The following is a transcript of this episode. It has been edited for clarity.
Teaser: Ladies, are you ready to get out there and start crushing midlife? If you have any fears about getting older or if you think turning 40, 50, or 60 is going to slow you down in any way, you need to listen to this next conversation. My guest is Mimi Ison a midlife influencer and creator of the Hey Middle Age blog. At age 60, Mimi is out there every day on social media—boxing, dancing, lifting weights, flying on a trapeze, and doing a myriad of other activities that will blow you away. She is a shining example of how you are never too old to move and to challenge your body in exciting new ways, to find activities that light you up, and exceed your own expectations of what you’re capable of. Like the rest of us, she’s been through some messy midlife stuff. So our chat is going to touch on building not just muscle mass, but emotional resilience and personal strength too. I know you’re going to find Mimi as inspirational as I do, so don’t go anywhere.
Welcome to More Beautiful, the podcast for women rewriting the midlife playbook. I’m Maryann LoRusso and I invite you to join me and a guest each week, as we strive for a life that’s more adventurous, more fulfilling, and more beautiful than ever before.
Maryann: My guest today is Mimi Ison, a pro-age blogger, a midlife influencer, and an all-round incredible person. Her brand, Hey Middle Age, is all about crushing age stereotypes and encouraging midlifers to get out there and move, be courageous, try new things, and above all, enjoy life. Mimi, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you here.
Mimi: Hi, Maryann. It’s great to be here.
Maryann: First of all, happy birthday. I know you celebrated a big one recently. Are you still celebrating?
Mimi: I’m not one of those people who celebrates for an entire month. I know there are people who do it. Celebrating is fantastic, of course, but I’m not one of those people. But yes, I turned 60 in June, and it’s a big one. It’s interesting, I kind of think about age in different ways. Obviously I don’t let age stop me from doing what I want to do. But at the same time, the big [birthdays] are a time to reflect on, “What did I do in the past decade?” And I think for me, the biggest revelation is, “Wow, the decades go by so fast.”
Maryann: So true. I have to just say, because our listeners can’t see you, but Mimi looks incredible. She’s glowing. And when we start talking about what she does to look that way, you’re gonna totally get it. Ladies, we know that it’s about more than looks. But just for the record, I had to say that.
Mimi: Of course, it’s more than looks, and we realize a lot of that in midlife. But it is also about looks, you know, because that’s such a big part of our identity. And when things start to change, it affects people, particularly women, in a big way.
Maryann: Thank you for acknowledging that.
Mimi: It’s part of the conversation. I just don’t think that can be denied.
Maryann: Good point. So, Mimi, you’re out there every day on your Instagram, working out with TRX, kettle balls, hula hoops, gravity boots, battle ropes, boxing gloves—I can’t even name them all—or you’re dancing, because you love to dance too. So I think you’re personally responsible for my Amazon wishlist tripling size. So I hope you’re getting a commission from them.
Mimi: Well, I’m not. I will say that our home gym is for our family. So, my husband and my daughter, we’re all pretty active, and we’re pretty fit. So all of those tools, you know, I don’t necessarily use all of them. But yeah, we have a lot of things.
Maryann: Well, you have a lot in your arsenal, and I love that it’s a family affair. Do you have a favorite way to work out? Or are you an equal opportunity exerciser?
Mimi: I do get bored. So I do like to do a lot of different things. I like variety. And obviously, you don’t need to do that for your fitness. I mean, you can really do very basic things. My favorite is boxing. I’ve been taking boxing classes for 10 years, and I started that when I was 50. It was a total fluke, a total accident. It was not for me. I had just come off of 10 years of doing adult ballet…and I got this opportunity to take this free [boxing] class. Someone talked me into doing it. I said, “Absolutely not. I’m not going down there.” I had seen the gym [where the class was held]: It was in a basement, and the windows were all steamed up so you can’t even see. So [at first] I said no.
But you know, sometimes you have that, not even a split second, where you just decide yes. Right? Like, your mind is saying, no, no, no, no, no. And then you have just this little moment—just say yes. And that’s what I did. Then I had to do it. So [I get to the gym and] I don’t know what I’m doing. There are people getting ready and I say, “Hi. I’m new. I’ve never done this. Can you help me?” And of course, everybody helps you: “OK, go get some gloves off the wall, go in that basket, get some wrap, when the coaches get here, this is what’s going to happen. They’ll wrap your hands, blah, blah, blah.” It’s like, wow, OK, this is great so far. But I mean, I was very intimidated. I had never done a burpee before, I didn’t do push-ups. I didn’t do any of these things. The coaches had biceps as big as my head. And I just thought, “What am I doing here?”
