Week 6 (and, if I make it, 7) is often a make or break week for me. I have had COUNTLESS quits bust open in Week 6.
I've discussed previously why I think that is and tried to make this week different. And it was...sort of...
I'm only on Day 40 so I still have two days to go, so I can't say I've completed the week, but I have not smoked AND, honestly, haven't even wanted to (I won't say I haven't though about smoking...though it's been fleeting)
Life threw a lot of curveballs at me, starting from Monday:
--Coming back from vacation, my co-teacher was unexpectedly absent, which meant I had all 32 of my lovely kindergarteners alone, all day, with only a brief break for lunch. It also meant, when I got to work, nothing was prepped because we were off the week before, I had to prepare and teach lessons I wasn't planning on, and had to find stuff she couldn't even remember where she put. But, as tough as that was, I didn't even really have a single craving...just stress, the way normal, non-smoking folks feel it.
--My father discovered he has an arterial blockage, and my cousin (only 54) had a significant stroke within two days of each other. While stressful and emotional, were actually deterrents since my dad never really smoked (which is scary if there's any genetics to it) and my cousin is a HEAVY smoker. So, I'll happily keep pushing myself to avoid these consequences.
--Financial challenges. Just annoying typical money stuff, compounded even more by the fact that I've supposedly saved crazy amounts of money by not smoking, but can't seem to find a penny of it anywhere
--I had some strange issues with my switch over to the 14 mg patch (I did it a bit early, because a couple early on fell off and I wasn't gonna buy a whole box for 2 or 3 patches)
In reflecting on the week, a lot of my resolve for all the changes I was making fell apart. My sleep cycle was screwed up from being off last week, which then meant I was rushing to getting ready for work and skipping my morning workout. Then, I was too tired after work. So my 5 weeks straight of exercise came to a grinding halt. Since I stopped smoking, I had only taken 1 cab to work in the 4 weeks (the 5th was vacation so I have no idea what would have transpired). This week I took 3 cabs out of 5 days 😞 A bad old habit rearing it's ugly head. And, that's where all my money went!
The only other positive I was consistent with was eating 3 healthy meals, and having healthy snacks and tons of water throughout the day.
Except at night...weird, weird, weird cravings for salty, junk food that I gave into. I'm in good shape and have NEVER been a consistent junk eater, but this quit has me craving the salty food late at night like nobody's business. Gotta break out of that soon to keep my sodium down. Anyone else have weird cravings?
I know I need to rebuild the other things over the weekend and next week (exercise and subway only) since everything tends to go together and getting that mindset of "oh, one cab this week won't hurt" sounds too much like "oh, one cigarette won't kill the quit" and I'm not playing that game this time.
Anyway, Tuesday is my 41st birthday. Since my 19th birthday there has only been ONE birthday where I was an ex-smoker. Mainly because all of my longer quits tended to start very shortly after a birthday and I've only made it over a year once. So that is high motivation for the next few days. After that, finishing Week 8 will put this quit into one of my top 5 in length, so there's that motivator. Need to think through the next very big milestone (probably finishing the patch cycle and being totally nicotine free).
Still feeling overall good about the quit, but want to record the challenges, because they sure as heck will come up again.
Ken
40 Days and counting
