Body envy gets another celebrity workout: How Aniston’s abs reignited my lifelong comparison
Hold that context for a second. I’m going through the news of the day, eyes scanning my screens, and something stops me. Two images of actor Jennifer Aniston; ripped, tanned and leaning nonchalantly against a wall. In one shot, her arms are above her head and she’s holding on to a small dumbbell. In the other, she’s gazing off camera and into the distance. These images come with a question and the question is the bait I took like the sucker I am.
Could Jen Aniston’s workout get you in shape? For a moment, in the back of my mind, it’s me all ripped and rock-hard, leaning back against that wall. And with that one line, that one question, I prove that this kind of gear works a treat on middle-aged women. With one click, I’m in.
Aniston is endorsing a new fitness regimen. Is it a craze? Not sure but it’s definitely a thing and it’s making money. The program, which I won’t name because that’s not the point, claims to do all the things for all the women who need it with the promise of something called micro-lifting. Ahh, how convenient! You don’t need to lift heavy, just teeny-tiny weights in a highly repetitive sequence (among other things). You, too, could end up with a six-pack like everybody’s favourite friend.
Now, it could be considered somewhat of a career-limiting move to poke fun at an article in the paper you write for, but here’s the thing. I’m also poking fun, heavily, I might add, at myself. Broadly, though, I find myself asking: when does it stop? When do I stop getting sucked into these sorts of things that, to my shame, had me momentarily feeling bad about what is an outrageously blessed existence?
I would have thought this almost involuntary reaction to articles such as this would have been well over by now, but for a moment let’s go back to when it all started. It started back in the days of a teen magazine called Dolly. Some of you may remember it. For Gen X women it was our teenage years’ survival guide. A lifestyle and fashion bible. The word according to Dolly, if you will. In my case, it was also contraband because my mother refused to let me buy it. Corrupting or something like that. Dolly Doctor, the likes of a young, gorgeous Kate Fischer on the cover. Halcyon days, my friends. Long before social media influencers could sow the seeds of rank insecurity, we had traditional media to do it for us.
I still remember poring over copies at my friends’ houses on weekends, getting my guilty fill.
When I think back, that feeling of seeing impossibly gorgeous and thin girls my own age was weird and a little unsettling. Weird because they were my age but seemed so much more worldly (they were probably already going to clubs, I was still watching The Saddle Club). And to be frank, I think that’s where comparison for me was born at least. I don’t look like them, I could never look like them.
And here I was this week, sitting at my desk, fatigued after a rewarding but very punishing few weeks, looking at Aniston in all her shredded, possibly photoshopped glory, thinking the exact same things.
Isn’t it wild? I’m 52½ years old, in reasonable nick for an old gal, and in the blink of an eye I’m teenage me again. Braces, glasses, reading contraband Dolly and anxiously questioning my physical worth.
If you’d asked me when this cycle of comparison stops, I would have said years ago, but this is the fragile nature of our humanity. Or at least mine. Perhaps all you other men and women are more evolved as humans?
I was saying to someone only this week that it has been quite a strange experience, this process of making friends with my body in my late 40s and 50s.
Compared with many of my friends I was pretty clean living in my 20s and 30s, but I do question the wisdom of numerous 2am kebabs, all of which were consumed kerbside after leaving Perth’s notorious and now dearly departed Club Bay View. But that was probably the worst of it and while I was never rail thin, I never had to work super hard to stay in shape.
But now? Good god, I need an MBA to figure out how to age well in my own body.
Must remember to prioritise sleep. Which kind of magnesium should I combine to optimise muscle recovery, sleep, hormonal balance and cognitive function? Ashwagandha supplement at night or in the morning? What protein source is most bio available; can’t seem to tolerate wine any more. OK, gin and soda water it is. Have I hit my 11k steps today? What about my 30g of fibre? What do you mean I have dense breast tissue? What IS dense breast tissue? Must remember to make sure I’m getting enough healthy fats. Oh, and then there’s the bone density scan I have finally booked in after putting it off for 18 months. Not because I’m in denial but because in the hierarchy of crap to do on any given day it has been the easiest thing to punt into tomorrow.
All of this on top of the burning platform, which is of course: Could Aniston’s workout get me in shape?
Objectively, of course, it could. I’m positive that if I followed Aniston’s regimen, I could get similar results. That is, of course, if I also had her life. If I had a private chef, a personal trainer on call, a home gym. If I could divest most of the mundane, suburban, domestic pressures that I currently have. A mortgage, work and work travel, bills and keeping up with friends who mean a great deal to me. So sure, with a few life renovations, I would be shredded and leaning against a wall, too.
Yes, of course I’m joking. But I’m also absolutely not joking. It’s said that comparison is the thief of joy and that’s definitely true. Let me go one further. It is also the thief of gratitude.
After a couple of hours being grumpy, having self-assessed (in comparison with Aniston) as morbidly obese, I realised what I was most cross at. I’d lost gratitude and perspective.
I had momentarily lost sight of the fact that while my sixpack is aspirational, my body is healthy. It is functional. And while my life is not Hollywood-esque, it’s mine, and like a chump I allowed comparison to devalue it.
It’s funny, isn’t it? I found myself wondering if someone like Aniston, in the reverse, would look at my life and wish she could live it. My complicated, deeply interesting, blessed, challenging, hugely imperfect, stressful, at times overwhelming life. Who knows, stranger things have happened.
Maybe that celebrity workout could get you ripped. Maybe not. Ultimately, who cares? It feels like a glorious epiphany to say that. And to say this: Would I swap with her? Not on your life.
More Coverage
Is the Liberal Party finished? Don’t bet the rent on it yet
I’m sitting at my desk. It’s Tuesday morning. I’ve just come back to Sydney after a short trip to Western Australia. With the time difference now three hours, I’m feeling a tad second-hand.