Better me. Better see. Better we!

A friend recently commented on age and diet. “The hardest part is even though we work out and burn calories,” which I interpreted as calories into the mouth are calories worked out of the body. Accounting 101, first in \ first out. She quickly burst my rudimentary logic bubble by adding, “you can’t eat whatever you want.” That is complete hogwash! Fake news. I reject reality and submit my own. I work out therefore I shall eat what pleases. Then my belt buckle exploded in the gym's locker room after a work out. Duly noted universe. 

Dieting and fitness are means to many ends: More energy. Greater strength. Increased vitality. Less stress on the belts. And most importantly, looks. I would be a charlatan not to admit one of the biggest driving forces sustaining me over the weeks and months to work toward a firmer, leaner, younger looking body, is to catch the wife checking me out. The serotonin levels sky rocket when she stops short for a second helping of eye candy. With a little less of me strutting through the house, she realizes that her man's dad-bod is shedding away towards an echo of the chiseled glory days. I am, reward.  

If there are any married men in the audience, they know. They know how it feels to catch her in an extended gaze. A double take. Experiencing déjà vu in the walking flesh. Shazam! Look at my man and his fine self. MEEEOW. Oh how sweet it is men to have yo woman gawking. That’s right… take it all in, cuz there’s more coming from where that came from, honey. She is frozen in awe. But the frozen awe ain’t permanent with married women. Awe is quickly thawed by the heat of jealousy. She knows her man is getting it together again. Look’n all thirty-something, thinking he is twenty-something. If she knows and notices him, then she knows the women of ill repute are not far behind. The temptress and her harlots. Every married woman is taught from diapers to finishing school that hordes of fast women down at the juke joint lust for a handsome married man to soil.* Gotta have a plan ladies.  

A fit man disrupts the relationship power dynamic. Married women can see the shift in balance the moment her man walks in the door. It’s the clothes that tip her off. A former fat man who is now a fit man wears the only clothes he owns -- holding off on needless clothing purchases until the bitter end. A fit man means a new wardrobe that she can buy. The wife likes to shop for her man. This is the perfect time to modernize his look. However, a fit man needs skinny clothes, and skinny clothes are in the young hot and hip sections. These are the clothes she has desired her man to wear since meeting him. Her dream come true, a fit husband fashionably dressed… Yet, how will she keep the harlots at bay? Catch-22. So what’s you gonna do honey? I know you like what you see. So, you'd better be ready for the fit me.

*Better Homes and Gardening (1952) “Keeping your marriage strong and your man in his recliner with a great martini.”