But then I met my coach, Leon, who’s a phenomenal coach and person. It was Leon’s gym. I think that he is what made [the experience] different for me. And that could be some advice for people who are trying to find something that they would like to do: The environment is so important. Everyone in that gym made me feel welcome. Every coach knew everybody’s name. You would be put into these groups, they put everyone’s name up on the board, and so everyone would kind of bond with each other because what we were doing was so hard. And, from that first day, Leon, the coaches, everyone knew my name, every time I walked into that place, I couldn’t believe it. I’d never been to a gym like that. So they just embraced everyone. And then they pushed you hard; we worked really hard. The thing that brought me back, because again, it just wasn’t my thing, [was that] there were a lot of women in the ring, doing these combos and hitting and hitting fast and hard. And I thought, “Oh, I want to do that! Yeah, I want to do that.” And that’s what made me come back again and again. And now it’s 10 years later, and I’m still with Leon, and his gyms have changed over the years. He has a couple [of gyms] called Glove Works. It’s in Santa Monica and also in New York City, and his business is growing. So I’m very loyal when it comes to these kinds of things, and I can say he’s a person who changed my life.
Maryann: Wow, that’s incredible. Do you think there’s another reason why so many women were in there, ready to hit things?
Mimi: I don’t know if you remember at the time, you know, this was years ago, boxing sort of became a thing. I think was happening a lot in New York, there were models and celebrities who were doing these boxing classes. They started to sort of spring up. I feel like a lot of it was in New York City. And so you know, you’d see the press on it. And, I think maybe that’s why. And they really had open arms for women to come into this gym. It wasn’t intimidating in that way where you didn’t feel like you could belong there. I don’t know if they purposely at the time, years ago, targeted women. They certainly do now, at the current gym, which is a much bigger, different space. On the outside wall is an enormous mural—I can’t even tell you how high,50 feet high or something—and it’s a woman. It’s a woman with gloves.
Maryann: That’s very cool.
Mimi: Very empowering. So, Mimi, you are in great shape. There’s no denying that but like, a lot of middle-aged people, you have experienced your share of turmoil, right? When you were 55, I think your mom passed away?
Mimi: Yeah.
Maryann: And you said you found yourself with a herniated disc and you had insomnia and you left your job? What got you through this tough time and how did you go from that stage of your life to becoming a blogger and influencer? What’s that journey like?
Mimi: Well, it was completely unknown. I think a lot of women feel like—not just women, but people in general—feel like they need to kind of understand all the steps to get from one place to another. And so me sitting here with you, Maryann, was not on the page at all. This is one of the really amazing surprises of all of it. I would say, you know, 55 was my MIND A DEER really. My mom had passed away, I had a lot of [physical] pain, my daughter had graduated from high school, and I was just really stressed from my job, and I left it. I have a spouse who can support us. So I’m lucky in that way that I was able to do that and leave my job without a plan. Because I had no plan, I was just feeling lousy from the physical to the emotional and mental and all of that. So I just had to stop and take care of myself. I don’t think that’s unique. I think a lot of women in this age range, do feel like they need to stop, take a breath, put themselves first, raise them raise themselves up on that priority list because we don’t do that. It’s very common, [because] we’re taking care of everybody else. So I just stopped, it took care of myself. I started cooking at home. I started walking. I started to exercise regularly because what I was doing prior to that was just kind of little, twice a week or something. [I was] thinking, “I can check that off, got that done for the week.” My understanding is that’s really not enough that you need to be moving through the day and things like that. The grief part of it just always stays with you. That’s just always there. And it just manifests in these sort of surprising, unexpected ways. And that’s still happening—it’s all still happening. But I feel like, you start to do a few little things, you start to feel a little better, you do a little bit more of it start to feel a little bit better. You know, it just kind of layers on. The blogging thing [came about because] I was really starting to look into all things middle age for myself. Actually, one place that it started was my vision, right? So most people are going to need reading glasses in their 40s and 50s.
Maryann: Yep.
Mimi: It just annoyed me that I had to pull my glasses out all the time, every time I looked at my phone, or whatever. So I do this thing called monovision, where you have farsighted vision in one eye and nearsighted of vision and the other eye, and you correct that with contact lenses. So I can see—I can read a book, I can read a menu, I can drive, I can do all those things. I don’t have crystal clear vision, but it’s good enough. And I thought, “Oh, well, you know what? None of my friends know about this.” Then I started reading about sarcopenia, you know, when we start to lose muscle mass, I think in our 30s, unless you do something to counter that. And I thought, “Wow, my friends don’t really know about that. I think I’m gonna tell him about that.” And then I started diving into just the whole subject of ageism, which I actually knew very little about, and that was completely eye-opening. And I thought, more people need to know about that. So I thought, okay, I’m not a writer, but I’ll just start writing some of this down and a blog just made sense. You can do it for little to no money and you just have to put some work into it. But it was not easy for me—not from like building it out, because I had someone do that for me—but just the idea of sort of putting myself out there was super scary. [I] had a lot of fear around that. Maryann, you probably know—if you looked up how to start a blog right now, you could find the information and you could probably get one up in a day or two. Well, I took two years. I would take forever to write anything and it was really just hard for me to put myself out there at the time. It’s a little easier now.
