>
<p>There are fine lines, there are freckles, there are ‘moonlights’ which I color with a semi-permanent shade that makes them highlights, that’s all fine. BUT I am so very unhappy with losing my close up vision. It happened overnight when I had surgery I work up unable to read much of anything. Reading glasses make me feel queasy so I no longer read as many books, I cannot and as an avid reader that is depressing. I am thankful for audiobooks on my iPod.</p>
<p>Well I often think oh well this is the best I’m going to look. In good shape but 59 is 59, some fat would fill and smooth the skin but extra weight is depressing.
Yea some old geezers may turn there heads at the grocery store. I figure they can’t see the wedding ring and are more interested that I have a nice car that could take them to dr appts.</p>
<p>Haha Packmom. The same happened to me. People thought my weight loss was due to illness. And it wasn’t even that much of a weight loss. 15lbs?
I also had a benign cyst on my neck/throat area that I was told needed surgery to remove. I put it off because I didn’t want surgery. And, of course, the cyst got bigger. After my weight loss D1 told me people probably thought I was dying because of the lump on my neck and being thinner. I then made the appointment to have the surgery.</p>
<p>Heck, even my doctor thinks I must have cancer or some other terrible illness as the only conceivable explanation for weight loss. I guess what they tell their patients to about diet and fitness must not work very often… :)</p>
<p>I think that doctors are used to patients ignoring their advice so they assume that people that don’t lose weight aren’t trying. Or they aren’t trying hard enough.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to take a pill that would go around the body and eat up excess ATP.</p>
<p>NJRes, a 5k is 3.106 miles. I just round it up to make sure I ran enough. Of course, I can reprogram my Garmin… but I prefer miles. Running 42 kilometers sounds much more intimidating thhan running 26 miles :)</p>
<p>Although I no longer look like the wide-eyed, cute, blond girl of 25 years ago, I’m ok with my current looks. I look my age - like we all are supposed to. :)</p>
<p>The people on this thread must be very good looking! 
Something happened within the past couple of years. No getting around it. Face looks older, and not in a good way. Wrinkles are one thing. But have the beginnings of jowls now . . . And, in recent pictures, I look, well, no way to describe it other than <em>goofy</em>, like someone not to be taken seriously. Weathered (and wise?) I can take, but this goofy thing is unexpected!</p>
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<p>The ones posting are self-selected.</p>
<p>I don’t think that I would be posting five years ago.</p>
<p>A big part of looks is weight and that’s something that we can directly work on.</p>
<p>Once upon a time I looked great with no real effort required. Great hair, average weight easily maintained through daily activities, good skin, a generally sunny demeanor.</p>
<p>And then one day menopause happened, and woah!</p>
<p>I became able to create fat just by breathing air. Gained weight one winter, and it took conscious effort to lose it, and it really wants to rejoin my body. I am forced to be much more aware of what I eat, and how much excercise I’m getting because otherwise that weight wants to creep back. Like a 15 pound cat that keeps sneaking back onto your chest while you sleep.</p>
<p>My hair is beautiful still, but instead of an occasional walk-in cut at the mall when I think of it, I have a monthly appointment for my roots. Thought about going natural, but my stylist tells me I don’t yet have enough gray/white to look fantastic, just enough to look tired and older. </p>
<p>My skin looks great, if only I could figure out a way to permanently prop my head on my hands in that way we all do when looking in the mirror to see what a face/neck lift would do for us.</p>
<p>The generally sunny demeanor has not changed. </p>
<p>The thing is, right now I look the best I will ever look. 10 years from now I will look back at the photos we took at graduation last week, and think, “I looked great back then!” I do the same thing now - look at photos taken 10 years ago and appreciate how good I looked then, in a way that I didn’t appreciate enough at the time.</p>
<p>We all need to embrace ourselves right now, in the present moment, more.</p>
<p>I have a friend who posted photos of herself on vacation and I thought something about her in those photos looked off. She just didn’t look quite right. A few weeks later she had a cancer diagnosis.</p>
<p>Some years ago, another friend gathered photos of her daughter taken a year before, and then some just prior to a cancer diagnosis. She said that she can’t believe how none of them had seen that there was something going on before the diagnosis. Her robustly healthy daughter had become increasingly pale, wan, and “off” in the pictures taken closer to her diagnosis. (Now cancer free for 10 years, married and living a full, happy life.)</p>
<p>I think our faces tell the story of our lives, sometimes before we know the story ourselves.</p>
<p>I think that I looked my best at age 29-31, before I had children. By my late twenties I had developed a good sense of style and a confidence which gave me that little “extra” that I didn’t have in my late teens, early twenties. After that, I had five pregnancies in seven years (two miscarriages), and between the fluctuations in weight and general dishevelment involved with raising young kids, I felt somewhat unattractive until my early forties. When I look back at photos during that time, it is obvious that my face was prettier then than now, but I wasn’t really “me,” but rather, a harried mom. I should point out that I had always cared about my looks - and I was a tall blonde that people noticed. Other than a month or two after childbirth, I was never overweight, but I dressed for comfort and waited until I really needed a haircut before I got one (rather than my current standing appt. every four weeks). Occasionally I would dress carefully for a special event, but on a daily basis, I never felt that I was as attractive as I could be or as other women my age. </p>
<p>Now in my early 50s, I have time to take care of my looks - exercise, dress well, etc. Compared to other women my age, I look pretty good. The keys to looking good at 50 are lots of exercise, healthy diet, an impeccable haircut and color, and age appropriate, stylish clothes that fit well. It’s much less about God-given looks at this age than about maintenance and a sense of style.</p>
<p>eastcoascrazy, I love your post #55, especially this, which made me smile:
I can relate. 
