Roslyn Car­ring­ton

In our youth-wor­ship­ping cul­ture, age 40 is a mile­stone many women face with a mix­ture of hope, anx­i­ety and de­nial. Are we go­ing to stay fit, vi­tal and de­sir­able, or is it all go­ing to be down­hill from there? We found two vi­brant over-for­ties who've grabbed life with both hands, and who were will­ing teach us how NOT to play the num­bers game."A sexy woman is a woman over 40," says Lee­ba La Roche. "Be­ing sexy isn't about face or body, it's about en­er­gy." The dy­nam­ic 51-year-old yo­ga in­struc­tor from Bal­main, Cou­va has been prac­tic­ing yo­ga for 25 years, and now teach­es group ses­sions at some of the largest com­pa­nies on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate."Peo­ple think I'm in my 30s," says Rhon­da Joseph. "But they're way off." The trim 42- year-old Bel­mont res­i­dent has al­ways led an ac­tive lifestyle, and be­fore suf­fer­ing a knee in­jury could run the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in 20 min­utes "on a bad day".Here's their take on how to keep that youth­ful en­er­gy bub­bling up from the in­side well af­ter 40.

Few things suck at the soul more than an un­sat­is­fac­to­ry and un­ful­fill­ing job. A ma­jor part of be­ing hap­py (and, by ex­ten­sion, re­duc­ing stress and look­ing bet­ter) is work­ing at the kind of job you know you were born to do.Joseph is an IT Plan­ning Of­fi­cer for a bank, and par­tic­i­pates in the de­vel­op­ment and re­view of the tech­nol­o­gy strat­e­gy to en­sure align­ment with busi­ness plans. She's al­so in­volved in mea­sur­ing and re­port­ing on the IT per­for­mance in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.Apart from her yo­ga teach­ing, La Roche owns and runs Kid­dies Cam­pus, a pre-school and day-care cen­tre at Bal­main, where she caters large­ly to neigh­bours and work­ers on the near­by es­tate.

Take care of your body

Joseph has al­ways been ac­tive. "We live close to the Sa­van­nah, and my fa­ther used to take us there very ear­ly to ex­er­cise. Grow­ing up, I was in­volved in hik­ing and jog­ging. I got my pur­ple belt in karate. "She al­so loves be­ing in the wa­ter; swim­ming, snor­kel­ing, wa­ter-ski­ing, scu­ba-div­ing and kayak­ing. Late­ly, she has been go­ing to the gym three times a week. These ac­tiv­i­ties aren't just to stay trim and con­di­tioned, Joseph ad­vis­es, they're al­so great stress-busters.La Roche is lucky enough to make mon­ey while she stays fit. "I'm be­ing paid to stand up there and be the pic­ture of health and well-be­ing. Yo­ga en­com­pass­es the to­tal pack­age."

Play with chil­dren

Moth­ers like to com­plain that their chil­dren are turn­ing them gray, but chil­dren are the foun­tain of youth.La Roche, the moth­er of three grown sons and a young daugh­ter, is glad for the dai­ly shot in the arm her day-care cen­tre gives her. "It helps me to live the child in me. You can sit on the floor and make fun­ny faces or make up a sto­ry, and peo­ple don't think you're ridicu­lous."Though Joseph has no chil­dren of her own, she has a nephew who keeps her go­ing. "He's the rea­son I start­ed liv­ing a health­i­er lifestyle, be­cause I want to see him grow up. I want to be able to take him to the Sa­van­nah, like my Mom used to do with us."Sure, sure, sure, we've heard it all be­fore. Eat heart healthy, stay away from car­cino­gens, live longer... but what about how our di­ets af­fect how we look and feel?Joseph at­trib­ut­es her glow­ing eyes, skin and hair to her care­ful­ly mon­i­tored meal plan, de­vel­oped by a nu­tri­tion­ist, and all the right sup­ple­ments: Omega-3, mul­ti­vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als and an­tiox­i­dants. "What you put in ra­di­ates on the out­side," she warns. She al­so seems to have a nu­tri­tion-savvy guardian an­gel. "When­ev­er I feel to eat some­thing that's not on the meal plan, some­thing hap­pens. I go to a fast food place to get some chips, and by the time I reach the win­dow, it's closed!" What we wouldn't do for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion like that!

Not to men­tion the speed bumps we women have to deal with in the sec­ond half of our lives. La Roche eats every­thing, but doesn't binge."That and yo­ga have helped me tremen­dous­ly in the menopause years.I've had lit­tle or no side ef­fects."En­joy the com­pa­ny of your friends, find a hob­by, care for your pet.They all low­er blood pres­sure, en­hance your mood, and make you feel bet­ter about your­self.Take care of your­self, these women agree. Love your­self. Get fa­cials, do your hair, buy your­self a nice dress. Your ear­ly years might have been good, but things can on­ly get bet­ter."At this point in my life, every­thing I've worked to­wards is there.It's just a mat­ter of look­ing for­ward to more," says La Roche. It's al­so good to share what you know with oth­ers. "Peo­ple don't ex­pect you to have ex­cus­es any more. They ex­pect you to have an­swers.""Feel­ing good is an on­go­ing process," Joseph adds philo­soph­i­cal­ly, "you have to work at it all the time. It's some­thing that nev­er stops."