Skin Care Regimen Quotes

I can barely commit to a skin-care regimen. I'm not sure how to commit to a major.

It felt good to scrub my skin, as if I was removing everything that felt dead about me. I was the "queen of skin care." Who knew that simply exfoliating my skin until raw (which I knew better than to do but now couldn't resist) would one day be what was left of my skin care regimen? My daily cleansing and moisturizing, weekly hydrating and purifying masks, along with monthly photo facials, glycolic peels, or microdermabrasion, was down to "super-scrub Saturdays." Pampering was a thing of the past. No more sunscreen applications to guard against the "UVAging" rays that were out to get me 365 days a year. No more weekly Epsom salts hot baths to detox my body, or lathering up with my favorite vanilla-scented moisturizing cream. No more applications of extra virgin olive oil to the ends of my hair to prevent splitting. I didn't even treat myself to my bedtime chamomile tea. All that had been replaced by a new nightly ritual of passing out on the bed, face down, which went against my cardinal rule of youth maintenance. Before the deep hollow pain was born inside me, I slept on my back, at the perfect thirty-degree angle to ensure proper circulation and prevention of any unnecessary creasing or wrinkling.

If I were into cannibalism, I’d probably want my skin as well. It’s quite lovely and soft thanks to generations of genetics and a careful moisturizing regimen.

Using this technique, Baum et al constructed a forest that contained 1,000 decision trees and looked at 84 co-variates that may have been influencing patients' response or lack of response to the intensive lifestyle modifications program. These variables included a family history of diabetes, muscle cramps in legs and feet, a history of emphysema, kidney disease, amputation, dry skin, loud snoring, marital status, social functioning, hemoglobin A1c, self-reported health, and numerous other characteristics that researchers rarely if ever consider when doing a subgroup analysis. The random forest analysis also allowed the investigators to look at how numerous variables *interact* in multiple combinations to impact clinical outcomes. The Look AHEAD subgroup analyses looked at only 3 possible variables and only one at a time. In the final analysis, Baum et al. discovered that intensive lifestyle modification averted cardiovascular events for two subgroups, patients with HbA1c 6.8% or higher (poorly managed diabetes) and patients with well-controlled diabetes (Hba1c < 6.8%) and good self-reported health. That finding applied to 85% of the entire patient population studied. On the other hand, the remaining 15% who had controlled diabetes but poor self-reported general health responded negatively to the lifestyle modification regimen. The negative and positive responders cancelled each other out in the initial statistical analysis, falsely concluding that lifestyle modification was useless. The Baum et al. re-analysis lends further support to the belief that a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine is inadequate to address all the individualistic responses that patients have to treatment. 

Workout Regimen to build a tough skin: Warm up on the “I’m doing ME” treadmill. Build resistance on “You must be mistaking me for someone who cares about your opinion” elliptical. Get your heart rate up with a “The more you try to hurt me, the stronger I become” spin class. End with “If God is with me, nothing can stand against me” cool down. The stronger YOU are, the weaker THEY are.