Adam J. Choit

I’m not even going to get into the whole health care/health insurance debate, but I’ll just let you know that I am fortunate enough to actually have both medical and dental insurance.  With an HMO setup, I choose the primary care provider, for both medical and dental.

When choosing a doctor for medical, I have almost no personal requirements, and the location of the doctor is pretty much the only thing I really consider — preferably that they’re near my home or office.

Maybe choosing a doctor for women requires more scrutiny, but as a guy I feel like as long as a doctor is competent, knowledgeable, and somewhat friendly, it doesn’t matter.  They all do the same stuff, especially that of which is routine — checking blood pressure, stethescope stuff, hitting your knee with the thingy, dealing with common stuff people get when they’re sick (in an ordinary sense).  Anything that goes beyond all those things I named, you’re gonna have to be referred to a specialist anyway, so what does it matter who your primary doctor is?

As far as choosing a dentist is concerned, I don’t think a person’s choice ought to be made so haphazardly.  Much more sensitivity and care is beneficial with dentists.  A bad dentist can easily make your experience in his/her chair way more painful than it really needs to be.  Besides painful in your mouth, things can quickly get painful on your wallet as well.  Dentists will often attempt to convince you certain procedures are necessary, when in fact they might not be so urgent, or even necessary at all — whereas it’s much harder for a doctor to convince you to do a procedure that isn’t 100% necessary.

Most ailments you go to a doctor for, you can SEE the symptoms (evidence) on your physical body, or you literally can FEEL discomfort/pain.

With dentistry, just because you can’t see or feel something inside your mouth, you still might need dental work —- but then again you might not….so choose your dentist wisely!

Listen, I think it’s wonderful that we live in a pretty evolved society here in America, and that we have certain laws that look out for our general health and well-being.  It hasn’t always been this way, but over time, new regulations have come about.  Foods, and just about anything we ingest is required by law to make known it’s ingredients and nutritional value (or lack thereof).

Menus will now often include how many calories everything on the menu has.  Even fast food places often now have charts on the wall that tell you what exactly you’re putting into your body.  If not a chart on the wall, little pamphlets are often available to customers.

Earlier today at In & Out Burger, I noticed that on the main menu (the one behind/above the counter), each item has it’s total calories listed as well.  Impossible to miss.  While I appreciate the disclosure, must they so clearly remind me of this?  C’mon now.  You don’t have to get specific on me, reminding me that like 1000 calories is about to enter me.  Let me live in denial, a little.

I mean, 800 calories, 1000 calories, whatever it is — it’s bad.  And ya know what?  People don’t go into In & Out for healthy food.  I get that.  I just feel like clearly reminding me of how bad something is kind of takes away some (a little bit) of the enjoyment of eating.

Anyway, tell me how many calories are in stuff, but do it in pamphlet form, or in chart form off to the side, making it a little less visible and in my face.  Thanks.

I think we often forget about what’s going on with life expectancy.  People are living longer and longer lives, and especially those living in the so-called developed world.

With so much negativity on TV, in the news, and propagated by much of the media, it’s quite easy to forget about such an important fact.  Between our depleted ozone layer, war, famine, disease, etc, overall as a species, never more so in our history than right now, we’re living LONGER and HEALTHIER lives.

In other words, we must be doing something/some things right.

OK, if you have some kind of diagnosed medical condition that has influence over your diet, I understand.  If you’re a vegan, or a vegetarian, obviously those are specific choices.

However, for pretty much most other human males and non-pregnant females, our overall diets really ought to be pretty similar.  I’d say age, if anything, has more of an effect on what we need to be consuming, rather than our gender.

I think it’s all bullshit, these magazines by the register at the Supermarket.   And on TV,  a guy with a deep voice says to eat the Hungry Man frozen dinners, and some annoying yuppie chick voice over tells the strong independent woman to eat yogurt.

Whatever.  The potatoes in the frozen dinner won’t know if a woman is eating them — and yogurt is decent food for everyone.

You know the deal with this country.  When our government gets pissed off at something, and wants to eradicate it, they declare war on it.  War on drugs, war on poverty, war on your mom.  Etc.  Etc.

Considering how obese so many Americans are these days, I think it’s about time we declare a “War on Fat.”  For one thing, I’m pretty sure there are way more fat people in this country than there are drug addicts.   Being fat is a dangerous health risk, so shouldn’t we be aggressive when it comes to getting rid of it?  Yes, a person can still be unhealthy without necessarily being fat, but having less obese people in this country would be a great step towards improving our overall health as a population.

To quickly make a note, there are issues on the opposite end of the spectrum as well.  Diseases like Anorexia and Bulimia are real, and should be taken seriously.   There are people out there legitimately struggling with these illnesses, and given our culture and other factors, it’s quite understandable how people can struggle with body image.  But once again, there are way more obese people than there are Anorexics out there, so I really think it’s time to prioritize.

Sure, often the government/schools/other organizations do run all sorts of health and fitness campaigns.  Pro sports leagues are always encouraging kids to live healthy lives.  Political figures like JFK years ago, and now Michelle Obama also speak often about the importance of health/fitness — but it’s not enough.

