Gwyneth Paltrow is aging with grace.

The 49-year-old actor took to Instagram to celebrate her upcoming 50th birthday, sharing a stunning black and white snap of herself jumping for joy in a bikini.

"Musings on a milestone," the Shakespeare in Love star captioned the picture. She also directed her followers toward a blog post she had written on her website, in which she spoke candidly about the prospect of turning 50.

The mom of two wrote began the post by looking back on when her parents - Blythe Danner and Bruce Paltrow - celebrated their 50th birthdays.

She then moved on to consider how her body had changed over the years, writing: "There is something about the sweetness of life that exists deep within me that is unchanged, that will not change. It is the essence of the essence. It seems to be getting sweeter.

"My body, a map of the evidence of all the days, is less timeless."

"A collection of marks and irregularities that dog-ear the chapters. Scarred from oven burns, a finger smashed in a window long ago, the birth of a child. Silver hair and fine lines," the mom-of-two continued.

The Marvel star went on to say that - while she still looks after herself - she has accepted her body's aging and imperfections.

"While I do what I can to strive for good health and longevity, to stave off weakening muscles and receding bone," she wrote, "I have a mantra I insert into those reckless thoughts that try to derail me: I accept."

"I accept the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles. I accept my body and let go of the need to be perfect, look perfect, defy gravity, defy logic, defy humanity. I accept my humanity," the Academy Award winner added.

Paltrow is well known for her commitment to health and wellness. In 2008, she launched the wellness lifestyle brand Goop, which started out as a newsletter but has since expanded to include a podcast, a print magazine, pop-up shops, and a docuseries for Netflix.

Later in the post, Paltrow spoke about her hopes for the future, saying that she was looking forwards to taking things a little bit slower.

"I would like to slow down. I would like to retreat a little bit. I would like to make my circle smaller," she wrote.

Features Image Credit: Image Press Agency / Alamy

These days you'd be forgiven for thinking Gwyneth Paltrow was more famous for her unconventional wellness and lifestyle advice than her acting career.

Indeed, the 47-year-old's brand, Goop, has made headlines over the years for offering controversial advice on women's health and wellbeing.

Related - This is the hilarious moment Gwyneth Paltrow forgot she was in Spider-Man: Homecoming:

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The brand offered questionable advice to women such as putting jade eggs in their vagina because they could supposedly keep hormones balanced and regulate menstrual cycles.

And in the words of Goop, they "harness the power of energy work, crystal healing, and a Kegel-like physical practice". This claim actually resulted in a $145,000 lawsuit.

More recently, Goop has been getting attention for a candle which supposedly "smells like" Paltrow's vagina. The candle, which sold out almost immediately, is literally called "This Smells Like My Vagina."

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And now, Paltrow's 15-year-old daughter Apple has roasted the retailer's bizarre products by writing a "to-do list" for Paltrow which read: "Make more vagina eggs and candles."

Savage!

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Evidently finding it as hilarious as the rest of us, Paltrow shared the list with her followers on Instagram, writing: "Apples interpretation of my to-do list" with the hashtag "quaranteen".

Needless to say, fans couldn't get enough of Apple's sass, with one person writing: "Glad she is a normal teenager. Funniest, most authentic post."

Another fan chimed in: "Oh Lort!!!! Kids say the craziest things [sic]". A third user suggested: "Well, at least it wasn’t make more vagina egg candles."

Another user praised the teen, saying "I love that to do list" while a different fan wrote: "Haha haha this is hilarious"

Erstwhile actor, Gwyneth Paltrow, has become a one-stop shop for lifestyle advice that you probably shouldn't follow. From stuffing jade eggs up her vagina to steaming the thing, the 46-year-old has seemingly tried every controversial wellness trend out there in the name of her "modern lifestyle brand", Goop.

And as a marketing strategy, it's ingenious. I mean, what better way to grab headlines than to espouse the benefits of being stung by bees? But the real force behind it is Gwynnie's ability to spout utter nonsense, of course.

Case in point: Gwyneth has now taken credit for popularising yoga in America.

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The Oscar winning actor said she was recently taken aback when someone in Los Angeles asked her if she had ever practiced yoga.

"I remember when I started doing yoga and people were like, 'What is yoga? She’s a witch. She’s a freak," she asserted.

"Forgive me if this comes out wrong, but I went to do a yoga class in LA recently and the 22-year-old girl behind the counter was like, 'Have you ever done yoga before?' And, literally, I turned to my friend, and I was like, 'She has this job because I’ve done yoga before'."

Now, considering that yoga is believed to have originated in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE by the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation in Northern India, and Gwyneth was born in 1972 in Los Angeles, people were understandably baffled.

"Gwyneth Paltrow: "I discovered yoga. I did yoga before it was cool. You guys wouldn't have yoga if it weren't for me." Every Indian Person: "......um." Cool. Cool cool cool," one Twitter user wrote, while another corroborated "Did not know Gwyneth Paltrow time traveled back 5000 years to give us yoga."

"Yoga has been around for thousands of years and Gwyneth Paltrow thinks she invented it. She is  Hollywood’s Trump in terms of narcissism," another added.

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"Gwyneth Paltrow is so shamelessly out of touch that she is endlessly fascinating to me. I want to put her in a museum. I want to read a case study on her. I want to take all her money for like 2 hours and see if she can figure out how to cross a street without hiring a driver," a third wrote.

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The Shakespeare in Love actress wed Brad Falchuk back in September, however, she recently revealed that they haven't moved in together yet.

