Menopause and Body Image: How to Feel Like Yourself Again

Have you ever been having a perfectly good day, feeling comfortable in what you're wearing, and then caught a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and you suddenly feel the floor fall out from under you? That moment of being yanked out of your body is something I hear all the time.

Meet the comparison lizard, the part of our brain wired for social comparison. It used to be a survival skill. Now it's a make-work project that fuels body dissatisfaction, especially in menopause when both the scale and the shape are changing in ways that feel unfamiliar.

Here's what I want you to know: food work and body work are not the same. I've worked with hundreds of women who feel great about their relationship with food but are still getting pulled into bad body image moments that send them right back toward the diet cycle. When I sent a newsletter about this recently, the responses flooded in. You're not alone, and your body is not the problem.

In this episode, I'm sharing the research on body dissatisfaction and intuitive eating in midlife, why body appreciation is the evidence-based path forward, and details about the Midlife Body Image Lab, a six-week program built around guided experiments to test and change the belief that your body is the problem. This isn't a course with videos and worksheets. It's coached, community-based work where we do the experiments together. If you're listening in April or early May 2026, you can join us. Otherwise, hop on the waitlist for the next time doors open.

The Midlife Body Image Lab

• Join the Midlife Body Image Lab :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.easy.link/menopause.nutritionist