I’m ready for the War on Fat.

When I take a look at the failures of the other “wars on stuff,”  I must admit I wouldn’t be optimistic about a War on Fat, either.

At least one thing would be accomplished though — we’d rid ourselves of this soft watered-down sugar-coated language being used, and we’d be consistent with our stupidity and how we approach all of our other policies.  Stupid yes, but at least we’d be direct and more honest with ourselves.

“Fusion” is a bullshit word.   I’m not saying that fusion-style restaurants can’t have good food, but I see the intentions of the place.   By combining  Japanese/Chinese/Thai/etc., they can cover more ground, and give people more choice and variety.  Well, fusion may mean more options, but it also typically means you’re losing authenticity.

There are some really weird quirks in the language we all commonly use.   Here’s an example:  “Wanna go to the movies this weekend? —  “Sure I’m down for that.”   OR  “Wanna go to the movies this weekend?”  — “Sure I’m up for the that.”  If up and down are opposites, how can being up for something and down for something mean the exact same thing?  Now my head hurts.

One more difference between computers and people — resting helps sick  people get better,  but not computers.  Shutting down your computer overnight does not help get rid of it’s viruses.

The other night I had the pleasure of seeing blues legends Buddy Guy and B.B. King perform live at the Hollywood Bowl here in Los Angeles.

For the record, Buddy is the young one of the duo, at 74.  That’s because B.B. King is 84 YEARS OLD.  Wow.  Still playing guitar, still singing, and still touring at that age pretty insane (in a good way of course).

What amazes me almost even more than King’s musical talents, is his “rotundness” at his age.

http://images.onset.freedom.com/ocregister/gallery/l72ci2-b78675543z.120100812164018000gpqprfs3.1.jpg

I gotta say, you don’t see all that many 84 year old men around as fat as him.  You don’t see many 84 year olds (male or female) that fat.  In general, you just don’t see that many 84 year olds!

If lucky enough to even still be alive, most men his age are way skinnier, even frail.  It’s only natural that a person’s appetite decreases with age.

But not B.B. King.  He hasn’t lost his appetite for food.  More importantly though, he hasn’t lost his appetite for music, and for life itself.   I should also note that B.B.  mentioned he does see a couple of other medical professionals to keep him “functioning” —- those being “Dr. Viagra” and “Nurse Cialis.”  I love it.

I just hope if  I’m lucky enough to be around at 84 and beyond, I’ll also be lucky enough to still be doing some of the things I love at that age — which includes playing my guitar, and of course writing blogs about this kinda stuff.

I have a decision to make.

I believe most of us guys don’t do laundry until we absolutely need to.  In other words, as long as we have clean underwear available, why do laundry?

Recently I came into a few new pairs of boxers.

Actually, that sounds wrong on multiple levels.

Basically my friend bought the wrong size boxers, and rather than returning them, he offered them to me.

I accepted his offer, and then had to decide whether or not I wanted to wash the underwear before wearing for the first time.   I remembered back to one time I bought boxers from Target, didn’t wash first, and just wore ‘em right away.

Shortly thereafter, and perhaps coincidentally, I noticed some “redness” around my areas, during the “Scabies Scare of ’08.”

Relax.  I didn’t, and DON’T have scabies, and this very minor redness went away quickly, in just a few days.

Anyway, those boxers I purchased were not sold wrapped in plastic, but these new ones are.

To wash first or wear right away, that is the question.

Right now I plan to wash them with my next laundry load, but once I’m down to my last clean pair of underwear maybe I’ll change my tune……..although it’d probably be good for the new boxers to get to know my other clothes, and spend some time in the washer and dryer with them.

This dude I play baseball with recently suffered a pretty gruesome injury —– but it wasn’t caused by something happening on the field.

After being married at least few years now, I have no idea why all of a sudden his wedding band just started to get tight on him –  VERY,VERY TIGHT.   It got to the point where his circulation became pretty much non-existent, and the finger became very discolored.

The ring was stuck, and my buddy went to the hospital to actually have this thing sawed off.  Unfortunately, the injury he sustained is going to keep him off the baseball field for probably most of the summer.

Anyway, I hope this whole scenario isn’t symbolic for how his marriage is going.   I hope she’s not “smothering” him.   I hope his wife isn’t “choking” him, and cutting off the poor guy’s circulation, rendering him unable to “breathe” in the relationship.

Other thesaurus words that possibly could’ve been used in this blog post:  constrict,  squeeze, stifle, suffocate, strangle, strangulate……

Lol, wtf are these people all about?  Oh, they exist.

It’s definitely possible to be a fat vegetarian.   I believe Prince Fielder, the first baseman of the Milwaukee Brewers qualifies as one.

Although motivations for becoming a vegetarian can vary, many people choose such a lifestyle for health reasons.

I’m always intrigued and amused by the contradictions and hypocrisies of humans, and a fat vegetarian surely fits that bill.