Weight gain and memory loss

I can no longer exercise myself out of what I can eat myself into.
That realization has been slapping me upside the head lately. It doesn’t help that Almond M&Ms and Pepsi have been the base of my food pyramid for the last 30 years.
So here I am in a quandary, I could get healthy by eating right and exercising, but then again, I don’t want to go crazy and be a fanatic, right? Diet and exercise! Ha, I am not falling for that.
Oh sure, there are plenty of apps that track how far we walk each day, how many glasses of water we drink, how much food we eat, but unless they invent an app that zaps my butt off the couch, my virtual workouts aren’t working.
According to an article I am reading, 39 percent of Americans gained weight during the pandemic, like a hog eating corn. When stressed we eat; except some people get stressed and forget to eat.
Let’s be honest, I have forgot my anniversary, I have forgot my wife’s birthday, I have forgot why I left the house, once I even forgot I was babysitting and was at Maverik getting a Pepsi when I remembered Katie was in the tub.
But I never forgot to eat, I don’t even remember missing a snack.
And that is another thing; not remembering or remembering the wrong thing is a big problem I am having.
You know as you get older, recalling names or your address or what size of shoe you wear becomes a little bit of a challenge. My theory is as you get older, the more crowded your brain gets with information.
Think of your brain as an unorganized library, kinda like a hoarder’s collection of National Geographics.
Once my too kind and loving wife asked me, “Where do we file tax returns?”
Without even looking up I said, “Under ‘I’”. Her confused look said it all.
I continued, “It goes under “I” because they are important. You’ll find birth certificates in that file too.”
Anyhow, pretend you have a personal assistant that you can send to get useful information from your brain.
For example, it is March, and you need to remember a sister-in-law’s birthday or name.
Your personal research assistant heads off to find this useful information but before you know it, she sees other information she thinks you might find interesting, like the birthday of your girlfriend from sixth grade is March 17th, or a factoid like the statue of David weighs 12,749 pounds and is 17’ tall.
Oh, sure there is lots of information in our brains, but retrieval is not without challenges.
That is why there is no Jeopardy for seniors.
“Answer is Fatal Attraction. Question is fried bologna with cheese?”
“Answer is mullet? Question is who is Nathan Chamberlain?”
“Answer is Politician. Question is What is blood sucking tick?”
This explains why when your too kind and loving wife gets home from school and walks in the door, you grouch at her and say, “Who are you, what the hell are you doing in my house, and where is Catherine Zeta-Jones my real wife, we have date tonight you know?”
So here I am in eating a snack, reading Men’s Health, thinking about exercising, and thinking about this precarious position I find myself in.
I have retired another full set of clothes because they are tighter than I like, but I can’t remember for the life of me why I would buy skinny clothes because I hate skinny jeans.
And I know I was concerned about all of this because I am looking at an article that is about weight gain during the pandemic, but I don’t remember why.
And I can see that I am one of the 39 percent and that my belly is the same shape as the graph of the bell curve I am looking at.
My too kind and loving wife, or so she claims: I think she is a home-health-care professional because she is always offering me vitamins and supplements.
Hmmm, where was I? Oh yeah, she says Bubba is a bully, and he was trying to body-shame me when he called me bulbous.
She says my weight gain can be explained by the pandemic. The politically correct term is “COVID-15” and my bulbous new look will be good for the holiday season when I play Santa for the grandkids.
She is so funny. She reminds me “God loves you…ALL of you.” Then she giggles and washes another dish.
I don’t trust her, she wanted to sleep with me the other night. I didn’t know that home-health-care professionals did that, but tomorrow if I remember I will check to see if my insurance pays for that.