Gen X is 45-60 years olds, who look 30-40 years old, but mentally are still teenagers
fitness

Gen X is 45-60 years olds, who look 30-40 years old, but mentally are still teenagers

Nicole P,3 Comments

There’s a popular “Gen X meme” going around that says, “Gen X is 45-60 years olds, who look 30-40 years old, but mentally are still teenagers.”

It’s lighthearted. It’s representative of how many Gen-X-ers feel, apparently. When it passed my feed, the other day, I had two streams of consciousness:

  1. We do not look like 30-40 year olds. Have you seen 30-40 year olds? We don’t. That’s OK. We are not meant to look 30-40 years old when we are in our 50s and 60s. Perhaps, what is meant is we look like 30-40 year olds, 30 years ago. But, even then, that’s not true. Sure, hairstyles and clothing may have aged people back then but we also had the perspective of young people (back then) perceiving them to be old when they were not. We perceived certain hairstyles as “old” because at 15, 42 seemed “old” and that was the hairstyle they had.

    Why do we want to look 30-40 years old? Reality is, we live in a superficial world. We are surrounded by people getting fillers at 30-40 years old (OK maybe that is starting to make us look similar). We also live in a society that often tells people that they are only valuable while they are young (but not too young. There is a small window between too young and too old). Sure, I pass a mirror, on occasion, and, I think, “Who IS THAT?” It doesn’t matter “how fit” or “young” we feel or how lucky we are in our genetic make-up and/or how lucky we’ve been with our health, after a certain age (maybe menopause is the great equalizer?) we just look different. Even if someone has Botox and fillers (I do not but subscribe to the “you do you camp”) it does not take away the change in the overall shape of a person that starts to look older as they age. If you are a runner, you can often tell how old a person is, from behind, even if they have an athletic build. There is just a different way people carry themselves as they age. I digress, because, what I really am thinking about here, is, why do we want to look like we haven’t laughed thousands of times? Why do we want to forget all the tears that made us more resilient but left a few etches in our faces? Many of us love recounting things we experienced over the years to others – to our friends – young and old – we get value from having friends of all ages – but why do we value the experience and the stories and not how our body holds those experiences and stories? I fully believe we would help our society’s feelings about aging and older people if we valued all parts of aging, the wisdom that comes with age, but also the way age makes us look – like we have lived!
  2. I am not “mentally still a teenager.” We can feel different ages at different times of our lives. In some ways, I felt like an “old soul” when I was a teenager. At a certain point of young adulthood, many of us discover that, as we get older, our “inside voice” doesn’t change that much. It may be very similar at 10, 18, 25, 50 or 80. But – you cannot be 53 and still “be mentally like a teenager”. As a teenager, you have not experienced the ups and downs of a long life, whether close to home – with family and friends, with career, with the fragility of life all around us – OR – in the larger world around us. Perhaps, what is meant is that we still feel youthful, in some ways. We still have youthful hope about certain things. Perhaps, hope is not age-specific. One can be old and be hopeful. We may have great days, physically. Regardless, people who are 45 to 60 years old do not feel “mentally like a teenager” unless they have not learned anything. Unless they have not taken what life offers, processed it and then proceeded to think about those things as the fully grown middle-aged person they are.

    This meme reminded me of my thoughts about age, these days. On my recent birthday, an acquaintance asked me what the number was? I responded that it was, “a good number” – because – it was a number. It is an age. It IS. I am alive. That is what we learn at 53. That is how I “am mentally”.

Finally, I would argue that this meme isn’t representative of how Gen-X-ers feel, overall. Gen-X-ers often like to remind others about how we were raised on independence. We were sent out to play in the morning and told not to come back until the lights came on. We drank water from the neighbours hose when we were thirsty. We fended for ourselves when we came home after school, when our parents were at work, and we didn’t die from mulnutrition by eating too many cans of “Chef Boyardee” or “Flakies” as snacks. We learned to trust our senses, whether crossing the street or sensing danger from a stranger. We survived a society that wanted us to shrink ourselves and accept injustices and we found ways to fight for what was right and led the path for greater understanding of how to do these things in more meaningful ways. So – why would a Gen-X-er want to look younger and feel younger mentally? Gen-X-ers pride themselves on surviving hard knocks, defining cool, all while changing the mechanism by which we listen to great music, dozens of times. Gen-X-ers should pride themselves on showing all our pride in our faces as we age. Gen-X-ers should be proud to be aging, if we are to be so lucky.

