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Idiom: Let yourself go
It’s unfortunate and, in some cases, quite sad, but it happens to most of us men in the West.
As you age, you tend to let yourself go.
Ladies, you know what I’m talking about.
That wonderfully svelte (you can check that one in the dictionary) young man with a lush head of hair you married has now gone all pear-shaped and bald.
Once, he was thin and muscular.
Now, he’s flabby and looks like he swallowed an inflated balloon.
Of course, we can’t blame a man for losing his hair.
Heck, even Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world, is as bald as an egg.
He has not let himself go, though.
He works out.
When you let yourself go, you become careless and lose interest in your appearance, or you let yourself fall into bad habits.
They say 40 is the new 50. If that’s true, I’m still only 35 with a full head of hair.
I don’t think I’ll lose mine because I’ve heard that the hair loss gene is passed on through the mother.
My grandfather on my mother’s side died with his hair intact, so I should be OK.
In terms of middle-age spread, though, I’m no different than any other man.
However, the battle of the bulge is one fight I intend to win – I refuse to let myself go!
Now, I don’t think I will look like I did in my 20s – that may be asking for too much.
I do intend never to look like I swallowed a Halloween pumpkin whole or be mistaken for a beached pregnant beluga whale when I go for a swim in the summer.
Sorry, no polar bear swims for this Canuck.
Like everything, it takes hard work and willpower to maintain something.
Like your house and car require regular maintenance, so does your body.
All of us, you too, ladies, should make it a point not to let ourselves go as we mature.
The better you look, the better you’ll feel.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 6th-grade education (age 11).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 83.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.