S2 EP :15 Loving Your Midlife Body: Small Shifts, Real Healing & Reclaiming Your Energy

In this week’s off-the-cuff episode of The Midlife Awakening, Odelia opens up about something so many women struggle with but rarely say out loud — our midlife bodies.

After decades of self-criticism, unrealistic expectations, and diet culture conditioning, midlife invites us into a completely different relationship with ourselves. In this honest and intimate conversation, Odelia shares how she’s learning to love her body after years of self-loathing, and how tuning into her body’s needs has changed everything.

This episode explores:

• 💛 Why body acceptance becomes essential in midlife
• 💛 How childbirth, stress, trauma, and perimenopause shift our bodies — and why that’s not failure
• 💛 The shift from wanting to be “skinny” to wanting to be strong, energetic, and emotionally steady
• 💛 Small, manageable changes that have transformed her health and mood
• 💛 The role of hormones, cortisol, and insulin resistance in midlife weight
• 💛 Why nourishing your body will take you further than dieting ever could
• 💛 How listening to your cycle radically changes the way you eat, move, and rest
• 💛 Setting bare minimum wellbeing boundaries as we head into the festive season
• 💛 The importance of compassion, patience, and incremental change

You’ll also hear the real-life habits Odelia has adopted — from switching her morning coffee to dandelion tea, to eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking, to daily walks and rebounding — and how these tiny choices have made a noticeable difference.

This episode is a gentle reminder that your body has carried you through so much, and it deserves to be loved, nourished, and honoured — especially in midlife.

✨ Resources Mentioned

• Fasting Like a Girl by Mindy Pelz
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Previous podcast episode with nutritionist Arianna Morgan

Transcript

Odelia (00:00.048)
Hey guys and welcome back to the Midlife Awakening. My name is Odelia and I'm your host. So grateful that you're here. Now, if you're a regular listener, welcome back. I've missed you. And if you're joining me for the very first time, I'm really glad that you found your way here. This is a podcast about transformation for women who are waking up to who they really are while navigating everything that comes with the Midlife. In today's episode, I went completely off the cuff. I was standing in my kitchen prepping dinner when a thought landed so strongly that I knew I just had to sit down and watch

We're talking about midlife bodies this week. How they change, how we judge them and how we can finally start loving them after years or even decades of self loathing. I'm sharing my own journey with body acceptance, the small shifts that I've been making and why strength and energy matter more to me now than being super skinny. If you felt disconnected from your body in midlife or you're trying to approach health from a place of compassion rather than punishment, this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Odelia (01:12.373)
Hey guys and welcome back to the Midlife Awakening. So today I'm going to be talking about midlife bodies. Now, this is not something that I planned. This is actually sort of off the cuff. So we'll see how we go. I was actually going to talk about boundaries, but maybe we'll do that next week. I was in the kitchen and I was prepping my dinner and it got me thinking about, you know, when we get to midlife, things are so much harder.

Right. For example, if you end up finding yourself in single after many years of being married and you start thinking about, you know, will I ever find love again? And if I do, you know, the dating pool is going to be so, so small because we don't look like we did when we were in our twenties. I mean, I certainly don't.

If I look at myself now, I mean, I am, I'll admit it, I'm overweight, but that's because I've had two babies. You know, I've got a full finger ab separation, so that's not great to look at. And yeah, this is the heaviest that I've ever been in my life. It's taken me a long time to get to a point where I actually accept that about myself and that I've come to love my body because when I look at my body, it's...

It's so amazing to me. Not only did I grow two babies inside of me, I also birthed them. If you think about that process, if you've had children, if you think about that process, what your body goes through to grow a child and then to birth a child. It's such an amazing thing. How can I not love this body? How dare I not love this body after that amazing thing? I mean, it's given me the two best gifts in my life.

And yes, I don't look like I used to. And yes, I could lose some weight and I probably should from a health perspective. What I think is more important than that is to find love for my body. Because if I can't find love for my body, how am I ever going to nurture it and lose weight in a healthy way that is right for my body? We spend our whole lives loathing our body.

