The Glow Code: A Cheat Sheet for Feeling, Looking, and Being Your Best at Any Age - Softcover

McIvor, Michelle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1538180723 ISBN 13: 9781538180723

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2024

Synopsis

Readers seeking to live joyfully in midlife will appreciate this "comprehensive and chatty guide" (Publishers Weekly) with inspiring and practical advice to navigate aging well. When I was 41, I learned how to wash my face. Turns out I'd been doing it wrong. (Hint: ditch cleansing wipes!) This made me wonder what else I didn't know. Like: Cardio or weights? Why can't I sleep? Is there a trick to ordering good wine? Or buying art? I figured if I still had questions about how to adult and age like a superwoman, maybe you did too. The Glow Code provides all the answers you need to feel, look, and live better in midlife and beyond. Rich in advice from top scientists, psychologists, makeup artists, fitness and nutrition authorities, and others, this book offers strategies and tips for better fitness, friendships, sex, creative practices, and more. And to make sure it works, I've tested it all--with sometimes hilarious results. Fun, practical, and inspiring, The Glow Code is the manifesto to aging joyfully. For all of you with minimum free time but maximum ambition to rock this next stage of life, welcome to your cheat sheet.

About this title

About the Author

Michelle McIvor is an award-winning journalist. Aside from writing for nearly every national magazine in Canada, including Chatelaine, Best Health, Maclean’s, Avenue and Canadian Business, she spent three years as a staff lifestyle columnist with the Calgary Herald (some bylines read as Michelle Magnan, her maiden name). She freelances regularly and often – her next piece is about how Instagram superstar The Birds Papaya (with her more than 2 million followers) de-cluttered her home. Throughout her career, Michelle has been a columnist for websites such as AskMen.com, she’s edited nutrition guidebooks, and she’s ghostwritten two books, the latest of which, Forever Terry, became a #1 national bestseller in 2020. Michelle also launched her own website in March 2019, called Feverish News, to inspire, entertain and celebrate women. Feverish is a platform to share the types of posts she loves to read, herself: everything from wellness tips and recipes to style advice and more. Other tidbits about Michelle: Michelle’s journalism career began in high school, when she cohosted a French kids’ show for Canada’s national public broadcaster. Looking back on that awkward time in her life, she is eternally grateful the series can now only be found on VHS.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from the Introduction

I found my first gray eyebrow hair a few months ago. Correction: My first gray eyebrow hair proudly announced itself a few months ago. Seemingly overnight, it had sprouted from my face as if to say, “Hello, world, I’m heeeere!”

I was less enthused.

Of course, I saw this hair when I could do nothing, zilch, nada about it. I’d just dropped my kids off at daycare and was stopped at a red light, glancing at my reflection in the rear-view mirror. And there it was—a long, coarse, gray hair jutting out at an odd angle from the inner corner of my left eyebrow, glimmering in the sunlight. Couldn’t it at least get in line with the rest of my brow? The audacity of this hair!

That’s when two things really hit me: (1) Despite my best attempts to stay youthful, I am aging—and there’s no hiding it. And (2) Why don’t I always keep a set of tweezers in my car?!

For the rest of the day, I was sure everyone I met with was staring at my errant eyebrow hair. I couldn’t wait to get home to pluck the damn thing. When I eventually did later that night— and by eventually, I mean the minute I walked through the door—I was so relieved.

A few weeks passed. I didn’t think about it again.

And then the second gray hair popped up.

That’s when I started to Google things like “Does plucking gray hair make more grow?” and “Can you dye eyebrows?” and “Am I having more or less sex with my husband than the national average?”

That last question was unrelated, but it had been on my mind. And if you’re curious, the answers were no, yes, and more. Yay us.

Why am I telling you all this? Because if you’re a woman—or you just care about how you’re aging!—and, like me, you’re brushing up against midlife, chances are we share the same types of concerns, questions, and Google searches. Have you wanted to drink less alcohol but not give it up? Me too. Wondering if you really need to take a multivitamin, a handful of supplements, and that pricey collagen powder? Great question. Interested in switching your decades-old makeup routine because you’re now a woman in your forties with crow’s feet and puffy eyes? Same, girl. Same.

But where do we even begin? And more importantly, who has the time to sort through all the information and products at our disposal? I feel overwhelmed with my life at the best of times, let alone when I’m perusing the aisles in Sephora.

That’s because navigating life as a woman between the ages of 35 and 50 is no joke. We have less time to ourselves but more concerns to deal with, ranging from the big to the small. When I turned 40, lines dug in around my eyes and mouth. My body fat percentage crept up even though I had lost weight. I had a hard time sleeping through the night. My lower back started to hurt more. So did some of my friendships.

Worst of all, I couldn’t escape the sneaky suspicion that I should have learned how to deal with these matters by now. I was a grown woman, after all, and not getting any younger. What had I been doing with my life? I should have prepared for this! I should have known better!

Edition details

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1538180723
• ISBN 13: 9781538180723
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264