PixelSketch

-6

Not on this lovely Saturday! NOPE.

-3

-3 Oh, they're scared. That's why the cheating. :P

Thank you Doreen! :) No worries, though, this newbie can take it. Bring it, sticks! :dirol: -1

Thanks R! :) This whole thing has been a revelation so far in so many ways! I'm sure I have more surprises coming down the line. I'm glad you and your wife were able to avoid that part by quitting a different times and all worked out well. :) The more I think about it, the more I realize how insidious smoking really is. It just gets into every single nook and cranny of our lives. Bleh. It governs our routines and our emotions to a really uncomfortable degree. Glad to be banishing it bit by bit.

Hahaha! Oh, those pork products are sneaky little b's! Well, some of them. :D Thanks for the tip. GAME ON! :gamer1:

Mr. Pixel quit smoking at the same time as I did. He was a little more of a casual smoker, and so far, the effects of quitting haven't hit him hard, at least physically. His Hell Week was just a normal week. Once Week Two, aka Heck Week, rolled around, I was up and around, and ready to start rejoining the living again. I knew that it would be an adjustment to get back to my usual routines without a smoke at hand. I was prepared for that. I knew my brain would need to relearn a few things, and I was prepared to deal with some changes. But I never once thought that the way Mr. P and I related to each other would change as a result of stopping the cancer sticks as well. That was a bit of a shock at first. When we'd get home from work, the first thing we would do is head outside for a smoke and discuss the day. Then we'd go in and start making dinner. The rest of the evening was punctuated by smoke breaks. Looking back, it's almost like smoking was the scaffolding on which we hung the rest of our lives; we fit in what we had to do, and what we wanted to do, between smokes. When we took that underlying structure away, we were both at a loss. That led to some crankiness and some petty squabbling, which is usually not our style. There were times we would sit on the couch and uncomfortably stare at each other. Now what? And that's not us either. We've been together for over a decade and have never, ever been at a loss for conversation or activities. We're curious, and active and interested in so many things. We have a lot in common, and a lot of differences, so it's always an adventure. And it's good. There's always something going on around here. This was just weird. But slowly, we came to realize that, even though we've been together a long time, and we knew each other really well, we've never known a time where we were together as non-smokers. Every single thing we've ever done over the course of 13 years has been punctuated in some way by a smoke; dates, trips, dinners, walks, parties, funerals, weddings, work, even workouts. Smoking was as deeply woven into the fabric of our relationship as our feelings for one another. It was a frightening realization. Could we make this better? How? Now what, indeed. So we started by asking each other one question, "What do you need right now to feel 'normal', other than a smoke?" Answering that proved to be the key. It turned out that it wasn't really the smoke itself that we missed, but rather the routine of heading outside, walking around a bit, talking about our day or the news or whatever. That particular smoke was actually a signal for us to shake the day off and ease into the evening. It was a bridge from crazy day to relaxing night. And without that signal, we were kind of lost. So, we took a walk. And we talked. And we didn't smoke. And it worked. After a few days, that became our new normal and we no longer missed having that after work smoke. We still had that thing that we actually needed - the reason for the smoke - without the smoke itself. From that point on, anytime we felt 'off', we would go back to that question, "What do you need right now?". And it's working. I've come to realize that as we remove that scaffolding, we're revealing the beautiful structure underneath. We've been building it for over a decade, and it's solid. It can withstand much more than I thought it could, and, best of all, it's at the point where we can continue to build upon it, without all that messy, ugly scaffolding. After all, scaffolding is only ever meant to be temporary anyway. The building underneath? That's the real deal.

14

Hi Natalie! I'm new here, but I'm glad you made the decision to come back. Tomorrow is a brand new day and a brand new start. You can do this and we've got your back! :)

Thanks guys! :wub: That helps. I guess I'm so excited about finally quitting, I just expect to feel completely awesome immediately. LOL But, I agree, after putting poison into my body for 20 years, it will take some time for everything to adjust. And I'm sure some of it is unrelated, but it just feels like it is when it hits you all at once right after the quit. Gaah! It's just frustrating. I'm usually 'Go, Go, GO!' so I'm feeling a bit hemmed in. And I'm a lousy impatient patient. :P Hanging in. Tea, lemon, honey, repeat. Waiting for the really good part once I'm through this. :good3:

NOPE! Not today! Happy Friday! :)

Lake Charles, Lucinda Williams.

I'm on Day 19 smoke and nicotine free. Mentally, I feel so so good. Physically, I feel both good and awful. I can breathe deeply, I can laugh whole heartedly without coughing, I have a ton of energy, my skin is looking better, my eyes are clearer, my teeth are whiter. I can smell things again. Of all things, my nails are really shiny. What? And it goes on. At the same time, in the last almost 3 weeks, I've had a bladder infection, a cavity, bronchitis, sinusitis, a flare up of my TMJ/TMD (jaw joint issues) from too much gum chewing (not nicotine gum, just normal gum), and it just feels like it's been a merry-go-round of antibiotics, and doctor and dentist visits. I rarely get sick and now, it's everything all at once. I'm taking care of it all with the appropriate doctors etc. as it comes up, but it's annoying. It's like my body was holding it together until I quit smoking and now it's just letting all the problems, all the cats out of the bag, as it were. I'm falling apart. Yet, I also feel really healthy. It's really confusing. Have you guys experienced anything like that?

You can only do so much. You've planted the seed, you've given the resources, but, horses and water, you know? When you're in the middle of it, you can logically know the dangers, you can be experiencing the ill effects and you will still find a way to rationalize it all away so you can smoke. You need to be ready to walk away. Once you do, you start to see the addiction for what it is. But before that, it's hard.