Nicole P. is a proudly aging Gen-X-er.
A tape measure against a pink background. By Ekaterina Grosheva for Unsplash. Research roundup on weight stigma in medicine: it’s still out there, but we are learning more about how it works
fitness · weight stigma

Research roundup on weight stigma in medicine: it’s still out there, but we are learning more about how it works

catherine w

CW: discussion of weight stigma.

You would think that, after study upon study shows how body weight is significantly genetic, that weight stigma would go away.

You would think that, given that virtually all medically-prescribed diet programs result in regaining the weight lost during them after 2–5 years, blaming people for regaining weight would go away.

You would think that. But, no, it hasn’t. Weight stigma is still very much alive and well and out there. However, researchers are studying weight stigma in more detail, with the goal of addressing it (both internalized and external forms) and reducing its harms to all of us. That’s a good thing.

Here are a few examples of what some researchers have been doing about it.

In this 2025 study by Figueroa and colleagues, they concluded that

Weight stigma was directly associated with greater depressive and anxiety symptoms. Moreover, the relationship between weight stigma and greater depressive and anxiety symptoms was mediated by greater perceived stress. Perceived stress explained 37% of the relationship between weight stigma and mental health outcomes, even after accounting for Body Mass Index. 

Using standard measures for anxiety, stress, and depression, the researchers found not only that being stigmatized for one’s weight gives rise to anxiety and depression, but that perceived stress from weight stigma also brought on these mental health symptoms. This was regardless of BMI in the participants.

In this 2024 study by Janet Tomiyama, David Figueroa and others, the researchers examined how changes in information for recruiting people for human research studies might affect the number of higher-weight people participating. They note that higher-weight people are often absent from scientific studies, and considered “difficult to recruit”. As a result, studies in which they are absent are subject to sampling bias. Here’s what this study did:

…this study experimentally manipulated the phrasing of weight‐related information included in recruitment materials and examined its impact on participants’ characteristics.

Two visually similar flyers, either weight‐salient or neutral, were randomly posted throughout a university campus to recruit participants (N = 300) for a short survey, assessing their internalized weight bias, anticipated and experienced stigmatizing experiences, eating habits, and general demographic characteristics.

Although the weight‐salient (vs. neutral) flyer took 18.5 days longer to recruit the target sample size, there were no between flyer differences in respondents’ internalized weight bias, anticipated/experienced weight stigma, disordered eating behaviors, BMI, or perceived weight.

That is, researchers have choices over how they present initial information to potential participants in studies; if they mention weight-related procedures (in this case gathering data about height and weight), they should know recruitment might take longer, but not necessarily affect the outcome of the study.

A paper that came out in 2021, based on the Eating in America study, also by Janet Tomiyama and colleagues, gathered data on some of the negative health outcomes associated with weight stigma. They found:

…weight stigma was significantly asso- ciated with greater disordered eating, comfort eating, alcohol use, and sleep disturbance, after controlling for covariates. No such relationship was observed for physical activity.

They also found that lower BMIs don’t reduce the negative health outcomes for those experiencing weight stigma:

In our sample, individuals across the weight spectrum, not only those with overweight or obese BMIs, reported weight stigma. In fact, moderation analyses indicated that individuals with lower BMIs showed greater disordered eating and alcohol use in the face of weight stigma.

They conclude, quite reasonably:

Taken together, these findings highlight weight stigma as a potential barrier to healthy behaviors, and suggest that one strategy to improve population health may be to reduce weight stigma. Though more research is needed, it may be important to employ more weight-inclusive approaches to health pro- motion, such as removing stigmatizing language or weight outcomes from health policies and program objectives.

Yes, agreed.

Research on weight stigma shows that it’s still very much present and is associated with very many negative health outcomes. It can and should be addressed, and we have ideas on how to do that.