I don’t relate as much to the mindset of “this is the best I’ll ever look.” I guess everyone could pick some date from which it’s all been downhill. None of us gets to reverse the aging process. I don’t see aging as meaning that I’ll look worse than I did when I was younger, even if that’s true by certain objective standards. I’ll look my age. I was younger once, and looked it; younger women will be older some day, and look it, too.</p>
<p>I think about my mother, who has always been very attractive - at 25, at 50, and now at 76. It’s not just that she “looks great for 76” - it’s that she looks great, and she is 76. Remember that great Gloria Steinem line, “This is what 50 looks like”? I think it’s the same principal into our 70s and beyond.</p>
<p>Okay, well, for what is worth, I have good hair! It is graying, but there is a lot of it. I like my hair!</p>
<p>And I continue to work on the weight and fitness – a long term project, but making progress. Slowly.</p>
<p>I feel that much of how I have aged has to do with habits from years ago. I have never touched an illegal drug or puffed on a cigarette. I can count on one hand the number of drinks I have had in the past 10 years. Prior to that I kept drinking to a minimum - maybe 2 or 3 times per year. I have been vigilant with sunscreen since the age of 20 and vigilant with eye cream since the age of 25.</p>
<p>I highlight my hair - have been since my 20’s. I have my brows hand tweezed professionally (no waxing) - to me this is like a mini- face lift. I wear little to no make up - but I do love having my eye lashes tinted. My style of dress has always been very tailored & classic so that has not really changed over the years.</p>
<p>Weight for me is the thing that is a killer - I have to really watch what I eat - much more so today than years ago. So not fun! I do my best. I gave up drinking soda ( diet or regular) about a year ago. I only drink water these days. Have no desire to drink soda either. This has been a wonderful thing as I have dropped about 12 lbs without doing much… that gnawing, ravenous hunger has gone away. My husband stopped drinking diet soda and has lost 30 lbs - he had a serious Diet Pepsi problem!</p>
<p>As a final note - I never focused much on how I looked or how others looked. I think everyone has something pretty about them - friends & family have disagreed with me on this subject. I have always wanted to present myself in a nice way but I have never spent loads of time in front of the mirror primping and looking at myself. To add some final perspective on the subject I have always been considered very pretty or more…I was voted Best Looking Girl in my high school class… I have always received a lot of attention for how I look. </p>
<p>I am trying to age gracefully and look age appropriate. So far I am happy with the results!</p>
<p>This is actually pretty funny (at least I think so )</p>
<p>I got my new drivers license in the mail yesterday. I open it up and look at it and cry out, “Who is this old man???”</p>
<p>My wife digs my old expired 5 year old license out of my wallet and places it next to the new one and says, “It’s the same old man I have been looking at for the past 5 years!”</p>
<p>(The 2 pictures look identical) LOL!</p>
<p>romani - I am 30 and still get carded on a regular basis. I took a vacation with my 24 year old sister several months ago and several people asked us who we were traveling with and where our parents are.</p>
<p>If I am dressed up in nice work clothes, I usually don’t get carded… but sometimes still do. I could probably pass for maybe 24 when I’m dressed nice with my hair down. But put me in jeans and a shirt with my hair tied up and I could easily pass for 18. My S/O laughs because he’s 34 and he gets carded when he’s with me sometimes too - but never with his other friends!</p>