The Gen-X Bod
A celebration and a confession
I just reached the one-year anniversary of my first-ever attempts at strength training. Yes, me: the famously exercise-averse one. The one who might or might not have cheated her way through high school gym class by “borrowing” and “altering” the teacher’s gradebook. (You could do that, back in the day, when gradebooks were literal books marked up in pencil.) That woman has actually completed 12 full months of weightlifting activity. Four days a week. Voluntarily.
That’s the good news. The bad news? I still don’t like the way I look.
I know what you’re thinking: It’s not about looks, it’s about health! It’s not about losing weight, it’s about gaining strength! And you’re right, of course. I do feel better, and stronger. Here’s the thing, though: I came of age in the 1980s. And as any ’80s teen would have told you, the point of exercise is to get skinny. The skinnier, the better. So it’s been hard to wrap my brain around this new-and-improved way of thinking.
But wrap it I must. All of us 1980s teens are now 2020s fifty-somethings, after all, bombarded by daily advice about the perils of menopausal hormone depletion, bone-density loss, and muscle atrophy. Use it or lose it, we’re told. I’m trying my best. Sadly, however, I can’t seem to get past the fact that all this weightlifting has not made me…well, skinny. If anything, it’s made me larger. And if there’s one thing us short girls do not want, it’s a silhouette that invites the descriptor “stocky.”
Still, it’s long past time to leave the leg warmer/Swatch watch/heroin chic perspective behind. I need to start thinking about my body in a different way. A kinder way. We all do. So the next time we start berating ourselves for not looking like a parade of pouty supermodels in a George Michael video, we need to “stop, drop, and roll,” crawl under our desks (to stay safe from the atomic bomb, duh), and breathe in those Aqua Net fumes ’till it hurts. This won’t be easy, but it is necessary. And, as usual, there’s no one to save us but us.
Fellow Gen-Xers, repeat after me: My body is a miraculous, ever-evolving machine. It filters out toxins, produces its own electrical current, regulates its own temperature, and can differentiate up to one trillion (yes, trillion) smells.
In my case, my eyes might not be the color I would have chosen, and they’re requiring a bit more hardware these days to function properly. But they still allow me to see the most extraordinary things: Snow falling in the moonlight. Tiny crabs scuttling along the beach. Peanut butter on toast. The way my husband’s face crinkles in delight when he watches his favorite movie.
My skin might be a bit saggier than it used to be, but it still allows me to luxuriate in the feel of silk sheets. And someone else’s hand. And dog fur.
My feet suffer from a freakish amount of painful ailments. But somehow, they still manage to hold me up just fine. And they contain one-quarter of all the bones in my body: 52 in total. So I should probably appreciate them more often.
My belly is not flat or sculpted. It does not look like a weightlifter’s belly. It looks, instead, like the belly of a person who has incubated two babies and then spent the next 18-20 years in a whirlwind of ceaseless caretaking activity. And that is okay.
I do wish I had a few extra inches of height. Or a miracle cure for cellulite. (Seriously: When is modern science going to solve that one?) On the plus side, though, I always have plenty of legroom on an airplane, and plenty of (ahem) padding for that airplane seat.
No, this body will never be called upon to walk a runway. But it’s walked pretty much everywhere else. Good places, bad places, and places that have made my head spin. It’s survived a spinal tumor, raised two awesome human beings, hiked the Napali Coast and the green cliffs of Ireland, helped me care for sick loved ones, and written a dozen books. It’s brought me pleasure—and yes, it’s brought me pain. Such is the teeter-totter of the human condition.
Our bodies are miraculous, ever-evolving machines. Once and for all, let’s help each other ditch the unrealistic and unhealthy “beauty standards” set by a bunch of greedy suits in corporate America. It’s time, instead, to concentrate on what matters. Seeing, hearing, touching, feeling. Taking it all in, wrinkle by precious wrinkle, into the next remarkable span of this one, mysterious life.
In other words, nobody puts Baby in a corner. Be kind, rewind. And, thank heavens, there’s no more need to wonder “where’s the beef?” Ta da: I found the beef. It’s in my newly pumped-up gluteus maximus. And if I’m smart, that’s exactly where it’s going to stay.
Trisha Blanchet is the author of the forthcoming Murder Like Magic (Crooked Lane, August 2026) and The Neath Trilogy: Herrick’s End, Herrick’s Lie, and Herrick’s Key. She’s also the host of A Mighty Blaze Podcast and the founder of Operation Delta Dog: Service Dogs for Veterans.
Well said! And keep lifting those weights -- for the both of us! ;) I swear I'll do it one day....
Amen! (And: damn you for getting the jingle from "Get in Shape, Girl!" stuck in my head.)