So how about let’s do that. Maybe now, don’t you think?

beach body · fitness

Belated Happy Bikini Day!

Diane Harper

It was July 5, but I missed it.

I didn’t miss my the photo of my friend Michaela rocking her bikini on July 6, though.

Michaela in various poses and bikinis.

Nat has written about her bikini body H here and I have written about the challenges of finding good suits for different bodies H here and H here and showing off my own power suit H here

The Sandra Boynton cartoon that prompted this post
Sam is trying to acclimate to riding in the heat
body image · diets · fitness · normative bodies · nutrition

Sam is trying to acclimate to riding in the heat

Sam B2 Comments

What I read: All the Tips You Need to Survive Cycling in the Heat (Bicycling) and Heat training can help athletes — and the rest of us — adapt to hotter weather (NPR).

Background: Regular readers know I’m worried about riding bikes in our increasingly hot summers. See Cycling in the heat, can we keep doing it? and Cycling in a climate worsening world: Sam is scared.

I’d love to move my serious riding season to the fall but that can’t happen until I retire. It’s dark very early weekdays in the autumn here and most of the big bike rides I train for are in the summer months.

So I’ve been riding in the heat and trying to get used to it. See here and here.

This weekend we tried the first tip in the article mentioned above–getting acclimated. We rode Saturday and Sunday in heat alert conditions, but we didn’t ride very far (45 km one day and 33 km the next).

It’s also known as heat training. From NPR: “Heat training is not just for competitive athletes. It’s recommended for people in the military and those who work outdoors in hot weather. It could even be useful for generally healthy members of the public, O’Connor says. “People should not be afraid of the heat,” he says. “We can develop and add an adaptive response to help us succeed in the heat. But it’s got to be controlled.” Done right, heat training could help people stay a bit more comfortable in the long, intense stretches of heat marking the extraordinarily hot summer of 2024 and future heat waves expected more frequently due to climate change.”

We also wore lots of sunscreen, and Sarah wore her sunsleeves. I didn’t wear mine, but only because I can’t bear putting them on when I’m already sweaty. That’s tip number 2 from the Bicycling article.

We took it easy and didn’t push it too much.

We also put our water bottles in the freezer so they’d be cool to start and we both took one bottle of water and one bottle of Skratch (rehydration formula with sodium.)

After our rides, we sat in the shade in the backyard and finished our water and Skratch.

In the end, I think we thought our approach was a success. We’re going to keep building distances and sticking to the tips above.

I’ve read that as we age it gets harder and harder to cope with high temperatures. See Study: Older Athletes Struggle More in the Heat, Decreased performance in heat can start as early as age 40.

Here’s our happy selfies on the top row and my sweaty recovering selfies at the end of the ride below.

letters on a blue surface What most excites you about the future? #GroupBlogPost, #WordPressDailyWritingPrompt
fitness

What most excites you about the future? #GroupBlogPost, #WordPressDailyWritingPrompt

Sam B

What are you most excited about for the future?

Diane

The future does not excite me in a good way these days. I do my puny best to change it, but I’m not hopeful. I get my joy from what’s immediately ahead: supporting someone at a swim race this weekend; seeing my grandson; visiting with friends in a few weeks.

🏊

Sam

Weirdly, aging. I just read this, Aging isn‘t just about decline. Here’s how health improves as we grow older: New science suggests there’s plenty that actually gets better with age—if you let it, and I’ve been thinking about old age and happiness. Also, as my dad always said, it beats the alternative.

😁

Elan

Both of my biological parents are still alive, and I am reasonably healthy with no major injuries or chronic illnesses to manage. I have at least 10 more years of full time work ahead of me, and a just-renewed mortgage. So, I am “excited” (more like hopeful) for more stable, healthy days ahead of me in the safety of my space and with my loved ones.

💜

Catherine

I agree with Sam about aging and happiness; I’m looking forward to new adventures, continuing and new connections and the pleasure of being present (which I can do now, I know, but hoping it’ll be easier). I’m also looking forward to more slow-travel, in North America. To cycle, slow-hike, swim, see places and people, and visit friends and family (consider yourselves forewarned…) And yes, to continuing to fight and work for justice, in whatever ways I can, no matter what.

