Hi, folks! I know that I have been AWOL for a couple of months but I want you to know that everything is fine with me. Most importantly, I'm still NOT SMOKING. (Almost 15 months now!) And a very special "Thank you" to those of you who PM'd me in recent months asking "Where are you??". Your messages made me feel good.  :wub:

 

When I first joined QT I resolved to actively participate for at least one, solid year. I knew from my previous quits (as well as from more experienced quitters here) that it takes at least one year to really get "clean" so I made that commitment to myself and to the other members here. 

 

Happily, as of March 28th I had succeeded at Keep The Quit for one year.Hooray! Unfortunately, as I said in my blog, I gained 30 pounds in the process. For me that meant that whatever gains I made in terms of energy and vitality through stopping smoking were lost because of the additional weight. Furthermore, for the first time in my life my diabetes was "out of control" (i.e., A1c >7.0). So all-in-all, even though I had not smoked in a year, mentally and physically I felt worse than I had when I was smoking. Bummer!!  :(

 

However, rather than trying to lose weight by going back to smoking, I decided to find an online support group to help me to get my weight and diabetes back under control. After all, if this forum was so helpful to in terms of education and support for the purpose of quitting smoking, maybe another forum could do the same thing for me for the purpose of diabetes control. So after my 1-year anniversary here (and believe me when I tell you that the Lido deck is absolutely FANTASTIC!) I threw myself into the DiabetesDaily dot com forum. Since I didn't have time to actively participate in both forums, I have been focused on the diabetes forum lately.

 

I am happy to report that during the last 3 months I lost 12 pounds, my blood glucose is down and my A1c is back where it belongs, and my blood pressure, lipids and everything else is just tickety-boo! I also discovered that a statin that I was taking (to reduce cholesterol) was making me depressed and short of breath, which is a common side effect of statins. I stopped taking it and not only do I feel much better and more energetic, but my lipids are just fine without the statin, thank you very much!

 

So my journey is not finished-- I guess we only "finish" when we're dead, right?  :) -- but I'm not feeling tempted to smoke, I've got my eating back under control (low carb is the way to go for diabetics!) and I'm finally beginning to feel healthier and more energetic. Now that I've gotten the hang of this low carb eating plan I hope to be able to pop in here from time to time and catch up on how you all are doing.

 

Thank you again for all of your help, advice and support over the last 15 months. As you can see, you showed me how important and effective an online community can be to overcome some very significant personal struggles. Hooray for Quit Train!!

Great to hear from you, Chrys!  Glad all is well!

That is so inspirational. :). Great to hear you are doing so well!

So glad you are doing well and congrats on the weight loss as well! So true about the journey. :)

Congrats on keeping your quit. I'm on day 11 and know that I will definitely gain some weight throughout this process. 

Hi Chrys, good to hear you are doing well! :)

Awesome. Any selfies?

WTG Chrys!  It sounds like you are doing it right....ever evolving in a positive way.  Nice!

Good to hear from you....so pleased to know all is going well with you...well done...

Fabulous to read this. So pleased you are feeling so much brighter now, good job!! xx

This was really great to read. Chrys, you are conquering everything! 

Nice work C.

 

Good to hear from you.

So very good to see you Chrys... And fantastic news that you are doing so well in every department!

 

I have been absent from QT myself lately, so it is nice to hear from you again :)

 

Don't be a stranger!

Chrys - good of you to check in!  It's almost impossible to maintain membership on two online forums @ the same time so I understand why you needed to switch over in order to address the next challenge.

 

I'm impressed (but not surprised) that you stuck to your quit!!!  It would have been so easy to make a case for smoking when you're faced with the consequences of weight gain and diabetes BUT I know you're a learned quitter and you are not going to fail.

 

Good to hear from you!!!

Great to hear from you Chrys!

And now getting your health back, awesome!

I may have to get some tips on the weight loss, you've done a fantastic job!

Hope to see you around a little more often  :)

Glad you're well, Chrysalis!  Thanks for stopping by.  Come back as often as you like or as often as you can.  :)