Odelia (03:34.374)
because we're raised in a culture where we taught that if you're not super skinny, well at least I was anyway, you're not super skinny, you're not worthy, know, you're not going to be, nobody's going to look at you, you don't, you know, it's the skinny girls get the best things in life. growing up as someone who was always a little bit on the chubby side, you know, that affected me my whole life. And I had this love hate relationship with my body for most of my life.

But as I've come to intermidlife, I've realized that this body is so amazing. And maybe it's because you go through that process of birthing children that you see your body in a different way. It's taken me a long time to get here. This hasn't been an overnight thing. Even after I had my babies, I had those thoughts of why is my body not bouncing back as quickly as anybody else's? Why am I not, you know, how?

How can they look so amazing after having a baby? And I'm struggling over here. I'm struggling to lose the weight. So it's been a journey for me to get to this point where I can now look at my body and you know what? I love my body. I know it's not for everybody. Other people might look at me and be like, well, gosh, you know, she could probably lose a few there. Yeah, I could. But what's more important for me is to start to learn to love my body.

Because when I do lose the weight, I want to do it in a healthy way. And the only way that I can do that is if I'm viewing my body from a lens of self-love. Because I don't want to be super skinny. I want to be strong. So when I do start exercising, I want the intention behind that to be strengthening my body, not to want to be super skinny.

You know, that is not what I want. I want a strong body that can carry me through the next phase of my life. A strong body that can pick up my kids without me being exhausted. A strong body that can walk up the stairs and not be out of breath when I get to the top of it. A strong body, that is what I want. And a body that is full of energy.

Odelia (05:58.493)
so that I can play with my kids and keep up with them. I mean, I have two boys. Anybody who has boys will know you need a lot of energy. mean, my kids do not sit and color in for the day. It's just, no, that does not happen in my household. They'll sit for about three minutes and then I have to pretend I'm a tiger. Okay. This is my life. So I need that energy. I want my body to be energetic.

so that I can keep up with my children, so that I can enjoy them and play with them, because we have such little time with our children. And I don't want to look back and regret and think, I wish I had taken better care of myself so that I could engage with them more and be more energetic. So that's the first intention I want to set for myself is that when I'm ready, and I'm not saying that I am, but when I'm ready, the intention for me, for my body is.

from an exercise perspective is to do things that will energize me, that will build my strength. I don't want to be super skinny. You know, that was me in my teens and my 20s and a little bit of my 30s, but that's not me anymore. I don't value that anymore. And then from a nutrition perspective, I want to nourish my body. I mean, not only has my body birthed these two beautiful babies and gone through that stress, but

My body's been through other traumatic events in my life and it's carried me through. It's been there. It's, and I'm still standing. I'm still healthy because my body has served me and I want to serve my body back. want the focus of my nutrition to be nourishing my body. So eating well, not this diet culture that we grew up with where we starve ourselves or

We eat foods that are full of preservatives and that say low fats and no fats. No, I want to give my body nourishment. I want to give my body the building blocks it needs to be strong and energetic. That is the goal. And I know I have that in the front of my mind. And so until I get to a point where I feel like my self-love is at that place where I know I can make the best possible decisions for my body.

Odelia (08:23.075)
I'm just going to keep loving myself. And yes, you might not like how I look, but that's okay. You know, I try and dress myself well so that it doesn't offend people from not having things hanging out, but that's okay if you don't, if you don't like how I look, that's perfectly fine. That's your opinion. Keep it to yourself though, because I don't want to hear it. And I'm really proud of how far I've come in terms of this. mean, 40 years of self-loathing and I don't want to do it anymore.

So I've been doing a lot of research around healthy and nutritious ways to lose weight. And it's not even about losing weight. Like I said, that is not even my goal. My goal is not even to lose weight. My goal is to be strong and energetic for my kids. And I think we need more of that. I think we need more of that. Let's stop worrying about what the scale says. Let's stop worrying about what society says and let's start.

start worrying about what our body needs. We need to tune into what our body needs. We don't do that because we're taught from such a young age to disregard that and to follow the trend and to follow what society says. And I'm sick of it and I'm not going to do it anymore. You know, maybe it's my decreased estrogen levels saying, fuck you to everyone, but you know what? Fuck you to everyone.

