Peace Day

Woke up feeling good today. Last night I dreamed I was surfing with an old friend from college. Gliding along in the water felt like heaven but swimming out in the ocean was rather difficult. I needed to stay on my board, stick with the planned activity. This seems a good metaphor for my life right now. Have a plan and stick to it and things should go a lot easier. The plan is to stay with the nicotine patches for a while. Last time I found I could easily manage without them and stopped wearing them early on. For me the patches are a barrier or a wall of protection in my moments of weakness. I think for me its best I keep wearing one at a low dose for 90 days. I've noticed in reading other peoples blogs that people start to feel a bit better in their efforts about this point. Good days follow bad days which follow mediocre ones and the cycle continues with more good days than bad ones. I think this is a good sign because that means there's breaks in the struggle. Those breaks will become longer and longer with fewer and fewer points of struggle. That's the plan! In the meantime happy Peace Day everyone :)

Keep at It

One of my recently acquired and favorite activities is jogging. I try to do a couple of miles three times a week. I would like to get out there every day but I'm not that organized yet. This activity fills numerous needs. Each day I don't smoke jogging becomes less labored, easier. When I started I could jog one quarter of one lap before needed to walk a while, now I am up to half a mile before I need a breather. This is tremendously encouraging. Other benefits include an endorphin rush, feeling I am cleaning my lungs out quicker and I'm not gaining weight the way I did the last time I quit. Overall I am really encouraged by my new activity and willing to keep at it as I get lots of rewards for my effort.

Hello again

Its been a year and I thought while I'm at it I should check back in. I really don't think anyone reads this, but it's actually quite good for me and helps the process. After my last post a little over a year ago things became quite intense on the family front. I was having a hard time dealing with everything and returned to smoking. I needed to get my head around the psychological piece or more precisely I needed better strategies for dealing with some things that were coming up. By March I got serious about what I needed to deal with and by August I was ready to quit again. In planning a quit date in September ( which is always a good idea) I just quit without notice to myself. I woke up saying to myself, " Today is the day." That was two weeks ago, which feels good to say. I have lots of strategies and I learned a lot stuff in my last quit so I'm counting on those things this time around. I know its important to hold out for three months no matter what's going on and after six months smoking stops becoming a psychological crutch for most people. I really do have a lot to say but I think that's enough for now.

Summer Daze

Its been an incredibly busy Summer. I was hoping for something entirely different, but I guess you get what you get. For the most part things are a bit easier to deal with these days. I feel successful in many areas. I have fewer and fewer urges and the ones I have are easier to control or I can just ignore the feelings altogether. I have stopped gaining weight and actually have started to lose a little weight and I wake up each morning with a sense of vitality. I am finding a few areas a bit hard to deal with. Although I am now loosing the weight I gained its slow and a bit disheartening at times. There are quite a few Summer clothing items I have stuffed in the corner because its ridiculous to think I can squeeze into them right now. I also continue to have cravings in the evenings. Actually that is now the only time I have cravings. If its been a particularly busy day and I am tired and don't have the energy to get out and take a yoga class or do something physical I still have to ride the waves of longing, which at this point can kind of wear me down sometimes. As I continue to read about other peoples journey quite a few struggled continuously until about the third month, then many experience true relief. Alright then..... I'm far enough along to say that's just around the corner. So until then, lots of yoga, breath, meditation and I think a few trips to the lake are due as well.

Namaste everyone and be well.

Working it out

I haven't had any time to write about my journey lately, sorry. I'm plodding along. This past week I had family visiting. I love my family but this was stressful as hell. I came into this week telling myself to breath and immediately rushed into a restorative yoga class. Yesterday I took a full on physical, sweaty lets just work it all out kind of class and ended up crying at the end. I just needed to get it out. I have a few little Summer jobs and one of them is not enjoyable at all. There are some really toxic personalities floating about. A few times I have seriously wanted to stick a cigarette in my mouth and just watch everything go up in smoke. I didn't and here's why. Cigarettes will not help family communications, nor will they make the temporary co-workers attitudes become bearable. What cigarettes will do is make me sick, if not now, eventually. What will happen is right after I smoke I'll feel tired and fatigued and will not have the energy to deal with all the intense interactions I have to deal with, this will in turn make me emotionally venerable and to protect myself I will get sick. I don't need to smoke, I need to make some big decisions in my life, confront my issues. Scary man, scary........

