A Visit to the Dentist

As my readers may or may not know I am retired and live in Penang, Malaysia. Medical care and dental care here in Malaysia is excellent and one hell of a lot cheaper than in the US. Yesterday I had to visit the dentist and I am relating my experience to my friends back in the US to make them jealous of the costs that I have incurred.

As with most people, I really dislike going to the dentist. With a certain amount of trepidation and after lots of procrastination I finally decided to go to the dentist and have my tooth pulled. For months I have been putting off this unpleasant task, suffering with weeks of on and off pain from my root canal that went bad. After waiting for an excruciating 35 minutes in the waiting room I was called into the dentist's office, sat down in the chair, opened my mouth wide and in a matter of minutes it was all over. I has my teeth cleaned and my tooth extracted.

The ordeal became even more bearable when I went to pay for what had been done. My total charge was less than $50 USD. If I had this done back home it would have been 2 or 3 time that amount. I was extremely happy that I went to the dentist today, but the short walk back home made me feel even happier. When I lived in Boston and I walked the short distance back home I dodged traffic thinking of all the money I had just given to my dentist to buy his newest Lexus SUV. When I walked home here in Penang I admired some cows grazing next to the sidewalk in a vacant lot next to my condo. These same cows just wander from plots of grass to vacant lots grazing along the way, without any one leading them on. It just amazes me that they wander freely, walking on the sidewalks and in the streets without their keepers supervising their activities. Beautiful and only in Penang!

Don't Eat This. Don't Eat That.

I like to read the news on the Internet every day and this includes the health news. But I am really getting sick of headlines such as "Eating Red Meat Increases Risk of Early Death". In the past couple of days this headline has been on the Internet, on TV and in the newspapers. Of course they meant you have to eat red meat every single day of your life. It's really amazing that there are human beings alive today, because all of our prehistoric ancestors ate read meat! They were all hunters and gatherers.

I don't know how many times in my lifetime scientists have concluded that drinking coffee was extremely bad for you. Probably just about the same number of times scientists have concluded that drinking coffee is good for your health. I can remember when eating chocolate was bad for you, but now eating it is good for you. And how about the warnings about drinking alcohol? At first drinking any alcohol was bad for your health, but now scientists have found that drinking red wine is actually very good for your heart. Drinking a moderate amount of alcohol has been found to be beneficial to your health in many ways. For years eating any kind of fat was bad for you, but now we know that certain fats are actually good for us. Coconut oil had been very bad for your health until just recently when it was discovered that is can be good for you.

Nowadays whenever I read such headlines I take them with a grain of salt. I really doubt the science of the research that generates such headlines. Research is expensive and someone has to pay for it. I suspect that much of this research is paid for by both pro and con self interest groups. Whenever new research is announced, the people or organizations paying for the research are always kept secret. I have lost a lot of respect for many researchers and I pay little or at least less attention to the results of research projects, which generate tabloid type headlines.

If we all pay attention to these periodic headline regarding eating or not eating certain foods, we will all become paranoid hypochondriacs. If we strictly follow the guidelines of these researchers we might live a few extra years. A few hungry, miserable, lonely, unhappy and stressful years. A longer life of little quality. As in all aspects of life, when it comes to eating and drinking, the smart thing to do is to eat and drink in moderation. This is something that researchers know nothing about. Enjoy life, don't be afraid of it.

Where Is God?

Tens of thousand of years ago early civilizations honored and prayed to many gods and types of gods.The Greeks, the Romans, and  the Egyptians had many gods and goddesses for whom they built numerous elaborate temples. The ancient Egyptians also believed that their pharaohs were gods and treated them as such. Other ancient people prayed to the gods of nature, such as the sun, wind, fire, animals and the forest. People prayed to different gods who represented different aspects of life.  About 4000 years ago the idea of, monotheism or"one"god was introduced by Abraham in the founding of the Jewish religion. A few thousand years later, Christianity, an offshot of Judaism was founded. At about the same time Islam was founded. All three of these religions honored one single God, who was basically the same God with different names, Jehovah, Allah or God, according to what religion you belonged to. All of a sudden praying to only one God became the norm. Even though the same one God is recognized as the same "one true God" each of these religions have been at each other's throats for thousand of years, professing to be the "only true religion". Even the different sects in Judaism, Christianity and Islam are professing to be the true sect of their religion. Millions of people have died and thousands continue to die to this day, all in the name of God.