This is my body and I'm going to do what's best for it. And I know what's best for it. And I really love the book by Mindy Peltz where she talks about fasting like a girl and she really goes into your cycle and learning about our bodies. And what I took away from that book more than anything else is that we have to listen to our bodies. And since reading that book, I really can see as I go through my cycle, the different time periods during my cycle.

really I can see what she's talking about. Like how just before your cycle's about to start, you just want to eat and you just want to, like, you just need food. And she explains that. And so I've really been tuning into that and trying to listen to my body more. And I really think we need to start doing that, especially in midlife. We need our bodies to sustain us for the next 40 years. I'm going for 40, the next 40 years.

Odelia (10:43.946)
Another important part about learning to listen to our body is like you can start an exercise program and if you're pushing yourself too hard, if you're not listening to your body, if you're not in tune with your body, how are you going to know you're not going to stop, right? You're just going to push yourself. I have this habit, like I'll go and do an exercise class and I will push myself to the limit. That's what I do.

And so learning to listen to my body has been really, important. And I'm still perfecting that. So until I do, I'm not going to attempt. I mean, I'm not saying I'm not doing any exercise. Living a sedentary life is not good either. So I'm definitely not saying that. So I make sure I get in a walk every day. I'll make sure that I do a couple of minutes on the rebound every day, whatever I can do to keep my, to keep myself.

as healthy as I can for right now until I'm ready to set those goals for myself. And in terms of my eating, I mean, I've done a lot this year in terms of cutting back my sugar because that's really, really bad for you in midlife. We are more prone to insulin resistance because of perimenopause that we go through in our hormone level changes. So it's been very important for me to cut back the sugar. I mean, I kind of also been having problems with my teeth.

And the idea of me not having any teeth in a couple of years kind of also pushed me in that way to stop sugar. know, perimenopause, no teeth. You you pick your excuse. But I've noticed a big shift in my body since doing that. And when I do eat sugar, I find that I start getting the insulin resistance symptoms or the pre-diabetic symptoms. And then I know, okay, I got to stop.

I can't do this to my body and I do. I've been really good with myself this year, I have to say. After having the session with Arianna Morgan, who we had on the show earlier in the year, talking about nutrition, what I've done is I've started eating my breakfasts within half an hour of me waking up. And, you know, that simple, small shift. And that's what I'm doing. I'm just making small little shifts that are manageable, that are going to last me a long time because I do not want to go

Odelia (13:07.073)
cold turkey with anything because it doesn't last, right? And that's something I learned off of the book by James Clear, Atomic Habits. know, incremental change is so powerful because it's longer lasting. Okay, you're more likely to stick with it. So one thing that I did do that Ariana suggested was to eat my breakfast within the first half an hour of waking up. And so I've started doing that and I've really noticed a shift in my midsection.

I have lost some centimeters. can feel that I did not measure myself before I started doing that, which now I wish I kind of had, but I definitely have felt my clothes are loose. You know, they're not as tight as they used to be. So that small little shift, making sure that I have a drink of water. First thing in the morning, I've taken my, my, I've stopped having caffeine because what I was doing before is I was having coffee.

first thing in the morning before anything else. And after reading about your cortisol levels and how in midlife it's extremely elevated, that's what can cause us to hold on to weight. So I switched out my coffee for dandelion tea, which pretty much tastes the same. It's pretty good. It doesn't taste horrific. So, you know, you can give that a try. So the first thing that I do when I wake up is I have a drink of water, have a glass of water.

And while the kettle is boiling, I sip on that water and then I make my dandelion tea. And while I'm sipping on my dandelion tea, I make my breakfast. I eat my breakfast and that's it for the morning. That's, that's literally my morning routine. Whereas before I wasn't having any breakfast, I was just having caffeine and I've noticed a shift in my mood as well. Like I'm not as on edge as I used to be. So that's something like, it's just these small little changes that we can make, not putting ourselves under pressure and rather than

viewing this from a perspective of nurturing our body and working with our body and healing our body because our bodies have served us so much and have taken us through so much and they still have so much more work to do. So we need to make sure that we give it the tools that it needs to be able to do that. So those are the small shifts that I've started making and hopefully in the new year if I feel mentally ready I will stop making more maybe adding exercise daily exercise to my routine.