In the meantime, it's a slow ascent up the mountain.

Graduation Day!

Thursday was the last day of our group. We had a party, complete with cupcakes! It really did feel like there was an accomplishment to celebrate. Our group will meet again in six weeks to touch base. I'm glad were meeting again, the accountability is a big motivator. I'm rooting for myself and my group mates, I look forward to seeing them in September. It's been amazing and inspirational to see the physical change each week. This has been a wonderful experience filled with committed people who have been incredibly motivating. If only more of life could be this supportive.

For now I remain in my healing process. I still have urges in the evening, but they grow weaker with time and less annoying. Tomorrow makes six weeks........ And away I go, living life.

Screw you for not smoking

From Salon.com
Last fall, after 13 years of pleasurable puffing, I smoked my last cigarette. I thought quitting would make me feel healthy and hale -- so why the hell is my body falling apart?
By Rebecca Traister

March 14, 2007 After having smoked cigarettes every day for 13 years, I took my last drag on Oct. 10, 2006. Like most smokers, I'd considered quitting many times, set arbitrary dates for cessation, pondered patch-gum-Wellbutrin methodology, and never brought any plan to fruition. My choice to stop this fall took me by surprise; I hadn't planned it, and while the process was excruciating, the moment of decision was as simple as going to bed one night and realizing that "it" -- my life as a smoker, which I had really, really loved -- was over. Also unexpected is that so far, I have not backslid, though I'm not hubristic enough to pretend that this won't get harder with the return of warm weather and outdoor dining to Brooklyn, N.Y. But what has truly floored me is what has happened to my body since I shocked it by taking away its daily feed of nicotine and tar.
This is not going to be a piece about how as soon as I put down the cancer sticks, my heart began pounding stronger, bringing rosy color to my suddenly smooth cheeks, or how my hair grew lustrous and I began tasting food better and my lungs expanded to gulp in billows of fresh air, like a princess awakened from her carcinogenic coffin after the evil Camel's spell was lifted. That's the tale I'd been told by many smug people who urged me to quit over the years. This is about what actually happened.
October
Unsurprisingly, I gained some weight. There are many explanations for why quitters pack on pounds: Cigarettes speed up metabolism; they are appetite suppressants; the oral fixation they satisfy can be sated only by French fries. Here's what was true for me: During those first weeks without smokes, I rewarded my daily virtue on a pasta-and-pork-product-based system. I also treated myself by trading in my loathed morning cardio workout for yoga. I'd previously prided myself on being the only woman in her 30s in New York never to have taken a yoga class, but I'd gathered that the practice might aid the post-smoking cleansing process. Or something. As it turns out, beginning yoga, while fun, does not torch calories.
I made my peace with the extra baggage. Except for the smoking, I am in relatively good shape: strong and muscular, I eat vegetables and lean proteins and I don't drink soda. As I shoveled in delicious dinners, I decided that 10 pounds was a reasonable price for kicking my wickedest habit. I was less prepared for what happened to my skin. At 31, I have not yet become transfixed by the thin lines wending their way from my eyes, and I'd heard that quitting would brighten and smooth whatever imperfections might vex me. But a week after my last cigarette, things began to go very badly on my face. I broke out in angry blemishes, I got a canker sore inside my bottom lip, and my complexion ran the gamut from pallid to waxen. Perhaps, I reasoned, employing the kind of New-Agey logic that leads people to believe they need colonics, it was decades' worth of toxins being expelled through my skin.
They were certainly being expelled from my lungs! One of the knee-slapping ironies about smoking is that many people who quit promptly develop a scratchy throat and hacking cough, producing globs of repulsive substances as their scilia come lurchingly back to life after decades of nicotine-induced slumber. And as soon as they get back to their job, shooing bad stuff away from the pulmonary system and showing the stuff that's already there the door, it's a multi-Kleenex rainbow tour of phlegm.

To read all of Rebecca Traister's wickedly funny journey to a smoke free world click here