Transcript

Welcome To The Midlife Feast

Meet The Comparison Lizard

How Comparison Fuels Diet Culture

Spring Clothes And The Diet Cycle

When Food Peace Still Hurts

Research Linking Dissatisfaction And Eating

Body Appreciation Over Body Positivity

Introducing The Midlife Body Image Lab

Weekly Experiments And Group Support

Jenn Salib Huber 0:00

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 Selie Puber, intuitive eating dietitian, a 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. If so, this podcast is for you. We've been taught to believe that our body is the problem, and that if we fix our body, we fix the problem, right? But what if the problem is that we're dissatisfied with what we have? And we're letting what I call the comparison lizard run the show. The comparison lizard is my name for social comparison, the very human process of comparing yourself and what you have and don't have to somebody else. This is actually wired into our brains because thousands of years ago, when we didn't have reliable access to the things that we needed to survive, knowing where you stood compared to others actually mattered a little bit or a lot. But the comparison lizard now has a bit of a make-work project situation for itself. In other words, our survival isn't threatened in the same way that it used to be. But the comparison lizard wants us to feel that way. And the result is that we end up feeling dissatisfied with what we have in the body that we have today. Now, if we're talking about wallpaper or the color of your walls or your furniture, sure, an easy change to switch that out might make you feel happier or more satisfied with your home decor, at least for a little while, until the next best thing comes along, right? We can all look back at pictures of the 60s and 70s and think, what were they thinking? But at the time, that is what everyone wanted because that is what everyone was doing. That whole expression, you know, keeping up with the Joneses, the neighbors, didn't come from nowhere. But when it comes to our bodies, we know that body dissatisfaction is actually the main driver of dieting, eating disorders, and disorders eating. And it happens because we're stuck in this comparison trap of comparing ourselves to an ideal or a standard that was shaped very early on by sources like the media, obviously, but also our friends, our family, our peers. And as we all know, that influence is strong, maybe even stronger today, and stays with us for most of our lives, unless we do something to change it. And the idea that changing our body will make us happier and less likely to compare ourselves, meaning, like, oh, if I could just fit into these genes, if I could just look like that, I'd be happy. That isn't actually true. So we're going to do a little thought experiment together. How many of you have come across a picture from another time and you look at that picture and you think, wow, I looked amazing then? I wish I could look that way now. Why didn't I appreciate what I had? Or have you ever had the experience of you're going about your day, you're feeling pretty good, you're feeling comfortable, maybe even really liking what you're wearing, feeling good, and then you catch a reflection of yourself and you think, oh my gosh, is that what I look like? That moment of being yanked out of your body, that's because you're comparing what you see to what you think you should look like. In other words, the comparison lizard is working overtime. Now I'm talking about this in April because spring is the time when we're changing clothes. We're maybe starting to wear fewer layers. Maybe we're trying on clothes that we haven't worn in a while. And maybe they fit differently because our bodies change in menopause. And it's not just the scale, but it is the scale, but it's also the shape. And what we see in the mirror just kind of looks unfamiliar. And when that happens, when we experience the gap in real time between what we think we should look like and what we actually look like, we get pulled very quickly, snakes and ladder style, into the diet cycle, which is that predictable series of events that starts with the diet, leads us to counting calories, restricting food, whatever it is, and that leads us to cravings and eventually giving in and feeling like we have to start all over again. But over the last few years, as I've worked with hundreds of women to dip to the diet mentality and become intuitive eaters in midlife and menopause, I've noticed that something else is happening too. They're not dieting, they're firmly aligned and in alignment with intuitive eating, but they're still really struggling with how they feel about their body, or they're having more bad body image moments than they thought they would as intuitive eaters. In other words, they're still feeling that dissatisfaction. And that kind of sets up this internal conflict because they often feel pretty good about their relationship with food and maybe even their overall nutrition. They'll say things like, I'm not counting anymore, I'm not tracking, I'm eating more vegetables, I'm feeling really good. And lots of them will even see improvements in things like their cholesterol and their mental health, but they're still getting stuck when they have this bad body image moment. I recently sent out a newsletter that said that food work and body work are not the same. And I got more responses to that newsletter than I have in a really long time, with so many people saying, yep, that's exactly what I'm experiencing. So I want you to know that you're not alone. If you're like, yep, that's me, check, check, check. And I also want you to know that your body is still not the problem that we need to fix. We need to work on the body dissatisfaction. So I want to share some interesting research with you that's come out over the last couple of years that has looked specifically at body dissatisfaction in women in midlife. I think it was between the ages of 40 and 60, and intuitive eating. And what they found is that women who had higher or more body dissatisfaction also struggled more with intuitive eating skills. And that these two things kind of get in the way and feedback on each other. And that makes sense because intuitive eating requires you to be able to notice your hunger and fullness and satisfaction. In other words, to tune in. And that's hard to do if all you can think about is how your belly feels in your pants when you're sitting down. And anybody who's worked with me or in the feaster community over the last year or so has probably noticed this shift towards talking about reducing body dissatisfaction more so than improving your body image or loving your body. And the even better news is that we have evidence on how to reduce body dissatisfaction. And it's by something called body appreciation. In other words, developing and changing the relationship that you have with your body to be more based on what it does rather than just how it looks. Now, I know what you're thinking. I can already hear you guys saying that having good vibes about your body isn't going to work, or that this is just positive thoughts and affirmations. But body appreciation is actually different. It's a process of developing kind of a gratitude practice about your body. And to really quiet that comparison, lizard, we actually need to test maybe some of the thoughts and beliefs in real time so that you can see that what you think is true may not actually be true. And that's exactly what we're going to be doing in the Midlife Body Image Lab. So if you're listening to this in April or early May of 2026, you can learn more about how to join us in the show notes. Otherwise, there's going to be a link to the wait list for the next time it opens. But this is a very different program than anything I've offered before. Unlike traditional programs where you watch a video, you might fill out some worksheets, there might be some group time. This is much more about coaching and support than classroom, meaning we're going to be doing most of the work together. So there's very little work that you need to do on your own or ahead of time. And the reason that I've set this up as why I've called it the lab is because I've set up the six weeks as weekly experiments. So we're going to do six weeks of experiments together to test the belief that your body is the problem. And the goal is that at the end of the six weeks, you're going to feel not only less dissatisfied with the body that you have, but that you're better able to appreciate it and take care of it and feel good in it. And that the noise that you've been having about your body that might be showing up randomly more often than you want, but really getting in the way of that body confidence that we all want, that you'll be able to access that. So here's an example of how it's going to work. So one week we might test what happens when you just notice the body comparison thoughts. Because often these are running in the background on autopilot, and you don't even know that you're there. They're there. But what if you notice them and just kind of observe this comparison lizard at work and see what is actually happening? This is actually the first experiment that we're going to do that's going to help us see the cost of body dissatisfaction. What is it costing you? Another week, we're going to experiment with what changes when you go an entire day or week without those comparison behaviors. So without checking in the mirror or the scale or adjusting your clothes. These little tests help you to see the pattern. So, in other words, we're taking a process that's based in evidence and we're applying it in a systematic way so that you get the step-by-step of what you need to do. But you're evaluating your own data. You're not comparing your data to someone else. A couple of days before we have our weekly call, you're going to get a short email with some food for thought or instructions, just some things to think about, not a lot of homework. And then we're going to have a weekly 90-minute call. And this is where we're going to spend the first 15 or 20 minutes kind of talking about the experiment, that lesson, that weekly lesson together. And we're going to discuss our experiences as a group, both in the call and during the week in a private chat. And doing this work as a group, I think is potentially more helpful than doing it alone because your comparison lizard will feel less compelled to sound the alarm if it sees that other people are in the same place. When you realize that you're not the only one who is struggling with this, it actually loosens the grip that dissatisfaction has. And when that grip loosens, you start to feel more comfortable in your body. Not because your body has changed, but because you changed your relationship with it. And when you feel more comfortable, it becomes so much easier to treat your body with kindness and respect, which is what you need to be able to take care of it in this next season of life, post-menopause, that is going to last for 30 or 40 years. And that's when intuitive eating feels like it gets easier because you don't have that noise coming in from the thoughts and beliefs about your body that were keeping you stuck in the diet cycle. So if you're tired of fighting your body and ready to quiet that comparison lizard, I would love for you to join us in the Midlife Body Image Lab. I've put the link in the show notes, but as always, just reach out if you have any questions. This is going to be an amazing program, and I can't wait to get started. 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.