Oh yes,eye job in my 40’s,neck lift in my 50’s,all good and helpful.Tried peels in SF for sun spots-but it will have to be done professionally,too complicated for me.Promised myself nothing until the weight goes away.Try half portions,takes longer but painless.

No…but I do eat a lot of chocolate and love it. No shame !

Yes, a chemical peal that burned like hell but sure did make my face look bright and shiny. Overcoming my fear of needles I then tried botox to remove the wrinkles that looked like the number 11 between my eyes. It worked quite well but for several weeks I could no longer feel nor could I move the muscles in my forehead. Last and worst was the laser hair removal. I will spare you the details as Miss Manners would not approve but all I can say is OUCH and it was only 50% effective. With the exception of continuing to color my gray hair I am happy with what God gave me and no longer choose pain to achieve what others consider beauty. As for Liz Smith the “drinking lots of Margaritas, using a bit of cocaine for fun and games, taking synthetic marijuana just as an experiment, eating lots of fried food, foregoing vegetables, not getting enough sleep, driving too fast and refusing to exercise” honey that worked for you, you look marvalous, seriously!

I’m super lucky to have really good genetics from both parents. Look younger than my age (thanks Mom, Dad!) and feel pretty good in general. Was lucky enough to grow up in a household that was tuned into fitness and health so I never had the need to do anything to lose weight. Can’t complain. Props to all of you who have gone through tough times and are making better things work for you.

At age 54, I have finally lost the divorce/I’m not worthy/let’s eat everything in sight/weight. Why did I struggle with it for so many years? Now, I can wear a normal size and I actually like to try on new clothes. If I want to indulge, I do! My family has been supportive but my friends don’t even say anything (jealous, I understand.) Now, I just worry about everything else in the world, but not my weight.

Until my mid 40’s never had the need to diet. Then I woke up one morning I don’t remember when it was but my metabolism changed. I had gained about 30 lbs in 1 year. I tried the Atkins Diet and that worked really well lost 45 lbs. in 7 mos. then after a year I went off the Atkins diet mostly due to my heritage , italian… I do not want to report what happened after that LOL. What can I say I love to eat. As far as aging I do not try to reverse the inevitable. I am happy with my looks wrinkles and all.

Beauty fades dumb is forever-Judge Judy. What a smart lady she is. My answer is no. I like myself the way I am. Fat and sassy!

I once ate too many carrots and my hands turned a tint of orange!!!

Ah, Los Angeles, the land of Dorian Grey where more and more people have their portraits aging in their plastic surgeon’s closet! As a transplanted New Yorker living in LA, I felt like an unretouched photograph, but proud of it. I looked down my birth nose at the people I knew for having their eyes “done,” their breasts enhanced or their thighs “de-hanced.” I never let an opportunity go by without telling them how ridiculous they were —- how they should age with grace. “Easy for you,” they’d say, “you’re a writer.” “You don’t make a living off your looks.” “You’re happily married.” “You’re younger than we are.” For years I self-righteously continued my crusade against elective surgery. I privately railed against celebrities who altered their appearances every couple of years or so—- who puffed up their lips, tightened their eyes, and changed the contours of their noses. Some beautiful women, still under 50, began to look like drag queens impersonating themselves. Why? Would it make them live longer? Not in this lifetime. But, would it keep them desirable? Maybe, but to whom? Well, I think I found the answer. Themselves. Recently I went in for a complete check-up. You know, the one you get every year or two after you turn forty—- the one with the EKG. After it was over, I got dressed and sat in my doctor’s office nonchalantly leafing through the recent Vogue, wondering whether I should go shopping for one of those cute, retro, straight skirt/pinched-waist jacket suits or go to the gym, when my doctor came in and told me I had to lose weight. She may as well have stabbed me right in the heart. What did she mean, I had to lose weight? I know I gained a little when I quit smoking a few years ago and my period became a little less reliable, but I’m an ex-model, an ex-dancer—- we don’t get fat! Naturally, I didn’t say that out loud, but she read my mind. She warned me that my blood pressure was a bit too high, but if I’d cut down on my salt intake, drink less wine and lose ten pounds, I’d be just fine. Stunned, I chose the gym over shopping, where I experienced a profound moment—- you know, one of those earth shaking realizations that come upon you at the oddest times—- things most people know at twelve. There I was, zoned out on the treadmill, staring at nothing in the mirror in front of me, contemplating this cruel turn of events, when I noticed this great NY Ranger hockey shirt on the woman treading next to me. No surprise the team name in the mirror was backwards. I turned to look at the shirt straight on when suddenly it dawned on me that I was backwards—- that the way I saw myself was not the way others saw me. That the part in my hair wasn’t on the side I saw it on. That my crooked “Ali McGraw” tooth wasn’t crooked in the direction I thought it was. I rushed home, dragged out my photo albums and studied my pictures. I couldn’t see a difference. So I grabbed two large hand mirrors and stood in front of the bathroom mirror trying to get the right angle. After a few minutes, I couldn’t remember which ear was which, so I borrowed two full-length mirrors and moved them around until I could see myself next to myself. My way. Then your way. It was an enlightening experience. I discovered a crease under my eye, a little extra skin under my chin and a body bulge I’d never noticed before. But what I really discovered was that I don’t like the way others see me. Did these revelations send me scurrying off to the nearest plastic surgeon? No, and probably never will. But, I’m at the gym more often. May even go back to dance class—- well, I’ll think about it anyway. I’m trying to eat less and use more sun screen. And, when someone I know tells me she’s having her face peeled or her fanny tucked, I don’t look down at her anymore. I understand. We’re all on the same whitewater, rapidly churning downstream, paddling to stay afloat. www.myspace.com/othermusings

