my Body can : midlife exercise experiments and reflections

There was ping pong happening behind me when I recorded this episode.

Not aggressively. Just enough that if this were the audio episode you’d hear it and think, oh, she’s definitely not at home.

I was standing in a coworking booth with a resistance band around my legs.

Yes. Around my actual legs. While working.

Very professional.

And I keep wondering, why is it so weird to move at work?

Because my brain is moving. My thoughts...

I didn’t stop doing barre because I didn’t like it.I stopped because I didn’t feel “good at it” and that mattered for some reason.

This was an unconscious consensus for sure.

And it stuck.

The way subtle pressures rest on our body before the brain ever checks them.

I’m realizing now that a lot of my movement history lives there.In the quiet decisions.In the things I stopped trying without ever off...

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about soreness. Not pain. Not injury. Just that dull, sometimes surprising physical soreness that shows up after movement. The kind that makes you pause and ask, wait, why now?

If you want to keep thinking about this with me, you’re welcome here.

What keeps catching my attention is not just that I get sore, but when I get sore. Sometimes it’s immediate. Sometimes it’s the next ...

For a long time, I released stress by moving for a long time.

Long walks.Long hikes.Long bike rides.

Not fast. Not intense. Just long enough for my nervous system to settle into a rhythm and let whatever needed to move, move. I never thought of it as regulation back then. It was just what felt good. What worked.

And then, not so slowly I couldn’t do that.

Foot problems. Back problems. Endometriosis. Surgery. Recovery. Vertigo. Un...

There’s a particular kind of frustration that shows up in midlife.

You’re moving your body.You’re getting stronger.You can feel progress, even if you can’t always see it.

And then your eating habits quietly slide sideways.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing intentional. Just a slow accumulation of “this is easier,” “this is around,” “this will do for now.” Suddenly, the feedback loop ...

How Long Is Enough Movement?

I’ve been thinking a lot about a question that kind of annoys me.

How long do we need to work out for it to “count”?

There’s something about that framing that feels gross to me. Not because it’s a bad question. It’s a very practical one. Life is busy. Energy is finite. Time is weird in midlife.

But the idea that movement only matters if it crosses some invisible threshold...

How do you fall better?

It’s not a question I ever expected to ask. Falling feels like something you avoid, not something you train for. And yet, last week, after a completely ordinary misstep on a quiet street, I found myself asking it honestly.

I’m okay. Nothing dramatic happened. But what surprised me wasn’t the fall itself. It was how my body and my nervous system responded afterward.

A quick note before we conti...

When Rest Isn’t Enough

I’ve been sick again.

Not dramatically sick. Not emergency sick. Just that low grade, lingering, frustrating kind of sick that doesn’t knock you out all at once, but quietly rearranges your days.

The kind where you’re technically functioning, but something feels off.

For me, that off feeling shows up as disconnection.

Because movement, at least the way I experience it, isn’t just exer...

What did I love to do as a kid, purely for the joy of it, that somehow disappeared when movement became serious?

Not productive.

Not corrective.

Not attached to a goal.

This episode, and this piece, came from remembering that movement doesn’t actually have to lead anywhere to be worth doing. It can just exist. It can meet us where we are. It can feel good in the moment and stop there.

💡 Check out the Substack post that goes into ...

I didn’t record this episode while lifting weights or balancing on one foot or stretching my hips on the floor. I recorded it while walking outside in Bilbao, Spain, past a fountain, toward the river, on a break from work. That detail matters.

Because this episode wasn’t really about gyms. It was about how my body responds to places, energy, sound, light, expectations, and pressure, and how I’m finally letting that...

Vote for the mBc podcast!

We’ve been nominated for a Discover Podcast podcast award in the Health and Fitness category. Hurrah!

The Quiet Magic of Healing Sooner ✨

Some weeks feel ordinary on the surface: little routines, little experiments, tiny adjustments that all blend together. Then one small moment reminds me that my Body’s changing in ways I never expected in my fifties.

That happened to me this week. I expected to w...

Season 2: coming on Tuesday!

Midlife movement gets real, messy, honest, hopeful. Rebuilding your body in midlife shouldn’t feel impossible.

my Body can returns for Season 2 with a weekly look at what it actually feels like to move again after years of injuries, illnesses, and hormonal chaos. Instead of offering polished fitness advice or unrealistic midlife transformations, this podcast documents the real process: the mood swi...

Thirty days. Thirty episodes. Thirty attempts to say out loud what I have been trying to make sense of privately for years. I knew this project would change something, but I didn’t know it would change this much.

I didn’t know that simply talking about movement while actually moving would rewire the way I think about my body, my habits, and myself.

I’m not exercising while recording this one, not really, although I ...

There is something I’ve never said out loud before, but it’s been simmering in the background for months. As I rebuild my strength, as I try new routines, and as I settle into this new phase of midlife, I am realizing that my relationships are shifting too. Not because of drama. Simply because my daily habits and priorities have changed so much that some friendships no longer line up with the person I am becoming.

It fe...

Walking has always been my movement home base. Out of every type of movement I have tried in my life, walking is the one that has stayed with me. Through childhood, through illness, through injury, through all the shifts and surprises of midlife. Today I wanted to talk about that. Not the pain, not the diagnoses, not the setbacks, but the thing that has consistently brought me joy.💡 Transcripts, links and more: https://mybodycan.s...

I didn’t expect frozen shoulder to shape my entire movement life. But here I am, years later, still noticing the aftershocks in my workouts, my choices, and even my confidence. Today I want to walk through what happened, what I learned, and why this experience affects the way I train now.

Before I get into it, if you’re following along with my 30-day podcast challenge, thank you. This project has taken me through more em...

How Strength Training Improved Travel Days

I did not expect my travel days to become a marker of progress in my strength journey, but here we are. Today I want to talk about what it actually takes, physically and mentally, to move countries with only a few suitcases and a body that is still learning how to be strong.

Hi, I am Steph, creator of My Body Can. I am documenting my midlife strength journey after years of illness, injury, a...

I didn’t expect this to be the thing I uncovered during my 30-day movement experiment, but here I am: somewhere between dumbbell reps and editing my own voice for the 25th day in a row, discovering a weird little streak of resentment toward cute workout gear. And the more I heard myself say it, the more I realized I needed to sit with it instead of letting it float by like background noise.

→ New here? I’m sharing 30 day...

Planning is helpful but proof changes everything.

Today I realized something big: I’ve been putting all my exercise plans into Google Calendar and assuming that was enough. It worked beautifully when I only had two workouts to remember, literally two things to track. I would open my calendar, see the workout, tap the link, and do the thing. Super simple. No friction. No thinking. Just show up and complete it.

But now that I&rsq...