Maryann: It’s funny though, the way you’re describing how you came to this project. I think it’s the same for all of us in the midlife space. We all kind of were doing our own investigations and then we wanted to share our discoveries with other people. Exactly the way you describe it is exactly why I started More Beautiful.
Mimi: Yes, yes. And then you decided to do something new and kind of scary and I did something that was kind of new and scary, and now here we are!
Maryann: So when did you decide that Instagram was going to be your main thing because it to me, [your Instagram] just lights up. When I look at your Instagram, it’s just constant inspiration. When did you move from blog to Instagram as your [main platform]?
Mimi: Well, I really thought I was going to put all of my energy into the blog, that’s just sort of what at the time made sense to me. But you know, when you get the name, you find a name that no one else has, and you get your name on all the socials. I did that but didn’t do anything for a year.
Maryann: Very, very common.
Mimi: And I don’t know what made me start posting, but I just thought, let’s just do it. Let’s just try. Let’s see what happens. Who knows? So I started to post regularly. [At first] it was taking, you know, sometimes pulling some things from the blog. It was like quotes, and I didn’t know what I was doing. And I was so worried about what was what was it all going to look like. Looking back now, it’s just so silly, but I just started doing it. Then I started to post exercise and workout Reels [on Instagram], because it just happened to be what I was doing, and it kind of made sense. Then I was really kind of diving into the silver sisters, the gray hair world out there, which is very robust. So I was connecting with a lot of these women. They were doing sort of these fitness challenges every month. So I was kind of in that group for a while. So it’s posting some of those. And then I discovered remixes, which is where you get some, you take somebody else’s Reel, and then you can be side by side with them. And I started to do that. I just thought, oh, let’s just try this. And those were the posts that started to get a lot of engagement, to my surprise. I didn’t really decide it was going to go in this direction. It was sort of decided for me based on what people were reacting to. And then I kept doing some of those. And then one went viral, like crazy viral. And then another one went crazy viral. It’s amazing. Yes. I was getting hundreds of notifications at a time. I thought, “What’s what’s going on?” It was just like this surge, and that happened a few times.
Maryann: Yeah, you hit on something. You really did.
Mimi: Yeah. No strategy, no planning. I don’t have a calendar. I don’t batch videos. I don’t do any of that. It’s just what am I feeling in the moment? Do I have something that might be interesting to show or say? Okay, I’ll do it. And it’s just morphed into that.
Maryann: It’s so cool. You know, Mimi, I’d love to just go back to something you just said: You talked about the fear of putting yourself out there initially, and I know so many women feel that. I know you and I, when we spoke earlier, we talked about how we’re both reading the book On Our Best Behavior. It’s nonfiction, by Elise Loehnen. It touches on this topic, the shame that many women feel when they are putting themselves in the limelight because we’re afraid other women might think we’re full of ourselves. We may think, “Oh, I don’t have a right to be here.” So do you think that’s common? And did you feel that when you were doing this, and how did you overcome that?
Mimi: Well, I think that book is really interesting, because, she basically takes the seven deadly sins and ties them to female behavior. It’s a very convincing argument, right? That women are supposed to be kind of kept in a particular place, in this little box. We have a very heightened awareness about what people are thinking about us and how we’re being judged. And so we hold ourselves back purposely—or not, it’s subconscious in a lot of ways, right? She’s basically saying it’s just there. It’s there and we react, even if you are conscientious of it, it’s very difficult to battle all the influences that are basically in dried concrete under us. I think that’s something that a lot of women in middle age—they come to a revelation or something. Or they feel like something’s missing, or they’re tired of putting themselves last. I’ve been in these sort of discussion groups with middle-aged women since the beginning of COVID, so a few years. My thoughts are just anecdotal, this person here, that person there. What the actual research shows? I don’t know. But it seems like it’s a very common feeling that women either are sort of stuck in some place, and they know something’s not quite right, but maybe they don’t know how to get out of there. Or they want to get out of there, but there are all the things around them telling them no, no, no, stay there. Then, if you’re out in the social world like you and I, and a lot of other people, there’s this whole, cool cohort who are saying, “No, get out there. You need to not care what people think.” Yes, and no, I believe, that seems to sort of slough off a bit as we get older. I used to say that a lot, I don’t care what people think, but that’s not entirely true. Of course, I care what people think, but it’s kind of monumental what happens at this age. It depends on what you do with it, what you’re able to do with it, and what is your environment like? Is it supporting you? Is it not supporting you? It can be really hard for some people, I think, if you’re around others who don’t want you to change, don’t want you to grow.