Odelia (15:32.981)
which is important. mean, I do try and get my, my, my steps in. I don't always get it right because I do have two small kids and we're usually rushing between, you know, school drop off, school pick up work, et cetera. Now, if I'm in the office, I do get a bit of a walk, walking from my car to the office because it's quite, it was about a 10 minute walk. So that's pretty good.

So I get that at least three days a week and on the weekends I walk with the kids, I take them out for walks. So I mean, I think I'm doing pretty good in terms of that. And I'm not going to put myself under too much pressure. I do not want to live a sedentary life though. That is for sure. What are the small shifts that you can start making towards not only healing your body, but loving your body, just loving it. And I especially wanted to do this episode now is because as we go into the festive season and we're all going to Christmas parties and

You know, there's going to be lots of alcohol and sweet treats and all these lovely things. And I'm not by any means saying don't have any of that. Please, by all means, enjoy yourself. We talked about this last week's episode, the week before where we talked about, you know, this is the season to enjoy ourselves and to have fun. But at the same time, listen to your body. Moderation is king. Make sure you try and get some exercise in, especially when you've had that big Christmas dinner.

You know, get a walk in, you know, that's something that we started a couple of years ago is that we would have this big Christmas lunch and then we'd do a Christmas walk afterwards because it's just you're eating so much and we're overindulging so much that we need to have some kind of balance. Now I'm not perfect at balance. Definitely not perfect at balance. I do try where I can. And it's always that thought in the back of the mind, my mind that, you know, I love my body and I want to treat it.

Am I 100 % there yet? No, I'm definitely not. I'm a work in progress like most people are. But you know, just have these little things in the back of your mind. You know, your bare minimum non-negotiables like you have to have three walks in a week. I'm to limit sugar to three days a week or whatever it is. I'm going to limit my alcohol intake to two glasses as opposed to the five I normally have. One glass to the three that I normally have.

Odelia (17:51.205)
Just have those bare minimums in place in the back of your mind. Stop thinking about that now before you start hitting the Christmas party scene and start sticking to that. And I suppose this comes back to boundaries and these are creating boundaries for ourselves. And I really wanted to talk about that setting boundaries with others because I think that's also really important. So this is a time where families can sort of also, you know, cross boundaries and it can be a little frustrating this time of year. So I'll talk about boundaries next week because I have a lot to say on boundaries.

and I don't think I'll fit it all into this episode. We will talk about boundaries next week but just yeah this week's episode is a bit shorter than normal it was very off the cuff I wanted to come in and talk about boundaries and breath work that was transformational for me but we'll talk about that next week because actually I don't know if I have content for next week so we'll talk about that next week and

I hope you enjoyed this. This is just me off the cuff speaking into the microphone about something that popped into my head. And I don't know if I've articulated it the way I want it to because it always sounds better in my head versus when it comes out my mouth. So hopefully I've gotten the message across. Really at the end of the day, just love yourself, love your body. And that's all I got to say.

Odelia (19:28.739)
Thank you so much for joining me today for this very unplanned, heart-led conversation. I something in today's episode reminded you that your body is not an enemy. It's a lifelong companion that has carried you through every chapter, every trauma, every child, every transition, and every awakening. I've just had to listen back to the episode and it might not be for everyone, but I have to say I'm really, really proud of this episode and I'm really proud of myself.

I actually feel I'm fighting back the tears at this point because just to look at how far I've come. It's amazing. So as we move into this festive season, enjoy the celebrations, but also listen to your body. Honor it, nourish it, give it what it needs and most importantly, love it. Even if you're still learning how.

Next week we're going to be talking about boundaries because if there is ever a season where we need strong boundaries, Lord knows it's this one. And I do have a lot to say about this one. So if you enjoyed this episode or if it resonated, please share it with someone who might need these words today. And if you've not already subscribed, hit the follow button so that you never miss an episode. Come on. If you'd like to hear more from me, why not head over to my sub stack and sign up for my free newsletter.

Or you could join my community and join me this crazy journey through midlife. Until next week, be kind to yourself, take care of your heart and remember, it's never too late, it's the beginning. Bye for now.