Be Hot After 40

The anti-aging solution everyone's been searching for! :)

Mixonian realizes that not all her readers are age 40 or so, don't worry, your day will come! : ) You have something to look forward to! This post is dedicated to my hot and beautiful friend, Maria Luisa, who recently celebrated a birthday, and my grandmother, who's still pretty hot at age 90.

You may well ask how does a university instructor gain the authority to talk about being hot over 40. I am asserting my credibility based on mere rumor. The rumor is that on a website rating college professors, on the page where I am rated, students have placed chili peppers, as an indication of hotness. I am not going to check it out because I really don't want to know what students write about me. So on this flimsiest of pretexts, I proceed to address this vital topic.

Define Hot.

Certainly what is NOT meant, is focusing your life on try to get men's attention. I mean, that is soooo, yesterday's local news. Being hot is being: energetic, alive, able to muster enthusiasm, having projects, looking for the good in everything, and appreciating yourself. A hot woman knows herself, and loves herself anyway. The great thing about getting older is that is becomes so much easier not to expend effort trying to please other people. And the paradox of that is, not focusing on pleasing others make you so much more attractive.

Attitude is everything.

You've heard it before; it's still the truth. By the time a person has lived through four decades here on this planet, s/he has been through a lot: falling in love, falling out of love, getting dumped, getting hired, getting fired, having children, health issues, loss of friends/family....no one gets through without living through some of these. Even if a person did manage to escape adversity, can you even imagine such a boring, protected soul? Attitude means you look for the good in the situation, you bounce back. It does not mean failure is fun; it's just inevitable.

Take care of yourself.

If you don't care for yourself, no one else will. Maintaining good health as far as you are able is obviously a top priority. And while you cannot control all the factors related to your health, you need to do all that you can. If you have serious health problems, I think looking into nontraditional health solutions would be the thing to do. That's where I would go.

The mind-body connection is well-established, if not well understood. But again, having a positive attitude, looking for joy, finding occasions to laugh, all help with health.

Don't diet.

Whatever you do, never go on a diet. There are few things I am so certain about anymore, but this is one of them. If you tell me, on this diet, you can eat everything you want, except grass, then suddenly I am consumed with a craving for grass. I've been chubby before, and now I'm not, and going on diets only made me miserable and heavier. I think the best approach is making healthy substitutions, one at a time. But you've got to accept yourself first, and not decide that you'll be a worthy person once such-and-such goal is attained. I'm still finding healthy substitutions to make.

No frump allowed. Don't get me started on this. Check out the free drawing on the June 8 post.