Maryann: Right? I had a guest on the show once I won’t name names, but we were talking about social media, and they said something like, well, on my social, you won’t see my face because that would be vain. I just remember thinking about that and thinking, wow, that’s a judgment not only on other women but on yourself. Right? It’s like, putting such a limitation on women in general. But that comment stuck in the back of my mind. And I know a lot of women around me—a lot of my good friends—say things like that. [They say things] like, “Oh, I’m not going to be flashy and make videos like all these other people.” It’s really hard sometimes to get past that. Like, I know, for me, I was doing what you said the quotes and the stock photos for so long, and I wasn’t growing on social at all. Then [it was] only this past March that I posted my first video. And it was scary as hell, Mimi, it was terrifying. Now, I’m finding like you are that there is this community of women out there who are very supportive, and you kind of have to just be inspired by the people that are in the arena like Brene Brown says, right? Like, don’t let yourself be judged by people who aren’t even in the game.
Mimi: There’s a lot of that out there. It’s really interesting, because when you see the criticism, a lot of times it’s women criticizing women, and that’s the last thing we need. We’re not each other’s enemies. We’re already fighting against, all the voices telling us to be a certain way, behave a certain way. We don’t need that.
Maryann: We don’t. We need to stick together.
Mimi: We really do. You see a lot of that in the beauty space. There seems to be kind of this belief that—well, we’re moving off the fitness thing a little bit—but here’s my feeling about beauty culture: There’s a spectrum of beauty culture, and on one end of the spectrum is makeup and hair color and you move along. And then maybe there’s Spanx and teeth whitening and hair extensions and the nails, and then you move along a little further then there’s injectables and then… [laughs] So there’s this huge spectrum. This came up a lot when Madonna was at the Grammys, right? [Social media] was going nuts. People were just commenting about all the things around her appearance. I think the common narrative was, “Well, here’s my mom, and she’s aging gracefully. Why can’t she age gracefully?” And there’s a writer who writes about age, so-called “aging gracefully”, and really, in a way, that is—
Maryann: It’s ageist to say that.
Mimi: It’s ageist. It’s problematic because we’re basically saying, “Well, if you do this amount, then it’s okay. It’s acceptable.” It’s what we expect, right? And if you go further and further along the spectrum, then suddenly you’re a problem. And then we’re gonna criticize you, but we’re all on the spectrum. Right?
Maryann: Right. Unless you wake up in the morning and don’t even brush your hair. You’re on that spectrum.
Mimi: Exactly. You’re on that spectrum. I find hair color in particular is really interesting to me because the fact that it’s just a given, right? I don’t color my hair, but years ago when I did, it was just a given. It’s like, “Oh, well I gotta fix that, right?” I’m going to color my hair, right? It’s so normalized that to NOT color your hair is not normal. Like, that’s very skewed.
Maryann: And that’s changing so fast. I think since COVID, it’s been changing. Yeah, no, I agree more.
Mimi: Just the fact that that’s the normal thing to do—just because that’s what women have been doing for so long? It’s just a very, I don’t know, it just doesn’t make sense.
Maryann: Yeah. Well, I think our exposure to so many different types of people in so many different types of aging has just increased since social media, whereas our moms had three TV channels, and all the media was selected by men [and] created by men. So, things have changed so quickly in the past two decades.
Mimi: It definitely has. I mean, I think obviously, we have the freedom to do what we want. I think what’s problematic, again, is the criticism of what you choose to do—that we’re adding this value judgment to what is acceptable and OK, and what is not. We’re sort of all participants in it, to whatever extent
Maryann: Yeah. Well, as I said on somebody else’s podcast, I was at that Grammy Awards, my husband I had the honor of being in the audience.
Mimi: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You mentioned that.
Maryann: And she was well accepted Madonna. She got a standing ovation. And I think so many people still love her and
Mimi: I would have stood up for her! Oh, for sure.
Maryann: Madonna can do whatever she wants to do. And I think she can.
Mimi: Yeah, she can and she will, and she will not care.
Maryann: She doesn’t care. She never cared. Never. Mimi, you’ve said, that it’s so important to embrace the joy of being a beginner, and I love that. And you’ve led by example, with all the activities that you tried for the first time during midlife. Why do you think so many women resist trying something new? Again, we’re going back to what we said earlier. But is it also the fear of failure? And does that get worse as you get older? Is there more at stake in midlife? And how do we get past that?
Mimi: No, I think there’s less at stake. I think the failure piece has been with us for so long, that we just can’t get out of it. So if you were a high achieving kid, if you needed to get the grades and get into the [right] college and get the right job, and blah, blah, blah, and then you’re gonna go do something that you’re going to be lousy at? I think some people have a really hard time with that. Which, to me is nonsensical, because the point of being a beginner is to not know how to do the thing. The point is, if you’re a beginner, you’re not going to be good at it. That’s the freedom that you have. To me, it’s true. Because you walk in, and it’s like, oh, I’m going to try this class, I’m going to try this thing, whatever it is. The expectations are very low. So what better time to do the thing? I mean, I guess, people are afraid of the judgment. You’re gonna do that?! I don’t know. I’ve never had a problem with that. I just, I don’t know. I don’t know. I feel like I’ve done a lot of things late. I had done an internship—an unpaid internship—when I was 42 years old.
