Toothpaste

So, I’m needing more new toothpaste again. This brushing your teeth twice a day every day uses the stuff up at an alarming rate.

I’ve always found most toothpaste way too minty — I don’t love that artificial hot/cold feeling taken to an extreme degree — and too sweet and too filled with SLS. I tried the baking soda version from Arm & Hammer, but that’s made me smell metal all the time and think constantly that I have a bloody nose, so I’m not in love with it, either.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a not-too-minty, not-too-sweet, not-too-full-of-SLS, not-too-metallic toothpaste? I don’t ask for much, right?

Proactivity

I’ve been using the Proactiv for just over a week, and switched to the two times a day as recommended. I’m not adding a new thing for this week since I had to pick up the second instance of the Proactiv routine.

It does seem to be helping. My face isn’t perfect by a long shot, but it looks a little better. That could just be a cyclical thing, though, as my acne tends to be very hormonally driven.

…I wouldn’t listen to infomercials

I bought a Proactiv kit, not so much because of the informercials, but because I’ve had two different friends who tried it and liked it.

I have some $400 worth of expensive cleansers and creams that I bought at a spa, and they did a fantastic job of making all of my skin that wasn’t a pimple look clean and shiny. Didn’t do a damned thing for my acne, though.

So now I’m trying this Proactiv thing — once a day for the first week, and then twice a day after that. We’ll see whether it helps.

Weekend Update

My mom was here this weekend, so some things kind of went by the wayside. I did a bit of neck-laying-on-the-floor-thingy, but not twice every day. And 15 minutes of cleaning went down in flames, too. *She* might have done 15 minutes of cleaning every day, but I certainly didn’t. Writing 100 words also didn’t happen.

Everything else pretty much did, though, so that was good. I even went to the gym on Friday and Monday mornings while she was here, as scheduled.

Last night I got caught up in watching the Olympic Tri, and cheering for Simon Whitfield, and around Midnight when it ended, realized I couldn’t possibly finish all the things I needed to and still hit Midnight, so I left cleaning for another day. I also totally forgot the feet thing since I hadn’t yet added it to my checklist. D’oh. I guess that chain will start today.

…I would stand on my own two feet

My soft, uncalloused own two feet.

I have some lovely stuff (actually, it’s pretty nasty stuff, mostly urea, ewww!, but I try not to think about that) that’s supposed to make my feet all shiny and nice and remove the yucky dead skin, that I rarely use.

So I’m putting it on my twice a day list.

Footlogix Very Dry Skin Formula

Toothpaste…

I had to buy more toothpaste today. And my previous tube isn’t even expired yet!

Broken Chains

I came home from last night’s show at the Duck Room (home of the world’s most oppressive concrete floors) and fell onto the bed to rest my poor, aching knees for a few minutes before the after party.

8 hours later, I woke up.

Since I hadn’t planned to go to bed at that point, I’d missed my last wall stand and tooth brushing of the day. (I’d also missed other such important things as undressing, as the underwire marks that may be permanently embedded in my stomach will attest.)

So much for those chains I was so proud of in my last progress entry (I did end up writing a Chowhound report that night, btw, so I didn’t break one then.)

I’m a little discouraged, but I’m not giving up. I built those chains up before, so presumably I can do it again.  

Feeling my teeth

Ever since I started brushing them twice ever day, I really feel my teeth. Not, like, running my tongue over them and feeling how smooth they are, but actually feeling them in my mouth.

I wonder if I’ve brushed them into a state of heightened sensitivity? I also wonder if it will go away, because, frankly, it’s annoying.

Tooth brushing as a diet tool

I’ve been craving ice cream ALL DAY.

I had, to this point managed to resist the urge, but I’m about to have to get in my car and drive to the mailbox. Which involves passing Dairy Queen.

I’ve just done my evening tooth brushing, however, so that should make it much easier to resist.

Gag me with a toothbrush?

One of the reasons why I’ve managed to fall out of the habit of brushing my teeth routinely is that I have what you might call an overactive gag reflex. Trying to brush my upper molars is decidedly unpleasant, and usually, I haven’t really bothered. But I guess if I’m going to brush my teeth twice a day, I should brush them well, so I’m trying to get all my teeth, without creating the illusion that I’m bulimic. So far, so good.

Reason #3: Because I should really go to the dentist.

I’m afraid to go to the dentist.

Not a deep seated, hysterical, oh my god I’m going to fall over in a dead faint fear. More like a combination of small fears that add up to ‘I haven’t seen a dentist in 10 years.’ To enumerate:

1. Social Anxiety about phone calls: I don’t have a dentist in Ontario. I’ve never had one here. Finding a dentist and making an appointment would require that I make phone calls. I very much do not like to make phone calls of that nature.

2. Dental specific fear: A few years back (quite a few years at this point), when I wasn’t afraid to go to the dentist, I asked my mom to pay for a visit to my dentist back home for my Christmas present. Not the best of all possible Christmas presents, but I was in University and I didn’t have health coverage, and she’d have to make the appointment for me (thus saving me the anxiety creating phone call) so I thought that was pretty good, all around. She ended up making me an appointment at the college to have the student hygienist clean my teeth instead. 8 hours of utter hell later, I could barely open my mouth. And that was just a cleaning. I’d imagine they need more than a light cleaning by now. Consciously, I know that was because it was some idiot student doing the work, but there’s still a small part of me that fears.

3. Work anxiety: I don’t quite understand how my dental plan works, in terms of paying and submitting. Figuring it out will require asking for help and having people at work do things they don’t normally do (I’m an out of country employee, so my insurance situation is unusual, along with all my other HR related situations, and I’m trying very hard not to have those things be a major pain for the company I work for. Because I fear that if I’m too much hassle, they will lay me off just to not have to deal with it.

4. More dental specific fear: I fear, that having left them undentisted for 10 years, my teeth are in really, really, really, really, really terrible shape, and that if I go to the dentist, they will be mad at me. I realize that not going to the dentist for even more years is not likely to improve this situation. However, I feel like if I could just get into a solid brushing habit for a few months, I could at least get my teeth looking not utterly, unbelievably neglected, and maybe when I go to the dentist, they won’t yell at me.

So, this is part of the plan. If I can make this toothbrushing thing happen for a month or two, then I will try to work up the necessary mental energy to actually go to the dentist.

First tooth brushing complete

However, given that I ate popcorn last night and had a piece of kernel stuck in one of my molars, I probably would have brushed my teeth this morning even if it hadn’t been on my to-do list.

…I would be smiling

This week, I’m going to add ‘Brushing my teeth twice a day’ to my list of tasks. Since I started working from home, I far too often forget to brush my teeth even once a day, never mind twice. And that’s just grody.

I chose that for this week, since I’m going to be out of town most of the week visiting with relatives and going to a wedding in Boston. Brushing my teeth is both easier and more important when spending time in proximity with others, so I figure this is a good week to start.

I’ll keep everyong updated until Thursday, and then I’ll be offline until the following Monday. I’m planning to track my daily compliance on wall standing, water drinking and tooth brushing on paper in the interim, however, so I can update Joe’s Goals when I return.