Things I’m Doing to Age Gracefully

At 54, my life is more than half over, yet I feel like I’m finally getting in my groove! Here are the things that I’m doing to age gracefully.

You’ve seen the comparisons of the cast of the Golden Girls versus the ladies from Sex in the City, right? I don’t know much about the latter show, but I spent many an hour as an adolescent watching Sophia, Rose, Dorothy, and Blanche navigate their later years.

I had no idea that “later years” meant the age I am now. Say what? I’m just getting started in this thing called adulting!

Clearly, entertainment and media haven’t portrayed women in their 50s and beyond in much of a favorable light. And honestly, our own definitions of young could use some adjusting.

My Gramma John is 63 in this picture, the same age as my husband is today! Sure, it was the 70s, but still. Gramma was a spring chicken and had accomplished a lot in that time, with 8 children and at least 20 grandkids!

Unsurprisingly, there is nothing in the Bible to indicate that age is a disqualifier to anything good, in fact quite the opposite!

• Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding? – Job 12:12
• Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness. – Proverbs 16:31
• Teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. – Titus 2:3

The very fact that we are to teach what is good signifies we have purpose given from God! Clearly, Ephesians 2:10 doesn’t have an expiration date:

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The world may not have caught up with the Creator in terms of the value of older woman, but we have it. And because He has good works for us to do, aging gracefully is important.

I’m learning about the process of being a godly woman past my childbearing years, and finding resources to help the process.

Supplement as appropriate.

Whether due to the Fall or the environment or my plain bad choices, my body doesn’t do what is best even when I want it to, so I have to supplement. I take medication for thyroid disease, but also a small handful of other things to help this mortal coil.

I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Based on my research, this is what I’ve decided to add into my life:

• creatine – for cognitive and muscle performance as well as to aid my gut – I loaded 1mg/day for a week, increasing each week until I got to 3 mg/day. I currently take it in this form.
• Vitamins D/K2 – for healthy bone and muscles as well as immune support
• MHT (menopause hormone therapy) – in the form of transdermal estradiol and oral progesterone – I wish I had started this five years earlier, but I think I got it started early enough to have brain and heart benefits.🤞🏼

There are other things that are available to women as they age, such as adaptogens and other supplements, but thyroid disease prevents me from trying too many others.

Eat more protein. Eat more plants.

One of the most tangible things to steward is this mortal coil of my body. If you’ve read the Weekly Ramble for any length of time, you know that I’ve been trying to crack the code on perimenopause nutrition for at least three years. Oy!

The information out there is wild and varied. Everyone and their brother or sister, whether they have a PhD in muscle physiology or not, has an opinion. Often these opinions are conflicted even when they come from folks with the same degrees and training.

The two constants that I’m seeing as far as nutrition goes are these:

• eat more protein – at least 100 grams a day but probably more depending on how much you weigh
• eat more plants – at least 25 grams of fiber/day which can approximate to 800 grams of fruits, veg, legumes, preferably 30 different kinds/week to increase the gut biome’s diversity

The protein is because we absorb/process less as we age so our intake needs to be larger in order to build/maintain muscle.

The plants with their micronutrients and fiber help all our processes, including MHT, work better, aid digestion, and balance blood sugar.

This can seriously feel like a full time job, so I’m working on dialing in a more regular routine. One of my strengths is pattern recognition, so I’m looking at which plants and proteins I enjoy and how I can incorporate them a bit on auto-pilot.

Move more than I really want to.

I would seriously be happy to sit in a chair and read a book or sit at my computer and write all day every day for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, this isn’t what we were designed for.

We were made for the garden.

While you can read and write in the garden, you’re also meant to work, walk, lift, etc. So, I’m working on moving, moving more than I actually want to so that I can age gracefully and strong.

I’m slowly developing routines for cardio and resistance training. I don’t actually know what I’m doing, but I’m finding my way.

I know from reading Atomic Habits that I can make something a habit if I make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. In terms of exercise, this means that I do things like

• obvious – lay out workout clothes the night before so it’s top of mind when I wake up
• attractive – keep some weights in my room so that I don’t have to go to the ugly garage to work out
• easy – find exercises and routines that I can do without having to think too terribly much
• satisfying – do it consistently and rigorously enough that I see results

Included in my Movement Era is moving my focus away from the scale. The 80s and 90s did a number on us women, making us believe that weight mattered more than muscle.

Body composition is far more important than what the scale says. I know that when I lost all that weight, I wasn’t building muscle.

Like a woman getting pregnant for the first time and watching her body morph into something new, so is Muscular Jessica having to readjust.

I don’t love how big my butt has got with working out or how my clothes don’t fit or how the scale isn’t really going down. Losing the menopause apron is taking far longer than I hoped!

My entire being is freaking out over this — especially as I’m pounding the protein and moving more than I have in years. I’m trying to trust the process — that building muscle is going to do Future Jessica more favors than being skinny would.

Find purpose in the future.

Finding purpose in my future has been harder to navigate in my post-homeschool funk. For 24 years my primary responsibility was the education of my children. That season ended in May.

While I don’t have an “empty nest”, I have a lot of emotions that one might normally associate with that season of a woman’s life. Finding purpose when your main gig is complete is hard.

It reminds me of what Rebekah Merkel says in Eve in Exile about the boredom woman faced in the post-war era. Her boredom (managing a household when new technology suddenly made it easier than it had ever been) led to fussiness (about being unfulfilled) and they ended up tearing the house down with what we now call “modern day feminism”. Instead of leaning into motherhood and homemaking with creativity, they walked away from it entirely.

No wonder there are so many divorces once the kids are grown! If your purpose has been tied up in your kids (whether homeschooling, carpooling, or afternoon activities) and you don’t know what to do with your newfound hours in the day, you can drift listlessly or worse.

A lack of purpose can do all kinds of damage. Of this I am aware, so I’m doing my best to be wary of this and to cut it off at the pass if I can.

For me particularly, this is a series of ongoing conversations between me and God, and between me and Bryan. How shall I spend my days?

I’ve got lots of ideas of what I want to do, including homemaking mastery in this new season and exploring my writing career in new ways. But, I’m reminded not to wrap myself in these new clothes.

In many ways I find that God is stripping away many layers. My identity is not in being a food blogger or a homeschool mom. It would be easy to put on a new identity, whether that’s as a grandmother or a fiction writer or ???

My identity is in Him. And that is ultimately going to be the thing that helps me age gracefully. Remembering Him in whom I have believed.

I don’t have it all figured out; that is the purpose of life. Eventually, when I leave this world a lot more will make sense. In the meantime, I am humbly (hopefully) trying to the best I can with this body and life that God gave me.

To Him be the glory.

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