Maryann: Yeah, I love that!
Mimi: And the internship was for a casting office. My daughter was in school the full day and I thought, “OK, I’m going look for something to do.” I thought that was like a direction I wanted to explore. [So I decided to] get into an office, see what it’s like. And so I did that for a little while. The jewelry company came after that. I got a job as a design assistant. I think I was paid [about] $10 an hour. I was 46 years old. I didn’t care. I sat at my desk, I kept my ears open. I was very observant, and then within a year, I was the design manager. Then I moved up really quickly after that and ended up being the creative director and I was there for 10 years.
Maryann: You know, midlife internships are becoming so popular I love that.
Mimi: Really?
Maryann: Yes. You know, Chip Conley?
Mimi: Yeah.
Maryann: He talks about that being so important now, intergenerational mentorships and I think that’s a thing now.
Mimi: I mean, why not? Really, again? All you’re going to do is learn something, or be exposed to something, or just understand if it’s for you or not.
Maryann: Yeah. You know, I think you know what it is? I think a lot of people in our generation were also raised with a lot of praise. Our parents didn’t adapt that mentality of parenting like we did, where it was like, praise the children’s effort, not the outcome. I think our outcomes were praised a lot more. And so maybe we feel like we’re not producing well—we’re not doing it right, or something like that, you know?
Mimi: Yeah, I totally understand that. And I think that ties back to perfectionism, and all those things. I understand now that there were a lot of opportunities, I passed up a lot of things I could have done when I was younger because I was afraid I wasn’t going to do it well.
Maryann: Me too.
Mimi: Lots of them. And so rather than try and fail—like, oh no, just don’t do it at all. I regret some of those, in some ways.
Maryann: I think we’re all recovering perfectionists. So Mimi, when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, you said you don’t believe in quick fixes where your health and wellness are concerned. So tell us about the approach you do believe in?
Mimi: I believe in prevention, and prevention is hard work. Right? If you want to keep your muscle mass or things like that, it’s hard work. And, I feel like people are looking for the thing. I remember years ago, I was reading about somebody, or a lot of people who were doing yoga, decades ago, and that yoga completely changed their life. 100%. And I thought, “OK, I’ll do yoga.” I want that. I want yoga to completely change my life. It didn’t. I love it. I do it. It’s great. It’s just funny that I sort of thought that was going to be something for me. And I guess it could have been, but it wasn’t [but it’s funny how we spend time] seeking out. You know, the one thing that’s going to change it all. I know for me, that doesn’t work. I listen to a lot of experts in podcasts and things, and I hear this question all the time. “Our listeners just don’t have a lot of time. What’s the one thing they can do? What’s the three things they can eat?” Yeah, sure, can one thing help? Yeah, if you sleep better, that can help a lot of things, right? If you, decide to start walking every day? Yes, I can help a lot of things. I guess I like to say, we’re looking for easy answers. I like easy answers, of course. But I would say that to work on prevention, to try to stay healthy, all these things [there’s not just one simple solution.] The body is super complicated. There’s a lot of touchpoints to take care of. It’s not easy. So I would say expect it and accept it. And that’s a big learning I have from my coach from Boxey. He was sort of the first one—his mantra is basically get comfortable with being uncomfortable. That was really helpful for me because I just had never thought of things that way, I was always looking for comfort. I was the comfort girl. I always carried the big purse because I had everything in the purse. I never wanted dental floss or Kleenex or, or a tampon or, you know—
Maryann: You had the Mary Poppins bag.
Mimi: I had it all. I never wanted to be uncomfortable. And he just said, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Lean into the discomfort and see what comes out of that.”
Maryann: You’re making me think of my car. My husband, I just had an argument because I have everything in my car that I could possibly need. Like from band aids, Kleenex, you know,
Mimi: Yes!
Maryann: And he has nothing, so I hate taking his car because if I’m stuck and I need something, there’s nothing in there.
Mimi: I mean, I think that comes kind of comes back to the idea that we have control over everything. And obviously, we do not, we find that out, especially in midlife. You find that, it’s very clear we do not have control over everything. I think maybe part of when we can kind of loosen up and let some things go. And at least for me, that’s sort of been the direction I’ve been going in. It’s super helpful.
Maryann: Yeah, I was also thinking of “One Fine Day” starring Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney, where she has that big mom bag. I don’t know if you saw that movie? She has this gigantic bag, and she can make a costume for her kid (A Halloween costume) out of what’s in the bag. So I’m picturing you now with that bag.
Mimi: Well, I mean, I carry a very small bag these days. But if you think about it, if you had a child, if you had a baby, you would carry this gargantuan bag. You know, it’s like, why would you carry a big bag for yourself?