All of these religions believe that God is an all loving, all powerful and all forgiving God.  One thing that baffles me is, how God lets this bloodshed continue. Why does he stand by an allow people to murder each other in His name? Why doesn't He come out and say "cut the crap and accept and love one another in My name instead of killing your fellow man in My name"?  Surely God can do that.

If you look at the Bible, you will see that God had talked to Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Ezekiel, Noah and a few others. But that was about 4,000 years ago. Why was God so talkative way back then, but suddenly so quiet now?  As far as I know God has not talked to anyone in at least 2000 years, if you don't count some of the present day Republican candidates for president. Another question I have on this subject is "where was God all of those tens of thousand of years before he supposedly spoke to Abraham"? What made Him decide suddenly to talk to Abraham and tell him to found the Jewish religion? I don't uinderstand it. I am sure if I were to address these concerns to any devout member of the above religions I would get the response, "It's God's will". The standard response a religious person gives when he can't come up with an logical answer.

What I am really worried about is that if by some amazing miracle God reads this blog and decides to talk to someone about the religious violence ocurring in the world today. Would that person believe that God was actually talking to him? And what would happen when he communicated to the rest of us what God had said? We all would probably think he was crazy and pay him no heed. Who knows? Maybe God has already told us to stop the killing and violence in the name of religion and we just laughed at the messenger. I really believe, however, that is intrinsically human for people to hate and to kill for no reason at all, other than slight differences in opinion. Animals kill for food and for defense. Humans kill for no reason at all. And we consider ourselves superior! Maybe God is just fed up with us all.

How Can I lose Weight Fast?

How many people have Googled the question, "How can I lose weight fast?" I am willing to bet that hundreds of thousands of people have. Well if you've landed on this post in response to your question about losing weight, don't be upset because you won' find any answers here.

If you do a search for help in losing weight you will find hundreds of sites, mostly all useless. You will undoubtedly find results in sites such as "Wikihow", "Ehow" and "Ezine" and if you look closely enough you will notice that the articles are almost exactly the same. Drink plenty of water, exercise, eat more fruit and vegetables, less fat and sugar and count your calories. This is information any idiot would know, unless they have been living in a cave all of their life. Then you will find sites selling the miracle diets or supplements, ranging from diet teas to exotic fruit from the jungles of the Amazon. Diet teas work great if you want to sit on the toilet all day and give up eating. The supplements usually are very expensive and consist of ingredients which have absolutely no effect on weight and can be very dangerous in many cases. A lot of these miracle weight loss supplements raise your metabolism, which also raises your heart rate and blood pressure. Coffee is a much cheaper and safer alternative. You can also buy over the counter drugs that prevent fat from being absorbed by your digestive system. These work great as long as you don't mind the occasional "accident" you have when you sneeze or cough, or when you thought "it" was going to be a fart. If you take the pills you really shouldn't wear white pants and have a constant supply of clean underwear with you. 

Aside from the supplements there are a number of alternative exercise techniques, like those vibration plates that are supposed to shake the fat off you.  Some of the advertising claims that you can burn 1000 calories in 15 minutes. None of the current research on these techniques have found any positive benefits for weight loss. I have known people who have tried the vibration plates and paid some hefty fees over a few months period. The only weight they lost was in their wallets.

Some sites advertise "body wrap" where they promise you can lose inches around your waist. Of course you do. The wrapping just moves the fat to another part of the body! If this doesn't work maybe you can try electric muscle stimulation to shock the fat off your body. Once again all of the current research shows no evidence of any weigh loss benefits. If you read any literature on the above techniques, you will find some extremely fine print at the bottom of brochures or customer testamonials, which says that success comes only when used in conjunction with proper diet and exercise.

The other sites you will run across will be legitimate sites which offer just that - proper diet and exercise. They offer advice on eating healthy, along with recipes and which foods will help you lose weight  and keep it off.  Other sites offer exercise programs and tips that will help you burn fat and lose weight in a healthy fashion. Many of these exercises can be done at home at little or no cost. There are sites that advertise gyms or home exercise equipment to lose weight and keep in shape. Unlike weight loss miracles, supplements and the latest fat burning technologies, nutrition and exercise has been proven to be effective for weight loss.

The bottom line is that for most of us, we are fat because we eat way too much of the wrong food and won't get off our butts to do any exercise. We realize we are fat but we are too damn lazy to do anything about it except to waste our time looking for a miracle quick fix weight loss gimmick. The anwer to the title question is eat less, drink water and exercise more.