Today is 125 days since I stopped smoking It is now half way too the point I got in my last quit when I foolishly smoked on my 250th day quit. I'm not going to make that mistake again and I'm committed to reach 251, then get to a year and then two years and then five, ten, and so on. So, two weeks after I started my recent quit I started going to the gym to help keep off excess pounds from the added eating and to help reduce stress and improve my health overall. It is also part of my emergency plan when I'm having a nick-demon attack. I go there and I run for an hour until I'm drained. Well when I first started out I was doing walking mixed with some very slow jogging.it took me nearly 13 minutes to complete a mile. It was embarrassing because my 9 year old daughter was doing 12 minute miles at school. This week I am down to a mile in 7 minutes and 18 seconds! I'm now trying to get down under 7 minutes with a goal of eventually getting to a 6 minute mile. What I keep reminding myself of is the fact that I am fortunate enough to be able to recover my lung capacity after 30 years of a pack - a-day habit and Even have such a goal. Moreover, I'm constantly reminding myself that if I do go back to smoking again, I may not be able to recover this well again. It was so hard to breathe a few weeks ago when I was running, but not so much any more. Now it is a matter of building my endurance and lung strength. I am so thankful that I haven't gotten to that point of no return. In other news, I'm getting close to the end of no man's land. These days at night I've been reading a lot on this site and why quit site. The reason is because I don't want to snack at night. For several weeks I was binging on Netflix at night reading nachos and chips and so on. I didn't gain much weight, and in fact lost about two pounds because I was going to the gym. However about two weeks ago I decided to end the nighttime snacking and cut down drastically on carbs. I immediately lost another 4 pounds in two weeks just by eating less carbs and not doing the night time snacking. However, in order not to snack, I've stopped watching tv. So, I am blogging and reading about smoking foot a couple of hours before bed these days. But honestly it is getting kind of boring. But I'm not sure what else to do. I mean I have ideas - read plan a vacation, try some new things like meditation or heck even some yoga. But for some reason, I'm kind of lacking enthusiasm for those things. I think it is because all of those things involve a degree of work and I'm pretty tired by the end of the day after working, getting the kids to do homework, getting them washed and to bed, cleaning up, and so on. All you parents out there know the routine. So by this time I usually have done one of two things : relaxed in the hot tub with a beer and about five to six cigarettes chain smoked or watched tv with a beer and frequent cigarette breaks. After I quit smoking, honestly the hot tub became boring just sitting in there alone. So I watched tv and had a beer and snacked. And that was okay, but it prevented me from losing any weight that I have been wanting to take off along with my quit. So now I'm doing more reading and blogging about my quit in place of those things. I am realizing that the way out of no man's land for me is going to include coming up with something to do at night after the kids are asleep that is fulfilling, restoring, and interesting to me. My golden time, as I call it. So this is on my mind a lot these days. What will I start doing? Each day I think of something that I think I should try, but then as night falls and the kids are finally asleep I find myself going to the safety and reassurance of protecting my quit by reading and blogging about it. For now this seems good, but eventually I only want to be coming to these sights like once a month to check in and never forget or become complacent again and to offer support to those following behind me. Anyhow I'm committed today to never take another puff - NOPE!
