The Hottest Thing About My 40s Has Nothing to Do With Abs

A shallow goal turned into a radical reset: how chasing “hotness” led me through illness, into awareness, and ultimately toward liberation.

Before I turned 40, I made a promise to myself that sounded ridiculous even as I said it out loud: I wanted to be hotter in my 40s than I had been in my 20s.

On the surface, it was a shallow goal. Vanity dressed up as ambition. A hope that someone from high school might stumble across my photo on social media and think, damn, she looks good.

But under the gloss, something else was stirring. What looked like a declaration about abs and a nice butt was really my first act of rebellion against neglecting myself. For the first time, I was intentionally paying attention to what I put in my body, how I felt when I did, and what actually nourished me.

It wasn’t about hotness. Not really. It was about awareness.

The Reset Button

The first shift came quietly: reevaluating alcohol. A small thing, but also not small at all.

I gave myself thirty days without drinking. No rules, no forever promises. Just curiosity.

By the end, I felt sharper. Calmer. More myself. I didn’t swear off alcohol entirely—there are still moments when a glass of cold Chardonnay feels perfect—but the experiment shifted my lens. Suddenly, I could see how even one drink affected my sleep, my mood, my clarity.

And the research backs this up: alcohol disrupts the body’s natural sleep cycles, particularly REM, the stage crucial for memory consolidation and emotional regulation. One glass of wine at dinner might feel like relaxation, but it can fragment sleep all night long.

That reset wasn’t about restriction. It was about reclaiming my right to feel good. And once I felt it, I couldn’t unsee the ways I was trading long-term vitality for short-term dopamine.

The Obsession That Broke Me

Naturally, the next frontier was fitness. If alcohol was about subtraction, this was about addition.

I found a program, bought the shakes, lined up the supplements. I threw myself into the routines with the intensity of someone trying to outrun their own body.

And I won’t lie—it worked. The abs came back. For a brief moment, I looked like my younger, college-athlete self.

But here’s the truth: I wasn’t moving my body to honor it. I was moving to prove something, mostly to people who weren’t even looking. And that kind of motivation is never sustainable.

Eventually, my body called my bluff.

I got sick. Very sick. Stage 4 ulcerative colitis. Anemia so severe I could barely make it through a workday. The body that I had punished in pursuit of hotness revolted, and in that revolt, it forced me into a reckoning.

And looking back, the science makes sense. Chronic stress, under-eating, over-exercising—these behaviors dysregulate the gut microbiome and the immune system, which are deeply intertwined. My body wasn’t failing me. It was screaming at me to stop.

Inside the Cocoon

Illness does something brutal and clarifying.

For six months, my world narrowed. The woman who had measured her worth by discipline and appearance was gone. In her place, a quieter voice emerged: one that asked not How do I look? but How do I want to live?

That was the turning point.

For the first time, I began to see myself not as a project to fix or sculpt, but as something precious, fleeting, and wholly mine. We only get one human body. One life to feel what it means to be here.

And here’s the science kicker: the brain is constantly rewiring itself through neuroplasticity. Which means—even after decades of autopilot—you can choose differently. I chose to stop abandoning myself.

A Different Kind of Hotness

By the time I emerged, everything had shifted.

I still move my body daily, but now I do it for the sanity, not the six-pack. Exercise, after all, is one of the most potent antidepressants we have, shown to increase levels of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which supports learning, memory, and resilience.

I eat a plant-forward diet, not as penance, but as a way to keep inflammation at bay and support my gut health, knowing that 70% of the immune system lives in the gut. And yes, sometimes that relationship includes Tillamook ice cream.

The difference is in the intention.

And here’s the punchline: I am hotter in my 40s. But it has nothing to do with fitting into jeans from 2005. I feel hotter because I inhabit my body with ease. Because my energy isn’t wasted on proving my worth to people who don’t matter. Because I finally understand that “hot” is not a look, it’s a way of being.

What I Know Now

Hotness isn’t a number on a scale. It isn’t in the mirror or the glances from people who knew you decades ago.

Hotness is the result of choosing yourself, over and over, even when it’s inconvenient. It’s the quiet discipline of caring for your mind, body, and spirit as if they’re worth the effort—because they are.

The declaration I made before 40 was never about vanity. It was about liberation.

And if you asked me now, I’d say this: the hottest thing you can do is refuse to abandon yourself.

✨ So tell me—what’s your declaration for this decade?