Day Ten....Dreaming

Yep, it's day ten. One of my favorite numbers!

So last night I had a dream that I was in the car (this should come as no shock) and I reached down to my cup holder to grab my bottle of water. What I came up with instead was a brand new shiny pack of Marlboro's! OMG! No way. Look at this beautiful thing I have here. Hmmmm, what shall I do with it? Well first I'll open it. My hands started to work on that task while simultaneously driving (I have no idea where I was going). My brain, however, was saying "what are you doing? You don't even want a cigarette! This is the first time you've even seen one in 10 days and look at what you're about to do." - My dream brain is apparently very intelligent, just like in real life. =)

I very quickly cracked the window and tossed those suckers into the ditch where they belong. A more environmentally friendly dream would have been to pull into the nearest gas station and toss them in the garbage, but hey, a girl's got to do what a girl's go to do to resist temptation. Maybe tonight I'll dream and driving back to that spot and picking them up to throw them away properly.

Here's to avoiding temptation, even if it is just a dream.

God Bless,
The Quitter

Day Nine.....Still hating the car

Have I mentioned yet that I hate being in the car?

I have?

Like sixteen times?

Okay, sorry. I can't promise that I won't mention it again, but you just never know!

Today I have some insight to share into the whole "I need to smoke because I'm stressed out" mantra. Many of you who know me can attest to the fact that I'm pretty much wound like a three day clock. This has been true most of my life for whatever reason. It's something I should probably be involved in a 12-step program for with meetings and everything, but only one life altering event at a time, please!

Anyway, I used to think that smoking a cigarette would help calm me down when I would get stressed or a little irritable. Boy was I wrong. I haven't smoked in nine days (yay for me), and I still get stressed and irritable just as much as before. You would think that if cigarettes helped keep stress out of your life, that your stress level would go up after quitting (sorry I'm getting all scientific here). But that hasn't been the case with me. My stress level has stayed the same (and I really need to try and reduce some of that little nuisance - that can be my next big project).

I guess what I'm saying to those of you who are considering quitting or are in the process of quitting is this:

I know how you feel and understand completely, but cigarettes DO NOT take the stress out of your life. Nor will your life become more stressful after you quit smoking. The same stressors were there before you quit. As a matter of fact, you should have one less thing to be stressed out about. You don't have to worry that you're damaging your body everyday by smoking. Big load off my mind!

Here's to less stress!

God Bless,
The Quitter.

What?

Okay, so to explain this post I have to do a little background on Chantix. When you get your prescription, you get access to their online program called "Get Quit". It's pretty cool because you sign in every day and they say some little blurb about how amazing you are and then they tell you how many days you've been a non-smoker and how much money you've saved based on the amount you used to spend on a pack of cigarettes and how many cigarettes you used to smoke each day.

Wow....I guess all that wasn't really necessary, but I'm not going back to delete it, sorry.

Anyway, I just logged in for the day and today's blurb was about changes in your body. There have been a few blurbs on physical changes already, but the previous ones were things that I already knew about. This I never considered.

Basically everyone knows that there are lots of chemicals in cigarette smoke (about 4,000 different agents in the average puff.....ONE PUFF)! One of these chemicals is carbon monoxide (which I already knew). What I didn't know is as follows (taken from chantix website):

'Carbon monoxide invades the bloodstream and takes up room that should be filled by oxygen. So less oxygen gets through to the muscles. As a consequence, smokers feel tired, they have less energy, and they can have an oxygen deficiency. The muscles need more oxygen, but the blood simply can't carry as much. '

Seriously? I used to have less energy because of something that I could have prevented? What a waste of time it was to smoke. Nothing good can come of it and I'm getting mad at myself right now for it. I know that's not going to help......but it's so frustrating.

Here's to normal energy levels!

