taking care of the braces

It's probably the tea I got at Starbucks this evening that is keeping me wide awake. By the looks of things, I'm probably going to be sleeping in come the morning. Instead of struggling to get to sleep, I've been spending the past few hours organizing my marathon training schedule along with all the races in between, as well as reading jaw surgery blogs.

Interestingly, I came across a couple of youtube videos on some of the blogs that I felt were really informative! Such as this one on the correct toothbrushing techniques for braced-up peoples:

It tastes SO nasty! Bleaugh.

So far, my braces-and-teeth care routine since I've put them on has been pretty OCD with:

1. Brush teeth to get out any pieces of gunk,
2. Use Interdental brush between all gaps to get out any smaller gunk and plaque in between,
3. Brush teeth again to ensure all the interdental gunk is gone
4. Brush tongue and top to make sure everywhere is clean,
5. Listerine soak for 20 seconds to get rid of any leftover bacterial grossness,
6. Recover from disgusting taste of Listerine.

The Listerine we have was in my sister's Great Eastern Run race pack from last year so I thought I'd just use it. I just don't know why it has to taste so nasty! But for the sake of ensuring a shorter amount of time with me and my braces on (cause poor health of teeth and gums can prolong the treatment time) I just have to endure it for now. Maybe when I finish the bottle, I'll try the other flavours they have. But seriously, this purple one is yuck!

It's been a while since I've gone to read on jaw surgery. Perhaps it was because after putting on my braces it somehow suddenly felt like my mind was already made up on doing the surgery so I didn't require as much information anymore. But gosh, there's so much more that I really need to read up on. Especially that my jaw surgeon told me at the last meeting we had that I need to read more because I'm going to have a ton more questions, I thought I had really better start reading! And gosh, he was right.

From questions on nerve damage, to chin-work (which I doubt I'm going to do), to recovery time, to post-surgery braces, to limitations... I already have a full list!

Okay, it's half past three! There goes plan for my morning training session. I'm off to do a little more reading.

food I eated! ^^

Looky what I ate! :D

I can’t believe I ate lontong yesterday! And a chocolate filled biscuit! I guess I just couldn’t take another day of eating any more broccoli porridge so I’m getting more daring and exploratory with my food. J

I ate little bits of one of these cookies too!

Met up with some girlfriends last night and they said that I look like I lost quite a bit of weight. I guess I can’t really feel it anymore. Good thing is that my weight has stagnated. And considering that I’m successfully discovering and eating slightly higher caloric meals (with the lontong yesterday, and an egg mayo sandwich this morning that I tore to little pieces :D) I think my fretting should be all under control from now on. Not to mention that today I have a party in the afternoon and I’m going to eat EVERYTHING that qualifies as mashable.

Today’s going to be a day of planning & organizing. Planning my finances, planning my marathon training schedule, organizing my room and office… Going to take before and after pictures to motivate myself.

beginning marathon training and the need for potassium

Morning Walk! Sunrise!

So I successfully got up early today, had a small cup of soggy Cheerios for breakfast, rested for 15 minutes and went out for my very first walk in a looooong time. I only had an hour, so it wasn't very much, but still I'm glad I got out.

The experience was wonderful though. It has been a long time since I smelled the fresh air of the park in the early morning. And observing the people up bright and early was such a wonderful experience. There were people of all ages taking part in all sorts of activities. There were the serious runners pounding the track, the aunties spending time with friends, the dog-walkers, the qi-gongers, the strength-trainers, the people watchers, and then there were the noobs (of which I probably would be classified as as well).

Nike+ really makes a difference!

The whole purpose of the walk was to mark the start of my marathon training program for my Adidas Sundown run in June! Well, actually, it was barely a kickstart (considering I covered barely 4km at a 10:30 km pace), but hey...at least I got moving. I popped into the library yesterday and grabbed a couple of books to help me along the training process. Thing is, the more I read, the scarier it gets! I don't think I really grasped what I was getting myself into! Most of the readings I've read suggested 6 months of training for a person who was used to running as a habit, and 12 months for a complete sedentarist (i.e. person who has been living a completely sedentary, no exercise lifestyle)! And me? Completely sedentarist! And with 5 months! =_= I'm going spend a month trying to get my body back into moving about and enjoying sports again, then there's a 16 week programme I'm going to try to follow. I've pretty much decided that no matter what, even if I'm not confident of completing this marathon within the 8-hour limit, I'm going to still show up. Just gotta pray that the Lord will keep me safe and that my heart will stay in there with me. :)

Still not enough food. :(

I'm really enjoying this process though! This year has started with braces, in a week I'm going for a minor surgery for my little moles, and I'm training for a marathon in June! Not to mention that I believe my family will be running together for a city race in March! Perhaps this is my "awakening". :)

After a kilometre or two, the endorphins kicked in and I was SO happy to be up and about. So much that I think I kinda decided to do this every morning from now on. I was also super sure that this was going to be a wonderfully productive day at the office.

Nope, still tastes like broccoli.

Other than that, I'm still trying to work out my caloric intake. It's really quite a struggle, and it stresses me out a lot (500 calories is probably anorexic community limits! :() but I'm trying my best. Good thing is that I don't think I'm losing anymore weight. I think my body has stagnated as it is. In fact, my skinny jeans felt a bit tighter this morning. Maybe it's water retention from all the carbs I'm trying to take...which is mainly my broccoli porridge. Today's porridge was supposed to be abalone flavoured, but yeah...the taste of broccoli is far too overpowering. At least it's high in calcium.

I had a frightening dream last night though that all my teeth were dropping out and I was spitting them out one by one as they dropped! It freaked me out SO much because I thought I could really feel them dropping out! I remember me being at a resort in the dream and running to the nearest dentist who refused to see me - even though I showed him something like five teeth that had already dropped out that I was holding in my hand - till I spat out another tooth! And worse, he tested the strength of my remaining teeth my putting a spoon into my mouth and scrapping at my remaining teeth! It hurt! :((( I do remember him telling me that it was because I lacked potassium though! Random, I know, but I remembered that! And turns out, from my research this morning, that low potassium can lead to tooth decay and tooth sensitivity! Amazing how God can speak to me huh?

This afternoon, I'm going to get me a banana shake. And a proper bunch of them that I shall start including at breakfast from tomorrow. :)