Gwyneth explained that this is because Falchuk has two teenage children from his first marriage. The 46-year-old, who has two children with her ex, Chris Martin, said "We are still doing it in our own way. With teenage kids, you’ve got to tread lightly. It’s pretty intense, the teenage thing. I’ve never been a stepmother before. I don’t know how to do it."

Perhaps all the family needs is a good yoga session.

The film Shallow Hal is among those early-noughties movies that definitely haven't aged well - and Gwyneth Paltrow's body double has spoken out about the effect it release had on her.

Released in 2001, the film follows Hal Larson (played by Jack Black), who struggles to get a girlfriend due to his shallow attitude - until he meets life coach Tony Robbins in an elevator, who hypnotizes him into seeing only a woman's inner beauty.

Hal ends up falling for his boss's daughter Rosemary (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) and sees her as a slender blonde, when in reality she is plus-sized - something he would not have considered for a potential partner without the hypnosis.

While the movie did well at the box office, it has since come under criticism for the use of a fat suit for Gwyneth to portray Rosemary's 'real' body, as well as the assumption that larger bodies would be less desirable.

Gwyneth's body double in the movie, Ivy Snitzer - who was used for close up shots of Rosemary's arms, torso, and thighs, has spoken out about the horrific effect the movie's release had on her life.

Speaking to the Guardian, Ivy revealed that while she felt "really comfortable" while shooting the movie, and had a great experience working with Gwyneth and Jack, she was chastised by a senior member of the production team for "losing weight" while filming, claiming they told her: "This entire movie is based on you not losing weight!"

However, things worsened for Ivy when Shallow Hal debuted in theaters, as she admitted: "It didn’t occur to me that the film would be seen by millions of people. It was like the worst parts about being fat were magnified."

She revealed that she was once sent diet pills in the post by a viewer that had managed to track down her home address, while others sent her letters declaring their love for her.

"I got really scared," she revealed. "I was like, 'Maybe I’m done with the concept of fame, maybe I don’t want to be an actor. Maybe I’ll do something else.'"

Two years after Shallow Hal was released, Ivy ended up undergoing gastric band surgery, which restricted the amount she could eat in order to help her lose weight.

"I’m sure I wanted to be small and not seen. I’m sure that’s there, but I don’t ever remember consciously thinking about it," she admitted of her reasons for going ahead with the surgery.

Ivy revealed that it led to her "technically starving to death" as a result of multiple eating disorders, adding: "I was so thin you could see my teeth through my face and my skin was all gray.

"I kind of alienated a lot of my friends. My mother was also dying; it was bleak. Humans shouldn’t have to experience how very bleak that particular time in my life was."

She also noted that she had not watched Shallow Hal since it premiered and wasn't going to let her 13-year-old daughter watch it either, after being left "scared and sad" that young viewers that saw the movie may have been left with lasting insecurities as a result.

Gwyneth herself has previously spoken about her regrets at having starred in the controversial film, and how uncomfortable she was with the role.

She previously told W Magazine shortly after its release: "The first day I tried [the fat suit] on, I was in the Tribeca Grand and I walked through the lobby. It was so sad; it was so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese.

"I felt humiliated because people were really dismissive."

Featured image credit: Vince Bucci/Getty Images

Can you believe it's been over ten years since actress Gwyneth Paltrow launched Goop?

The company originally started as a 'lifestyle brand' in September 2008, followers would receive weekly e-mail newsletters providing new-age health advice - such as "police your thoughts" and "eliminate white foods".

Now, the company boasts e-commerce, collaborations with fashion brands, pop-up shops, "wellness summits", a print magazine, a podcast, and a docuseries for Netflix. Not bad for what started as a weekly newsletter.

Paltrow recently gave herself a very NSFW gift in her recently Goop commercial:

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And despite the criticism Paltrow and her company has faced over the years, there's no denying that the star looks incredible at 47-years-old.

The Iron Man and Avengers star recently shared a steamy snap of her relaxing in her Clearlight home sauna, wearing only bikini bottoms - which caused temperatures to spike on social media.

Paltrow captioned the post to her 6.4 million followers: "Getting my pre-Christmas schvitz on in a miraculous", followed by "I love this thing."

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And as you can imagine, the stunning picture was flooded with compliments for the lifestyle guru.

Instagram user janakalogeropoulos commented: "How are you ageing backwards?"

And one commenter with the handle davidnettosays compared Paltrow's looks to that of a teenager, saying: "You look 17".

Meanwhile, Elle Macpherson, Kate Hudson, and Busy Philipps all appeared in the comments section to comment on how they were enjoying a "pre-Christmas schvitz" of their own, with Goldie Hawn calling Clearlight saunas the "best thing ever".

Paltrow recently found out she can't actually remember which Marvel movies she's appeared in:

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Per USA Today, Paltrow recently spoke out about getting older on the official Goop podcast with editors Jean Godfrey-June and Megan O’Neill. Paltrow revealed she found herself a little shocked when she looked at a selfie:

"I was like, 'Wow, those crow's feet!' It's just, sometimes you're just like, 'Is that me?' What can you do for that? 'Cause Botox looks crazy. [...]

“Luckily, what’s happening at the same time in parallel, as I said, is you just start to like yourself. I think you get to a point where it’s almost like your pulchritude is waning, in a way, and your inner beauty is really coming out, and so it’s this funny shift that’s happening.

"It’s like, you feel so good, you know who you are, hopefully, you value the relationships in your life and your work and your contribution to the world, and when you're in your 40s, like, that's the idea, but then you’re like, ‘Wow, I have crow’s feet.'"