God Bless,
The Quitter

Day Eight

Well I made it through day seven with no problems. One whole successful week down....lots more to go. =)

It's funny when I stop to think about when smoking a cigarette crosses my mind and makes things difficult. Like on Sunday after we got home from our bike ride, I started dinner and then got in the shower. As I was in the closet getting dressed, I was thinking to myself...."self, you're going to go check on dinner and then step outside and have a cigarette." It was just automatic for my brain to go there. The good thing is that once my brain went there, it was also automatic for my commen sense to tell my brain to shut-up and go check on dinner without having the cigarette. After that, I didn't think about smoking for the rest of the day.

Here's to common sense.

God Bless,
The Quitter.

Day Seven......Seriously?

Has it already been a week, really? WOW! That went by surprisingly fast.

It's great to meet my first mini-milestone. At the end of today, I will have been smoke free for one whole week. That's awesome.

I feel like I'm sleeping much better than a week ago. It's hard to pinpoint the cause because I go through spurts of horrible sleep and then good sleep. But this is better than the usual 'good', so it might be attributed to quitting smoking.....not sure yet. What's funny about this is that one side effect of quitting smoking is 'interrupted sleep patterns'. =) Maybe quitting smoking is interrupting my bad sleep patterns and making them good again. That would be sweet.

In other news, I had ice cream three times last week. Not so good, but I got all my workouts in as well. That's the first time I've gotten all my weekly workouts in since right after Christmas!

Have I mentioned that I loathe being in the car?

Here's to another successful week.

God Bless,
The Quitter

Day Five...I'm Still Alive

Sorry about the rhyming thing I've got going on.....it just sort of happened.

Well quitting smoking hasn't killed me. Today was my first weekend day of the quit, as I started on Tuesday, April 28th. We kept pretty busy, so that helped. The rain wasn't much of a mood booster though. It can stop at any time, really!

Still no awful side effects from the Chantix. Just some really mild upset stomach and a few headaches. As long as I wait until about an hour after I eat breakfast and dinner to take my pill, the upset stomach doesn't rear its ugly head. The headaches were pretty constant during the first week, but I haven't had any this week so far.

I still haven't touched a cigarette. Five whole days. Yay for me!

My chest and lungs feel extremely tight........but that's from the upper respiratory crap I still have. Will it ever end? Seriously!

So something cool happened today. I went to get my eyebrows waxed because I was sick of the caterpillars that had taken up residence on my face. Anyway, I've been having the same girl wax my eyebrows for the past 2 years now. But today.....I noticed something new. Her hands smelled like stale cigarette smoke (yuck)! I thought to myself....."self, that's kind of weird, she must have started smoking". Then it dawned on me......she probably always smoked, but since I don't smell like cigarettes anymore, I could totally smell it on her hands. I know, brilliant deduction, right? Pretty cool all the same. My hands won't ever smell like that again.

Okay, I'm done rambling until tomorrow.

Happy quitting.

God Bless,
The Quitter

Day Four.......Bring on Some More

Day three went well. Just like days one and two, I had the hardest time once I was in the car. Oh well......it will get easier. We took little man on a family bike ride last night. That was fun! The rain actually cleared out long enough to go outside.....it was a miracle!


In other news, I actually dropped a 1/2 pound this week. I really wasn't expecting that. I had geared myself up for a good 2 pound weight gain for my first week, but I guess not. Yay for me. We'll see what next week shall bring.


I don't want to get cocky here, but I do have to say that this is going suprisingly well. I guess I'm saying that while this is difficult to do, it's much easier than I thought it would be. I haven't bitten anyone's head off or tried to run my car off of a bridge. =) Seriously though, it is going much better than I ever expected. Maybe it's due to the Chantix, maybe not. Only time will tell.

Here are a few of the improvements in my body since I quit smoking:

-My blood pressure has decreased

-My resting pulse rate has dropped

-The temperature of my hands and feet has increased (Dad.....you'll enjoy this one when Mom quits smoking!)

-The carbon monoxide level in my blood has dropped to normal and the oxygen level in my blood has increased to normal

-My chance of a heart attack has decreased

-My nerve endings have started to regrow

-My ability to taste and smell has been enhanced (I'm not sure if I like this one so much......everything just tastes funny)

Here's to more positive side effects of quitting smoking!

God Bless,

The Quitter