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I think the biggest factors in looking young are:
1. Genetics
2. Stay out of the sun
3. Hair color (sounds shallow but white hair makes people perceive age, Anderson Cooper aside)
Something like "drink two sodas per year" is insignificant compared to those three factors. Take someone who is half Hawaiian, uses hats/sunscreen most of their life, and dyes away the gray hair they are probably going to look pretty young in their 60s even if they chug three sodas a day and have empty cardboard pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling.
I am pretty active. But there are some things I won't give up. I love my coffee and diet soda. I do eat fast food now and then and once in a while, a snack size bag of Cheetos(damn how I love those things). And I have a small dessert almost every day.
Took me a lot of years to figure out deprivation leads to overindulgence. It has to be a lifestyle you can live with forever. Not a temporary prison sentence for bad behavior! Some people can do the deprivation for life thing and more power to them. I can't. I just want things even more if I can't have them.
I am who I am and I have never been a beauty queen. I have great eyes and legs and a great personality. If that's not enough, I'm OK with that. Growing up ugly taught me humility. I am old enough to accept myself. I'm not perfect and that's quite all right!
A healthy lifestyle and helathy diet will go a long way towards being HEALTHY during life, but doens't guarantee you won't die early or look old before your time.
My health hasn't been good since birth. i ad lots of medical issues as a child, fortunately none life threatening.
My healthiest years were late teens, early 20s. But then it took a turn and has been downhill since. I'm 53 now.
I have had twenty-one surgeries since age 28. In the last 2 years alone I've had 3 major invasive surgeries, and need another this year.
I am considered disabled by the Federal Government. I haven't worked in a while, but am looking to go back and have decided this time to work with an agency that works specifically with the disabled.
Meds I started in 2004 caused me to gain weight as they decrease metabolism and increase appetite.
I turned diabetic last year. Diabetes can be a horrible disease, and I vowed it won't destroy me. I radically changed my diet and lost 36 pounds in two months. I followed a fairly healthy well balanced diet, but saw drastic need for improvement once I understood dietetics {?} better. Having lost the weight, and more to go, I will look aged as saggy/draggy skin will take the place of plump firm skin. I will APPEAR older quicker.
i used to drink and smoke, but quit drinking about 18 years ago and quit smoking 11 years ago.Hardest thing, to quit smoking! Does this mean I will die early for having done those things, or later for having quit? Neither may matter in the end. Quitting is also supposed to mean I'll look younger for longer.
I really don't see much difference in my appearance form 2005 to now, except graying. I was bald a long time ago. DOn't see much difference from age 33 to now except the added weight and graying was already balding then too,
I have body aches, arthritis and degenerating spine, all of which on some days make me feel older than I am. Spinal fusion here I come! I've already had some of my neck fused.
I THINK I LOOK DARN GOOD FOR my age!
I already died once due to severe anaphylactic shock resulting in clinical death of 7 minutes, 40 seconds and 4 shocks to restart my heart. They were going to give up if the 4th hadn't worked. Fortunately I was at work, and the EMTs were very close when My manager immediately called 911 when he saw me drop, and they already knew I had walking pneumonia and wasn't feeling well. I would have died alone at home instead if I had stayed home from work. There was no warning to me, apparently I just dropped when my heart stopped. I am ALREADY living on "borrowed time"...20 years in the making. Not afraid to die again.
I may look good, but how my body feels is another matter!
I am pretty active. But there are some things I won't give up. I love my coffee and diet soda. I do eat fast food now and then and once in a while, a snack size bag of Cheetos(damn how I love those things). And I have a small dessert almost every day.
Took me a lot of years to figure out deprivation leads to overindulgence. It has to be a lifestyle you can live with forever. Not a temporary prison sentence for bad behavior! Some people can do the deprivation for life thing and more power to them. I can't. I just want things even more if I can't have them.
I am who I am and I have never been a beauty queen. I have great eyes and legs and a great personality. If that's not enough, I'm OK with that. Growing up ugly taught me humility. I am old enough to accept myself. I'm not perfect and that's quite all right!
Love this post. I grew up ugly, too, and I suspect we take aging easier than those who were able to get some doors to open for them because of beauty. Doesn't mean, now, that the beautiful people didn't also have brains or talents, but people do react by nature more favorably to attractiveness, and I wonder if people who relied on that, unconsciously or not, have a more difficult time with its loss.