Maryann: Back to what you were saying, I agree. So I’m not going to ask you what are your top two tips or three tips? I think you’re right. I think it’s very complicated. Everybody’s body is different. You have to start somewhere, right? But what I’m going to ask you is, as our bodies change in midlife, and they change very drastically, especially as our hormones shift as we go through menopause—those old workouts that we used to love and that used to get us results may no longer be doing anything for us. So, Mimi, my question is, how do we avoid becoming frustrated? And accept, as you said, the fact that things are changing, we need to try new things, mix it up? And how do we have the patience and the courage to find a new formula that works for us during midlife?
Mimi: I just think so much of midlife is trial and error. That’s why the idea that there’s one answer out there, that doesn’t work for me, because like you said, if things are changing, then you got to change along with it or be willing to try. And I think that’s a big part of it is trial and error. And then you got to do the work for yourself. I know we love convenience, and we love things being served up to us. We love, you know, having someone tell us the steps. And that may work for some people if you find the right person or right expert or right instructor, trainer, coach, whoever, who can do that for you. Awesome. That’s great. But I think it’s just more complicated than that. You know, the hormone thing is just—everybody is going through perimenopause and menopause in a different way. It’s so extreme, you hear these stories of women who go through really, really debilitating issues.
Maryann: Right.
Mimi: It’s super complicated.
Maryann: You have to be your own researcher, in so many ways.
Mimi: You do and that’s so hard, because who do you listen to? Who do you believe? One person saying something, someone saying the complete opposite? So I think that’s part of it is finding resources that work for you. My resources tend to be you know, MDs, doctors, researchers, with maybe a little sprinkle of woo-woo.
Maryann: You need that little sprinkle. A little magic.
Mimi: Yeah. I think it’s really hard. You know, we have so much information, which is great, but how do you parse it out? How do you understand what’s legit? And what’s not? That’s why I do not get into anything about food or diet. I don’t know anything about it. I know what I like, what works for me, I think there are some general beliefs that are true. But it’s just too complicated. It’s very confusing. Some will say, some of the information that [causes] confusion is purposeful, that the big industries want us to be confused.
Maryann: It’s possible.
Mimi: So yeah, I think it’s really difficult.
Maryann: Mimi, when I turned 50, I was looking for exercise tips. I could just figure out how do I do this differently now? How do I come to this from a different place? And I could not find that information or I found very contradictory information. So I did my own research for weeks and wrote a story about it because I needed to figure out [for example] when do you do HIIT? When and how much cardio? Some people say no cardio, some people say moderate cardio, some people say do HIIT, don’t do HIIT. The one thing thank God everybody agrees on is strength training, which is so imperative right now.
Mimi: I do see a lot of coaches and fitness experts that I really respect saying, and they’re targeting this to women, don’t do only cardio, please. Yes, do your cardio but please do resistance or strength training. And you will get so much out of that. Yes, that would be something 100% I think people need to do. We need to maintain our muscle. And you know what? It feels damn good to be strong.
Maryann: It does. I’m not as strong as you, but girl, I’m working on it, you’re inspiring me every day.
Mimi: I’m always working on it. I mean, that’s the thing, too. There’s no one and done. It’s something that you’re always, always doing. It’s just got to be part of your life, somehow, someway, however you can do it. I think that’s why things like New Year’s resolutions, or if you’re trying to get into shape for a reunion or a wedding or something, and then you’re done? No, you’re not, you’re not done. It shouldn’t be ever done like that. You’re never done. But you know, if you look at it that way, I can see why you might do something for a while, and then drop it. We know that New Year’s resolutions, basically go down the drain by February, most of them.
Maryann: Yeah, that’s why I never make them.
Mimi: I don’t either, and I think a big part of that is because they’re too big. My feeling, my philosophy is that if you want to make changes, it takes baby steps. Now, if I had learned that I had some kind of disease, and overnight, I needed to change, this, this, this 100%, I would do that. But overall, if I would need to try to change something, it’s usually just a little bit at a time until you can have it become part of your life, a habit that you you come to again, and again, like anything else There’s this old saying, little by little, a little becomes a lot. That 1% idea, atomic habits and all that right, improve 1% a day, and then by the end of the year, you will just, you know, be this phenomenal, magnificent person. I think for me, that’s what works: little by little.
Maryann: Okay, I’m not going to ask you for your top three, health and fitness, but I am going to ask you if you could give our listeners out there three tips for staying positive and honoring and loving the body they’re in right now, no matter where they are in their health and fitness journey. And if they have little health and fitness benefits, those tips, so be it.