I think the homework was motivated by fear! ;) I really was ready to quit and I was scared of quitting at the same time, so I figured, the more I could learn, the better equipped I'd be to deal with it. You have an awesome handle on everything and a great attitude! We're doing this!! :D

Thank you Nancy! :) I guess I needed the extra Vitamin C. I'm glad that stage is over. I like citrus, but there's only so much of it I want to eat per day!

Truth. Why does that happen?? For me, it was the first 10 days. I felt like I was living in a giant blob of molasses. Everything took forever and it was all in slo-mo. Also, I felt like I was watching a movie of my life, rather than actually being in my life, if that makes any sense. It was almost like there was a dirty, foggy window between me and life. It's like, I think it was SNL, a long time ago, did a parody of an Elizabeth Taylor perfume commercial. And they kept adding more and more vaseline onto the camera lens as they went along to make her look younger, but she kept looking more and more blurry and fuzzy. LOL That's what I felt like. My life kept getting fuzzy and unfocussed. Nothing felt real.

H Pooks! :) I can't speak to the thyroid issues/meds, but I've been a fitness junkie most of my life. I spent many years in the martial arts, I ran and I did a lot of weights. I was trained by trainers and I also trained others. A few chronic sports injuries and smoking sidelined that now and again, and there were periods where I didn't adjust my diet when I stopped the physical activities for, sometimes, months at a time, and gained weight. When it comes to losing weight, it's super common to hit plateaus. I hit them all the time. Our bodies are super smart and efficient. If they can find a way to do something that you regularly do in a more efficient way, and expend less energy doing it, they will. And you will burn fewer calories over time doing a familiar routine. I second Boo and ExTex. Change it up, both in food and workout type/intensity. Add weights. Muscle takes more energy to maintain than fat, so you'll burn more calories even when you're just sitting if you have more muscle mass. But make sure you eat enough calories to fuel your workout, plus recovery from that workout as well. Your body needs to have energy to expend. Otherwise you end up tired and you can hurt yourself over the long term. Try circuit training with weights. It's a nice mix of strength training and cardio and it keeps your body confused and working harder if you switch it up. Look up HIIT. Find exercises that use multiple muscle groups at once. So, for example, a shoulder press with free weights, while doing squat motions. Give your muscles enough time between workouts to repair and recover. Don't overwork a muscle. Also, it's not always about the number on the scale. I now that sounds cliche and trite. But, I've had so many times when the scale wasn't moving, and I was so frustrated, yet when I did my measurements, I found I had actually lost inches. Other times, I upped my calorie intake and that, contrary to what I expected, got the scale moving down again. All that finally got me to stop thinking in terms of the number on the scale and start thinking in terms of how I was feeling and fitness accomplishments, like lifting 5 more lbs this week than I did last week etc. Sometimes you are actually making progress, it's just not as obvious.

It's unreal how it just affects everything. My Mom passed away from cervical cancer just over 8 years ago. She was young - in her 50's. She smoked right up until the end. It was just heartbreaking. Yet, it didn't stop any of the rest of the family, myself included, from smoking. It's just so awful to think about all the damage and destruction cigarettes do, in so many ways.

That is the perfect picture for that!! Once you get your head out of the sand, it's a whole different world. A much better one.

Same! It was almost a challenge to "collect" the whole series of messages/pictures on the packs. "Let's see, I already have 2 messed up eye/teeth ones, now I need a smoking pregnancy and the classic man in hospital bed" WTF???!! Seriously. Not a one of those was a deterrent then. NOW? Only on Day 19, and I was taking a walk earlier, and one of my neighbours was on his porch having a smoke. I swear I almost dived off the sidewalk and into the nearest bushes, because I was so paranoid about one particle of smoke getting in my lungs. Must get away. It's so nuts how your perspective changes so severely, so quickly.

Haha! I LOVE that one and the perfect response that follows it: "Read that again. Slowly." :lol:

Sadly, that's not a euphemism for anything fun. -_- At the end of Day 3, and leading up into Day 6, I was itchy. Actually, literally, physically...itchy. It actually makes me itchy now, just thinking about it. :o My upper chest, neck, face, especially around the jaw, and head came down with a serious case of THE ITCHES. It came out of the blue, it was sudden, and it was really annoying. Like dealing with multiple mosquito bites. There were no bites, no bumps and not even a hint of a rash. The skin, unbroken, looked normal. I went through a mental checklist. Did I change my shampoo, soap, laundry detergent, lotion, anything? No. Did I eat a food I've never eaten before? No. It wasn't cat allergies - those make my eyes red and itchy and they make me sneeze, but they also make me really red and blotchy. And that wasn't happening. Also, my cat allergies only get that bad when I groom the little buggers. So it wasn't that. I do shower regularly. LOL So...what changed? The only thing that was different was that I quit smoking. And when the itching started, the nicotine was almost out of my system. Maybe my body was trying to expel some chemicals? I don't know. All I know is, I spent several days scratching. Ugh. Nothing helped. Not lotion, not Benadryl, not anything. But I got through it. And by the middle of Day 6, it stopped, just as suddenly as it had started. Haven't had an issue since. But now that experience serves as another great reason to NOPE. If I do, I will be right back to Hell Week, and THE ITCHES. No thanks. NOPE. That's not the kind of itch I want to scratch. Never again. :blink:

It's so weird - it almost feels like your body's been hijacked for a week or so. You just have to hang on and ride it out. The rest is just keeping your guard up, but it's never anything like the first week. Which is a good thing!!