Here in the UK I gave up junk food last year and sugar and caffeine and alcohol. Feel much better. But that’s the converse of putting health at risk for looks. Arguably if you do what’s right your looks and health will improve. It’s a fascinating subject, women and look. Why did I and not my sister always think even as a teenager that I looked good . Why do I at 46 think I look good? What gave me that internal view of self worth which even she with the same love and care my parents gave us all did not? Is it simply that I do look better than her (I use my sister as an example because she had anorexia, although never looked that thin (she has very big bones) and then bullimia. What makes some women who are in my view intrinsically beautiful still hate their looks? Is it an internal female hatred of self? Is it in the culture? Do mothers pass it to daughters? Is it because I always took most feelings of self worth from things like my law practice, my large family, my hobbies such that if I lost my looks entirely tomorrow there would be huge swathes of my life which remain and are very satisfying? is it simply that my featuers are symmetrical, my breasts reasonably large, my prportions always been out, in, out except when I’ve had a bit of trouble with excess weight and so therefore I feel good about how I look. I don’t watch TV. I rarely look in the mirror. But I do like to be good. I do play the game. I do wear the heels, like the male attention. I could opt out of that playground, join the convent, take up the burka or its equivalent but I don’t choose at present to do so. Is it genetic the propensity for hatred of physical self or elements of it? Certainly the connection between bad diet, sugar and the like and mental health is very well documented. Sort out your diet and not only might you lose weight and look better but more crucially you may not even have the care to worry so much about your looks either.

Yes, I set out to put my mental health at risk at 23 when I had my first breast enlargement surgery. It was the mid-70s and the procedure was not properly developed yet, at least not where I lived then. Over the years five more surgeries followed, two of these total disasters, the last three in Britain and only the very last one that I had at the ripe age of 48 with a result I can /barely/ live with. The origin of all this was low self-esteem at a time when no help was available, the outcome scars on body and soul, depression, inability to form intimate relationships with men and ultimately loneliness at an age when, albeit wiser, I can no longer think about starting a new life.

Why can’t you think about starting a new life now. It’s never too old surely? That’s all very sad. In the late 70s I refused to wear a bra (as a teenager), liked my breasts and was working at exams. I don’t remember it as a time for breast surgery, not in the UK anyway. It as a very feminist or back to nature phase. But I suppose most of these things are internal. My family are mostly psychiatrists not that that ensure all of us had good mental health but I think my parents were reasonably intelligent in how they brought us up. But I still don’t know what makes on child/sibling like themselves and one not from the same family, brain chemistry perhaps, diet to some extent may be, how they’re brought up to age 7 perhaps. My daughters are now in their 20s (just) and I think they have reasonably good body self images. Where does the internal confidence come from that some have and others don’t?