Mimi: OK, so they may not be really specific about what to do, because again, I’m not an expert, I’m not a coach or trainer. I really think that again, you have to sort of [use] trial and error, you got to find some things, you need to figure it out. I would just say—the little-by-little piece of it, I think is really important. My coaches say, “brick by brick.” You’re building whenever you’re doing brick by brick. So to me that comes back to patience. I think a lot of exercise and working out and things like that, I think what can disappoint people is that they don’t see the results. It takes so much time to see any results. So I think that just comes back to patience and having patience for yourself, and you just really have to look at the long game. I saw a quote recently, [that said] the point of the game is to stay in the game. So you want to stay in the game. I would say, to be really honest with yourself. This would come back to excuses often. I would say really dig deeper into why you can’t do something. It’s not just a matter of, well, I just can’t do that. What’s stopping you, if it’s something you really want to do? Like really have an honest conversation, because I do feel like if you really want to do something, there’s a way and it might not be exactly the way that you envisioned it. Maybe you have to be adaptable and flexible. Maybe you alter that a little bit. Maybe it’s not what you know you did when you were 25. It’s not going to be the same way. That’s just being realistic. I’ve talked about this two-column exercise: In the left column, you write down what you want to do, and then on the right side, you write down all the ways to get there. But you know, you don’t get to write all the ways you can’t. You only get to write down the ways you CAN. If it’s about time, because time is a big part of why people can’t seem to be able to do something they want to do—if you really want to do it, you’ve got to find the time. OK, well, how do you find the time? Well, you need to prioritize it somehow. Well, how do you do that? Maybe you need to ask for help. Maybe you’re the kind of person who never asked for help. You need to ask for help. Maybe you need to let your kids do something on their own. Maybe it’s time to do that. So you can carve out that piece for yourself. So I think it’s just that honest conversation is really important. Because you’re right, if there’s a will, there’s a way usually. I just think it’s so easy to put it off until tomorrow, put it off until tomorrow. But hey, listen, we’re all going to end up in the same place, our time is finite. At some point, you just don’t want to get to that point where you think, oh, jeez, I wish I had started that, or I wish I had done that. We know like diseases and things, happen over many years, over a lot of time. It’s that old Hemingway line, “gradually than suddenly,” right? You don’t notice, you don’t notice, you don’t notice…then suddenly, you feel this thing, or your tests are coming back in a way that they didn’t a few years prior.
Maryann: Yeah. Also, I just want to point out that if you’re at people out there starting a weight training program for the first time, don’t get frustrated by that scale, because the numbers are actually going to go up first before they go down. Because muscle weighs so much more than fat. So I just want to put that out there because I started lifting weights a few months ago, and at first I was like, “What is happening to me? I’m gaining weight!” You just have to keep that in mind.
Mimi: If you start a weight training journey, and you haven’t done it before, I mean, God, that’s so much fun! Things will change, you don’t really know what’s going to happen. When you suddenly see some muscle definition in some area you didn’t know existed before, it gets awesome and so exciting. My last thing would be, and we talk about this all the time, comparison, comparison, comparison, comparison. It’s so easy to say, “Oh, God, don’t compare yourself to anybody.” It’s hard. It can be really, really hard, but it’s just not helpful. Everybody’s different. You don’t know what somebody’s life on social is really like, and I’ll do a lot of things that I know a lot of people can’t do. But the point of doing it is not for somebody to mimic what I do; the point of doing it is to show that there are possibilities there, regardless of your age.
Maryann: I want to say two things about comparison one, one of my favorite quotes, and I’m blanking on who said it, but the quote is, “Comparison is an act of violence against the self.” I always try to remember that because it’s true, you’re only hurting yourself by doing that. I had somebody who was supposed to come on my show a couple of weeks ago, and she called me before we met, and she was nearly in tears, and she said, “Mary, and I was just on your Instagram, and you have at so much more together than I do and I just feel so intimidated. I don’t think I can add anything valuable to your show. I don’t think I can do this.” And we ended up talking offline for like an hour, and then during that conversation, I was like, “Honey, nobody has it together.” I was just bawling my eyes out yesterday over X, Y, and Z and we’re all just winging this. We’re all trying to figure it out together.
Mimi: That hour could have been a show.
Maryann: I know. She didn’t want to go live. So but I know, so valuable.
Mimi: Yeah. Just talking and being able to relate to what people are going through, that’s so relatable. That’s 100% relatable, because you’re right, who has it all together, really behind the veil?
Maryann: Nobody, and that’s what’s so beautiful about life, I think. We’re all kind of just figuring it out day by day, month, by month, year by year. I do believe midlife is a great time to do all the stuff that you’re talking about—trying new things and being courageous and stepping out of your comfort zone because, like you said, we don’t know how much time we have left. At this point, I like to say you know when the estrogen leaves the building, your courage kind of pours in because… [laughter] I don’t know why! And your people-pleasing tendencies also start going away, which I love, you know?
Mimi: Well, that’s when you start to prioritize yourself. That’s when that happens. And that’s why people say it gets easier to say no. That should just be part of your toolkit, to be able to say no. That’s just like a practice, we’re used to always saying yes. You just have got to try [saying no]. See how exhilarating it feels. Try it again. Try it again. What you just said reminds me of this book called The Upgrade by Louann Brizendine. That’s what she says: Menopause is actually the time when the brain is reshaped. Most people think of it as just nothing but decline, but she’s like, No, no, no, no, this is when you have more power. This is when you have more clarity. This is when, she said, you have laser focus, and that’s why she calls this time “the upgrade”, which I love.
