Quote Originally Posted by tiki1682 View Post
Lisa,
Thanks for the positive input. I think that I do have a poor perception of my body image because I have been exposed to fashion media most of my life. Probably doesn't help that I am working in the industry too where people are really thin and really tall. I will keep up at it. Just out of curiosity, do you ever feel like mainstream fashion companies that make clothes try to make people fit into them by being smaller than an average human?
I grew up in the 1950's-70's and there was plenty of fashion media issues then too. For example, girls were made to feel "unclean" about their menstrual cycles, and we were urged by society to spray our private parts with nasty chemical deodorants, refrain from physical activities and flush ourselves out with perfumed douches to somehow become "pure and wholesome" again. Crazy!
I have a Woman's Day magazine from the 1960's that describes how you should put a lighter shade of "leg makeup" on the fronts and backs of your legs and a slightly darker shade on the sides of your legs in order to make your legs look thinner. Imagine spending all that time on such nonsense! We'd never have any time for biking!

Most women tend to agree that as we get older, we become more interested in living our lives well and less interested in what others think.
One thing to keep in mind is that the fashion media is not really interested in either our physical or emotional well being, rather they are primarily interested in getting our money.

You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. May you enjoy biking for the rest of your life! (I wish I had not abandoned it for 37 years in between....but hey at least I'm biking again now at 53, and enjoying it even more than i did when I was a kid)