I think the biggest factors in looking young are:
1. Genetics
2. Stay out of the sun
3. Hair color (sounds shallow but white hair makes people perceive age, Anderson Cooper aside)
Something like "drink two sodas per year" is insignificant compared to those three factors. Take someone who is half Hawaiian, uses hats/sunscreen most of their life, and dyes away the gray hair they are probably going to look pretty young in their 60s even if they chug three sodas a day and have empty cardboard pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling.
I like this. Genetics--for instance, my grandmother lived to be in her 90s and so did her kids. I don't think any of them looked particularly young for their age but they did live long lives. None of them worked out but the one who kept up with his walking into his old age lived the longest and was active until nearly age 100 when he suffered a fatal fall.
I knew someone who looked young and she had a disease that meant she could never go out in the sun--not in her entire life. Even as a child she had to wear sun hats and sun screen if she did go outside. As a result she had beautiful skin and looked young.
Hair color-YES. A few years ago I was with my cousin ("the pretty one") and she had let her hair go gray. The waitress asked me what my MOTHER would like to order! I don't overdo it with hair but I use a natural hair coloring product--when the white roots start to come in, I start to look old for my age.
Another cousin, daughter of one of the aforementioned people who lived in to their 90s, is now 82 and looks a lot younger. Not so much her skin, but her body looks young because she takes exercise classes and her hair is professionally done (she has the money to go to expensive salons and I have seldom seen such a flattering hairstyle and color on an older woman.)
I'm not into looking fake like a movie star but I'd rather not resemble some of the pictures I'm seen of elderly family members. Little old ladies in frumpy house dresses, hair gone gray, wearing those clumpy black lace up shoes. It seemed as though they all looked the same. These days we can choose to express ourselves more and if we choose to color our hair or go to exercise class, or dress in a way that suits our personality, we can do it. (We can also choose to go frumpy, lol. It's up to the individual.)
If I didn't bust my @ss to keep to a respectful weight and wear clothing that helps the positive I would be the spittin image of my grandmother on my father's side.
5-2, 165 pds, there abouts, frumpy dress, no waist line forever, thick stockings, black lace up shoes and not the dominatrix kind, round black glasses, no makeup. It in some ways was so much easier for women to age. They aged and were expected to age into a picture perfect ideal of a grandmamma.
That being said, I wish I would have had the chance to sit on that ample lap and know I was not messing up her makeup when I had a crying spell only a gran can fix. Sigh!
My grandfather on the other hand was tall and about as thin as a tree branch. Men!
If I didn't bust my @ss to keep to a respectful weight and wear clothing that helps the positive I would be the spittin image of my grandmother on my father's side.
5-2, 165 pds, there abouts, frumpy dress, no waist line forever, thick stockings, black lace up shoes and not the dominatrix kind, round black glasses, no makeup. It in some ways was so much easier for women to age. They aged and were expected to age into a picture perfect ideal of a grandmamma.
!
TMKSarah, I enjoyed your insight about how expectations and realities of how older women look has changed for many people.
And clothing and hair styles have vastly improved for many older people, resulting in a more youthful look for many.
I just wonder how everyone seems to have people constantly telling them "Oh you look so much younger than you are!" How do these conversations go, typically? Who starts them? Do strangers just come up and ask your age, and when you tell them, they go on about how much younger than you look?
Do people and their friends talk about this on a regular basis?
When I get compliments from friends and acquaintances, it's usually that I look nice or my hair looks nice or they like my outfit. Not that I look young.
I'm 61. And to myself, I look quite a bit younger than 61. But I haven't had conversations with others about whether I look 61 or not, so who knows how old or young I look.
I just wonder how everyone seems to have people constantly telling them "Oh you look so much younger than you are!" How do these conversations go, typically? Who starts them? Do strangers just come up and ask your age, and when you tell them, they go on about how much younger than you look?
Do people and their friends talk about this on a regular basis?
When I get compliments from friends and acquaintances, it's usually that I look nice or my hair looks nice or they like my outfit. Not that I look young.
I'm 61. And to myself, I look quite a bit younger than 61. But I haven't had conversations with others about whether I look 61 or not, so who knows how old or young I look.
For me, it happened a lot last year when I told people I was retiring, which raises the question where I worked "how many years do you have?" Don't know if people were just being polite, but that's how the conversation occurred.
AWWWW! Thanks! I even have a leg picture posted. Honestly, I should take it down. I am too old to advertise!!!!
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