I Am Still Building — But Unlearning Is Harder Than I Thought
A few months ago, in my fourth blog post, I wrote about something that changed the way I think about getting older. I had stopped training to become slimmer and started training to become stronger. I honestly thought that was the difficult part. Apparently not.
That blog post received only a couple of written comments, but something interesting was happening behind the scenes. It quickly became the most-read article on my entire website. That really surprised me. Perhaps it is because so many women in their fifties and sixties are quietly wrestling with the same thing. We have spent decades being told that smaller is better, thinner is better, younger is better. And then suddenly we reach our fifties and sixties and realise that perhaps we should be thinking about something completely different: strength, mobility, balance, energy, independence, and simply being able to keep doing all the things we enjoy.
The problem is that knowing this intellectually and actually believing it are two very different things. Because unlearning forty years of diet culture does not happen overnight.
There was another part of this change that I did not really appreciate at the time. For years, I had gone into the gym with my own little target in mind: I wanted to burn 1,000 calories. It became a kind of personal challenge. If I left the gym exhausted, I felt as though I had done a proper workout. Never mind that my body could sometimes take three or four days to recover. Looking back now, I can see that I was still measuring success by how much I could push myself, rather than by how cleverly I was training.
These days, I am doing things differently. I am learning that a good workout does not have to leave me flattened. I want to challenge my body, certainly, but I also want to recover, get stronger and be ready to do it again. I am beginning to understand that training cleverly is probably far more useful to me at sixty-one than training myself into the ground.
But apparently, the old thinking has not disappeared completely. It just shows up in different ways.
Just the other morning, I caught myself doing it again. I was standing in front of my wardrobe getting ready for the gym. I actually have at least six colourful gym tops because I love colour, and I genuinely enjoy wearing them. And yet, more often than not, I still find myself reaching for black. Maybe I do not want to stand out too much at the gym or maybe I just want to blend in. Or perhaps that old habit of wanting to look slimmer is still quietly hanging around. That morning, I looked at one of my bright gym tops and hesitated. Then came that old, familiar voice: Black is safer. Black makes you look slimmer.
I actually had to stop and think about that. Why was I still doing this? I am sixty-one years old. I am not trying to squeeze myself into some imaginary version of what I thought I was supposed to look like when I was thirty-five. I am trying to build a body that can carry me up mountains, get me through a hard workout and keep me strong enough to enjoy my life for many years to come.
So I picked the bright top. And yes, it felt like a tiny victory.
But these tiny victories matter. Because the proof that this change is working is no longer hiding in the waistband of my jeans. It is showing up in places a bathroom scale could never measure.
My VO₂ Max Has Gone From 35 to 39
When I wrote that original blog, my Garmin VO₂ max had reached 35. I was ridiculously pleased with myself. Well, a few months later, I checked my Garmin again and discovered that it had climbed to 39.
Thirty-nine!
For those who are not familiar with VO₂ max, it is essentially a measure of cardiovascular fitness. Garmin currently places my score in the “Superior” range for my age. But the number itself is not really what excites me. What excites me is what the number represents.
At sixty-one, my body is still adapting. It is still getting fitter. It is still getting stronger. That is a pretty wonderful thing to discover.
When I look at that number now, I do not see a measurement of how successful I have been at restricting food or losing weight. I have more stamina when I am hiking. More energy for my writing. More strength when I am lifting weights. More capacity to keep saying yes to things.
And perhaps most importantly, I see evidence that getting older does not automatically mean becoming less capable.
I Am Not Training to Become Younger
This is probably the biggest change in my thinking. I am not trying to recreate the body I had at thirty. I am not even particularly interested in becoming the fittest sixty-one-year-old in the room. I simply want to know what this body can do. That is a very different mindset.
When I push myself on the Stairmaster, I am not imagining myself twenty years younger. I am thinking about the woman I might be at seventy. Will I still be able to hike? Will I still be able to carry my shopping? Will I be able to get up from the floor easily? Will I have the strength and balance to live independently?
Those are the things that matter to me now.
And strangely enough, that makes exercise much more enjoyable. I am not punishing myself. I am investing in myself.
But I Still Have My Moments
I wish I could tell you that I have completely transformed my thinking and now glide effortlessly through life in colourful gym clothes, never once worrying about how I look. That would be a lie.
The old thoughts still pop up. Sometimes I still look in the mirror and see all the things I would like to change. Sometimes I still automatically reach for the black top. Sometimes that old voice tells me I should be doing more.
The difference is that I recognise the voice now. And I do not necessarily have to listen to it. That, I think, is the real progress.
Perhaps changing our relationship with our bodies is not about suddenly loving every inch of ourselves. Perhaps it is simply about learning to stop treating ourselves as a problem that needs fixing.
I Am Still Building
I think that is what has changed most since I wrote that first blog. I used to think discipline was about making myself do things I did not want to do. Now I am beginning to see discipline differently.
Sometimes discipline means showing up for the workout. Sometimes it means choosing the food that makes me feel good. Sometimes it means resting when I need to. And sometimes, strangely enough, discipline means telling that little voice in my head to be quiet and putting on the bright gym top anyway.
Because I am not trying to become smaller anymore. I am trying to become stronger.
And I am beginning to understand that building something takes time. Muscle takes time. Fitness takes time. Confidence takes time. Changing the way we have thought about ourselves for forty years definitely takes time. So I am going to keep working on it.
I will probably still have days when the old voice wins. That is okay. Tomorrow is another day. Another workout. Another walk. Another opportunity to choose differently. And another chance to find out what this sixty-one-year-old body is still capable of doing.
My VO₂ max was 35 when I wrote that first blog.
It is 39 now.
Who knows where it might be next year? I am certainly curious to find out.
— Frannie ☕
Have you noticed any old beliefs about your body or appearance that you are still trying to unlearn? Or have you found yourself focusing on what your body can do rather than how it looks? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
🌿 Continue Your Journey
If this blog resonated with you, here are three more stories you might enjoy:
At 61, I am Not Fading. I am Building. — because this is where I first started questioning whether getting older had to mean getting smaller.
The Voice in My Head: Coach or Critic? — because unlearning old ways of thinking also means learning to recognise which voice we choose to listen to.
The Midlife Waist, Muscle Loss… and What No One Told Us — because getting stronger becomes even more important when we start thinking about what we want our bodies to be capable of in the years ahead.
💌 Before You Go
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Well done!