Maryann: Yeah, me too. It’s phenomenal. I love that! Okay, maybe what else are you reading, now? Do you have any other recommendations for books?
Mimi: This summer, I read Outlive by Dr. Peter Attia. He has a very, extremely popular podcast, and he gets he digs in really deep around the research and science and things like that. But he’s basically saying that our current system of health care basically intervenes too late, again, that the diseases take many, many, many years to kind of grow, and then by the time the symptoms start to show, it’s very far into it. So let’s do things to try to identify things much earlier. So we can intervene earlier. That’s kind of his argument. His co-writer, is, I think his name is Bill Gifford. I found this book at the library, it’s called Spring Chicken [by Bill Gifford]. He looks into the history of anti-aging. He goes back, [and describes] all these really interesting stories, going back to the early wellness hacks and things that were done hundreds of years ago. Then he dives into all the things—everything from a caloric restriction to some of the researchers and scientists who are trying to reverse aging. It’s an interesting read.
Maryann: Yeah, the history of the diet and fitness industry is insane. I think you and I were talking about the gyms of our mother’s generation. They had those wiggle machines and you weren’t even breaking a sweat. They weren’t even exercise machines.
Mimi: I don’t think women were allowed to sweat back then.
Maryann: I was watching Mrs. Maisel (the show) and she was in an exercise class, just doing three little legs scissors, and then moving into another position, not even sweating, you know?
Mimi: Yeah. Things really have come a long way.
Maryann: They have, I agree. So Mimi, what are you most excited about going forward? What’s next for you?
Mimi: You know, I guess I’m not a really good planner, because you know, it’s good to be intentional about things, but people have reached out and there are opportunities that come my way, things that I had never, ever expected. So [sometimes it takes] looking and seeing what makes sense and what feels right, and if I want to go in that direction. I have to say, I’ve neglected my blog a little bit. So I’m going to dig back into that a little bit more. And I’m just really open to seeing where things go. This is a little bit off-subject, but I’ve had this sprained ankle for five weeks, so I’ve been focusing on trying to get fully back on my feet. This is another one of those tests of patience.
Maryann: Yeah, we didn’t even talk about your injury recovery. How’s that going? I mean, I see you’re exercising, but you’re just trying to find…
Mimi: …find a way. Yeah, you gotta find a way. I know, this is the kind of thing that takes a lot of time, and if you push it too soon, you’re just going to go backward. So I’m being patient with myself and being careful. What can I do? But you know, we all have stuff. Even in the last probably three months besides a sprained ankle, I had what I believe was a bee sting on my ear lobe. That was horrible. I had a little bout of bronchitis. So, you know, there’s always something
Maryann: And how could you sprain your ankle? What happened?
Mimi: Just walking on the sidewalk.
Maryann: Okay, you’re flying out there on a trapeze and you sprained your ankle walking.
Mimi: Kind of ironic, but I think the concrete was uneven, and my foot literally went to the perfect spot [and caused my] ankle to bend outward, really far, really hard. And yet, if you stumble a little bit, you just sort of walk it off. So I kind of thought, oh, I’ll just walk. I went another half block and I said, “Oh, no, I think this is different.”
Maryann: Well, I hope you feel better soon. I really do. I know that’s not fun.
Mimi: It’s getting there. It’s getting there.
Maryann: Okay, tell everybody out there where they can find you online and see all the great stuff you’re doing?
Mimi: Well, I’m most active on Instagram, at @HeyMiddleAge. I’m also on Threads now [also @HeyMiddleAge]. Then my blog is HeyMiddleAge.com, and that’s where I dive a little bit deeper into different subjects. So if you’re out there, you know, message me or send me an email. That’s the best part of all of this, really—the community and the messages I get. I think one of the best messages I ever received [was from] somebody [who wrote], “I’m 40 and I’m not afraid of getting older now.” Or someone will say, “You know what, I started walking every day.” Or, you know, “I picked up weights for the first time.” Someone once wrote me and said, I signed up for this dance class, and I had not taken a dance class since I was 10 years old. So I get really excited about those. I mean, those messages just make my day. That’s everything.
Maryann: Yeah, you’re making me think I can dance and I have two left feet. So thank you.
Mimi: You could totally dance. You know what people have written me and say, “Oh, I can’t dance.” And I said, “Well, you know what? Dancing feels great and is super joyful. If you really feel like you can’t dance, shut your door, put some headphones on, turn the music up loud, and just dance by yourself.” You will feel fantastic. I guarantee it.
Maryann: I believe that. I do that. I have dance parties by myself in the kitchen. Mimi, it’s such a joy chatting with you again, and thank you for everything you do.
Mimi: Oh my gosh, this is such a great conversation, Maryann. I’m so glad we connected. I love what you’re doing.
Outro: Thank you so much for tuning into More Beautiful. Please visit MoreBeautifulProject.com for show notes and bonus content. And it would mean so much if you could subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening. Together, let’s continue to change the conversation around aging.
