Be in the Photo: A Midlife Body Confidence Practice for Summer

I noticed a three-year stretch where I’m barely in family photos, even though I was there., and I don’t want that for you. In this episode, I share 3 practices to shift away from chasing "flattering" and choosing presence instead, so you can be visible in midlife and stop letting pictures decide how you feel about your body.

I talk about:

• Why the point of a picture is the moment, not your good side
• Reframing photos as time capsules rather than auditions
• How to stop letting selfie culture (and the 99 deleted shots) shape how you see yourself
• The reframe I borrowed from a recent guest that I cannot stop thinking about: visibility is generosity
• Why staying in the picture is one of the most powerful things you can do for the women coming up behind yo

I’m sure you have a friend who needs to hear this, so I’d love if you’d share this episode with them! And if this episode helps you keep a photo instead of deleting it, I would love to hear that too. You can always send me fan mail through the podcast website.

This summer, your only assignment is to be in the photo. You don't have to love it. You don't have to feel beautiful in it. You just have to be in it. The moment matters. The world needs more pictures of midlife women living in their bodies.

If this episode resonates and you want real support around body image before summer hits, there are still a couple of spots left in my six-week Midlife Body Image Lab if you're listening before May 16th. 

Related Episodes You'll Love:

• #182: Visibility as Generosity, Rethinking Photos, Aging and Confidence with Kristen Vallejo
• #190: Menopause and Body Image: How to Feel Like Yourself Again

➡️ Join The Midlife Body Image Lab here: https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/bodyimagelab 

📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause is out now!  Order your copy today and start thriving in midlife.

Looking for more about midlife,  menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links

Transcript

Welcome To The Midlife Feast

Jenn Salib Huber 0:49

Welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast that helps you make sense of your body, your health, and menopause in the messy middle of midlife. I'm Dr. Jen Salib Huber, intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor, and author of Eat to Thrive During Menopause. Around here, we don't see midlife and menopause as problems to solve, but as invitations to live with more freedom, trust, and joy. Each week you'll hear real conversations and practical strategies to help you feel like yourself again, eat without guilt, and turn midlife from a season of survival into a season of thriving. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dig in. The other week, I was looking for a picture of my kids at a certain age. And as I was scrolling back through old photos, I noticed that there's a stretch of about three years where I'm barely in any of them. Or when I am, I'm only showing my head or I'm hiding behind a kid. But I was at every birthday, every dinner, every beach day, every milestone. I was the one organizing most of them. But I was also just the one holding the camera, saying, oh no, not today. I look terrible, or suggesting that we take another photo without me. If you've done a version of this or do a version of this, you already know that the photos that you didn't take of yourself might be the ones that you wish you had. So as we head into summer in the Northern Hemisphere at least, I know there's lots of listeners in Australia and New Zealand, and the season of graduations and celebrations and parties and bathing suits and all this stuff arrive. I want to give you a few things to think about to help you be in the photos this summer. This isn't a how to pose and capture your good angle, but more like a permission slip to show up in the body that you have today. So the first strategy is to remember what a photo is actually for. The point of a picture isn't to capture your good side. The point of a picture is to capture the moment because pictures are like time capsules. They're not auditions. When you look back at old family albums or pictures of your kids when they were young, or pictures of yourself when you're young, you're not looking at who was most attractive, who looked the best. You're looking at who was there. You're remembering how small your kids were. You're marveling at maybe a sibling and what they look like now compared to them, and you're noticing who's no longer there, who you're missing, the people that you wish were in the picture. So the people who want you in their photos, they don't care whether it's a flattering photo. They just want you in the picture. And that is important, I think. And I know that it's hard. I'm not saying it's easy, but remembering the point of a picture, I think, can help center us before we get yanked out of our body into judgment about what it looks like. The second strategy is to stop letting selfie culture get in the way of being in the picture. So we have all been trained to take 100 pictures, delete the 99 that we don't like, sharpen, edit, filter, whatever. And then we look at the one picture that we kept and we say, this is the real picture. This is what I really look like. But the deleted 99 are also you. The bad angle? Yep, also you. The candid one where you're laughing with a friend and your stomach is rolled over your waistband, yep, also you. Because our bodies will look different depending on lighting, posture, time of day, what we've eaten, when we've eaten, what we're wearing, where the camera is, background. None of these pictures are more real than the other. It's just we've been trained to only like the ones where we like what we look like. So here's a little practice for you to try on. And it's gonna be hard, but it's worth doing. The next time that somebody sends you a group photo and you're starting to cringe before you even look at it, I want you to look at it and I don't want you to delete it. I don't want you to crop yourself out. I just want you to look at it for a few seconds. Maybe notice the thoughts and the feelings that come up, but then put the phone down and go about your day. The more we practice not reacting, and the more that we practice seeing ourselves in photos without needing to like them or love them, um, the less power any single image can have over you. We just came back from the midlife retreat in Greece, and there were hundreds of pictures taken. I don't love every one of them, but I'm glad that I'm in them. And I know that that is the point of the picture. And so if I come across a picture and I'm like, oh, that's a weird angle, I just move on. So that's a practice. I'm not saying that's easy, but it is a practice that is worth it. And the third one comes from a guest this season. Ever since Kristen Vallejo was on the podcast and was talking about visibility is generosity. I have not been able to get this out of my head. And I've had so many people reach out and say how powerful this was. And I've kind of been thinking about why, and I think it can might help you be in the picture. Visibility is generosity because when you stay in the picture, yes, you're giving your kids a photo of their mother, you're giving your friends evidence that the trip happened. You give your future self proof that you were there, and you give every younger woman watching a different script about what aging is quote supposed to look like. Women in midlife have been taught to step out of the frame, to get out of the way. We're told, you know, wear darker colors, don't wear large prints or small prints. I can never remember. Make sure that your swimsuit is, you know, flattering, etc. But when you refuse and push back on that and stay visible in the body that you have today, you're showing the women 10 years behind you, 20 years behind you, 30 years behind you, that a midlife body is something to live in out loud, in the picture. When we hide from the camera because our bodies have changed, we're inadvertently teaching the next generation that this is what you do when your body changes. And I don't know about you, but that is not the legacy that I want to leave. So your only assignment for this summer, you don't have to like every photo, you don't have to love every photo, you don't even have to feel beautiful in every photo. You don't have to learn the newest pose, you just have to be in them. Be in the photo at the wedding, be in the photo at the beach, be in the photo at the dinner table, be in the photo in the dress that you weren't sure about, but you like anyway. Be in the photo because you were there. The moment matters and the world needs more pictures of women in midlife living in their bodies. I'm sure you have a friend who needs to hear this, so I'd love if you'd share this episode with her. And if this episode helps you keep a photo instead of deleting it, I would love to hear that too. And you can always send me fan mail through the podcast website, and I love hearing when these episodes resonate with you. And if you're listening to this in the week of May 11th before May 16th, and you think, oh, I really want some support with this before summer, there are still a couple of spots left in my six-week body image lab. The link is in the show notes, and if you're listening to this after May 16th, there will be a link for the wait list. Thanks for tuning in. I can't wait to see the photos. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Midlife Feast. If you're ready to take the next step towards thriving in midlife, head to menopausenutritionist.ca to learn more about my one-to-one and group coaching programs, free resources, and where to get your copy of Eat to Thrive during menopause. And if you've loved today's conversation and found it helpful, please share it with a friend who needs to hear this and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps so many more people just like you find their way to food freedom and midlife confidence. Until next time, remember midlife is not the end of the story, it's the feast. Let's savor it together.