A sign saying go slow speed, 35kmph. Fine by me.
A sign saying go slow speed, 35kmph. Fine by me.

Sat with Nat

Watching feminism in action

natalieh (she/her)

On Saturday I shared Nat shares a cycling moment that did not feel safe

I wasn’t sure if it would matter. I felt silly. These are classic self censoring feelings that come from living in a sexist society.

Of course my story resonated. Of course it did! The comments across platforms were two kinds:

1 expressions of empathy, compassion, condolences. Friends and strangers were sad to hear that this happened.

2 other women’s stories. So. Many. Stories. Cycling. Walking. At bus stops. Women saying versions of “I had something like that happen too”

No one doubted that it happened. I was believed! Which is so crucial, we need to believe women.

No one told me I should have done anything different. A glorious absence of victim blaming!

Women realized that their experiences resonated with mine and no longer felt alone. They saw that it was not an individual problem.

That connection between the personal is political and a result of systemic sexism is feminism in action.

Keep up the great work friends!

Two people high five each other with big smiles.
fitness

Big Joy: Sam’s report card

Sam B
A chart detailing respondents' scores on various micro-acts of joy, including categories like 'Make a Gratitude List', 'Do Something Kind', and 'Celebrate Another's JOY', each with corresponding scores.

I’ve enjoyed the 7 days of the Big Joy project.

Not surprisingly, the practices that worked best for me are gratitude lists, celebrating the joys of others, and doing something kind.

Here’s a Big Joy moment for me at our Canada Day backyard BBQ.

You can read about Day 1 of Big Joy here and about what the Big Joy project is all about here.

Day 2 is here.

And Day 3 is here.

And Day 4 is here.

Day 5 is here.

fitness

Day 7 of Big Joy: Dwelling in Awe

Sam B1 Comment

Today’s exercise involved watching a video of natural beauty and experiencing awe. I agree it’s a beautiful video, but I do awe better without videos.

I experience joy in the natural world and find awe in the details of small things, such as the flowers and baby bunnies in my neighbourhood right now.

This exercise reminded me of work by the philosopher Helen De Cruz who very recently died. Her book Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think explores the role of awe in our lives.

Reading various reviews of the Big Joy project I see that not everyone enjoyed watching the Yosemite video.

Here’s Emma Beddington writing for the Guardian, who like me finds awe in the natural world in her garden:

“Awe can make us feel more connected and compassionate and can increase feelings of physical and mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, as I tackle this nature-based awe exercise – watching a video of Yosemite – a worrying work issue crops up that sends me spiralling. The footage is very beautiful, but it barely registers with my heart thudding and palms sweating.

But dwelling in awe is one thing I know how to do, and it doesn’t happen in front of my laptop. I go into the garden and sit quietly on the ground. A robin comes very close to observe me; long-tailed tits flit around the feeders; the light is beautiful. Suburban York is no Yosemite; but it takes me out of my own exhausting head and gives me a fraction more perspective on my work problems.”

You can read about Day 1 of Big Joy here and about what the Big Joy project is all about here.

Day 2 is here.

And Day 3 is here.

And Day 4 is here.

Day 5 is here.

close up of rabbit on field
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

fitness · motivation · swimming

Finding Motivation When Your Triggers are Gone

Diane Harper

My main pool closed a month ago, and will stay closed until January. My other pool closed at the end of June. It will be closed until the fall, at least. That means no lifeguarding, no teaching swimming and no mandatory training where I need to ensure I meet the fitness standard. My swim club is also on hiatus for the summer.

What’s an externally -motivated girl to do?

Rest was a good start. I “allowed” myself several weeks of not swimming. By allowed, what I really mean is I didn’t bother looking up lane swim times at nearby pools. I felt guilty about not going but just couldn’t get myself organized. Hence the air quotes around “allowed”.

Then I started getting messages about people I knew going for swims. I decided that I would see each of them as an invitation and join if at all possible. So far this week, that has meant one pool swim, one swim in Gatineau Park, and one at the nearby lake. I’m already far ahead of where I was in June, distance-wise.

