Suddenly, not just one, but all of these things were simple again.  I could figure out not only the intuitive gadgets, but also non-intuitive ones with just a moment's inspection, and if I had done it once, I didn't have to start from scratch the next time.  It didn't take long for either of us to figure out why - that was the year I gave up sugar (along with the nappy foods surrounding it).

It was scary at first, realizing what I had been doing to my brain.  It's frightening to think what's happening not only to us & our children, but to our entire nation of sugar addicts.  Where are our brains?

So we were discussing all this this weekend, and how the changes for the better seem to have stuck - and then, today LiveScience is reporting a new study which has found that obese people have "severe brain degeneration."  Overweight people have less severe brain degeneration, defined as loss of brain mass & premature brain aging. 

While this report falls into the trap of allowing readers to confuse correlation with causation (there's no proof obesity causes brain degeneration; it's more likely that both are caused by the same thing), there is some good news about the reporting here.  Instead of laying the blame on fat or a vague reference to "too many sweets & junk foods" (which leaves too much room for haggling about what exactly is "too much"), they point at last to a long unnamed culprit: processed foods.  It's not just the sugar that is causing obesity, heart disease, diabetes, & now brain degeneration, but also the highly processed oils, dry cereals, milk, canned this & pre-cooked packaged that, which are causing both obesity and most of the maladies linked to it.

The good news is, it's reversible!  (At least in some measure.)  My brain is back!  (mostly ;) )