I’ll be a swim angel again this year for the annuals Bring On the Bay swim, so there will be more swimming this week to ensure I’m ready to support my swimmer on Saturday.

Going forward, I’m keen to try out some new swimming venues around town. I know I’m more likely to do so if I go with friends. For the next little while, my challenge will be to make some of those plans and follow through, even if others don’t have the time or interest to join me.

But also, if I don’t feel up to swimming, won’t. As much as I am motivated by peer pressure (in a good way), swimming when I’m overtired is not fun.

Wish me luck finding the right balance and checking out some new places to swim!

Three swimmers with bright floats in the small lake near my house in Ottawa.,
fitness

Gremlins? Sam’s weekend with six weirdly small, bad things

Sam B

This has been a few days of small bad things. I’ve been tracking #ThreeGoodThings every day and while it wasn’t hard to find good things this weekend, it also seemed to be a few days of ridiculous (and small) bad things. Don’t worry. No one was harmed in the making of this blog post.

First, as regular readers of the blog know my knees are happiest when I spend some time on my bike everyday. Friday wasn’t a good day for riding–I was going into Toronto after work–and so I hopped on the trainer early in the morning and did a Zwift work out.

Zwift workout

All fine, except for the heat alert and lack of air conditioning in the living room. I was drenched when I got off the bike and grabbed the nearest towel. Sadly it was the dog towel and so I ended up covered in dog fur and had to have a serious shower. Not the best start to the day.

Second, I’ve transferred my PRESTO card (Toronto Transit and GO trains) to my phone, but now my card doesn’t work and I struggled to get my phone to successfully tap. And you have to tap on and off, and it was a struggle at both ends. And yes, I know I can use my credit card but I don’t like that idea. Also,  new technology I don’t like makes me feel old.

Third, I got to Toronto’s Union Station just fine and switched to the subway where I promptly fell asleep and missed my stop. I jumped off and rather than switching trains and going back I walked in the heat back towards where I should have gotten off the train. Nothing too bad so far, just an extra couple of km’s walking in the warmth of the city.

Fourth, Saturday’s morning’s bike ride was going great until all of a sudden I couldn’t shift. I couldn’t shift because I hadn’t charged my fancy electronic shifters so far this year.

Here’s what I posted on social media:

“Beautiful but steamy Saturday morning, unexpectedly single-speed, ride. Two months seems like the middling wrong time for a charge to last. Not a whole cycling season but not a weekly charging habit like my Garmin and lights. #bikesky“

“If you’ve been riding since early spring, now is the time to charge your Di2 shifting. Ask me how I know. Oh, Watson Hil,l you’re not made for single speed riding.”

“Thanks to all the cyclists who said encouraging things but there was no way I was going to make it in the convenient middling gear Shimano dumps you in when your electronic shifting fails.”

Here’s the photo Google made to commemorate the ride:

Fifth, today’s ride was another heat alert road ride. We’re trying to ensure we get out there and ride short distances to acclimate to the warmer summers. This summer seems to be shaping up as just one heat wave after another. And of course that’s going to be true in years to come. I’m worried about it.

But on this morning’s ride I thought we were going super slow. Perhaps we were just tired from the heat and yesterday’s ride? 18 km/hr isn’t a very speedy speed. I pushed and tried to go faster, but it made me feel worse. Turns out it was miles per hour, and my Garmin had somehow swapped from metric to “statute” as the Garmin says.

Sixth was another technical bike issue. Sarah and I started the ride with identical heart rates. We were amused for a while until it occurred to Sarah that both of our bike commuters were synced with the same heart rate monitor. We tried riding separately to see whose heart rate dropped off the screen of her Garmin. Turns out that Sarah’s heart rate monitor strap needs its battery replaced.

Here is a photo from this morning’s ride:

OK, there were also lots of good things too. A friend’s work was part of an OCAD queer art show, good movies–I loved Sinners–lots of yummy food on the BBQ, beautiful time on the bike with the wind whooshing by and making the heat tolerable. Mostly good!

But we need to get our bike tech in order.