In which I talk about stuff that was never before interesting to me: exercising, dieting, and not smoking.
I haven’t smoked since March 29th – twelve days ago, now. I can breathe, my tongue isn’t covered with slime when I wake up in the morning, I don’t clear my throat elevendy-hundred times a day, and I’ve saved at least $50.
I now go most of the day without even thinking about smoking. I can hang out in a bar and not have a nic fit for significant stretches of time. (Last time I went to the Peony I thought about smoking thrice, and only distantly: upon entry and exit past the ashtray by the door, and when the guy sitting next to me go up to go out to smoke.) I can drive without having huge nic fits, and I don’t ache for a smoke after meals. I even managed to go to a gas station and air up a bike tire without wanting to go inside and pick up a pack of smokes!
Blah blah blah, you get it: I’m quit. I doubt I’ll ever smoke again. I’ve gotten through the sucky part of quitting, I’m already reaping the health benefits of being a non-smoker, and I think I have my mind in the right place because I honestly don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I don’t even want to smoke. Sure, I dug it while it lasted (ALL TWENTY-FIVE FUCKING YEARS WORTH OF IT), but it’s just not the fun awesome sexxxay thing it used to be. I’m over it.
I stood outside with the smokers between sets last weekend and wasn’t even miserable. I did have a couple of nic fits, but they were nothing a little 2mg Nicorette couldn’t handle. (Okay, that’s not true. I totally had a wicked mood swing and snapped at someone, but it passed and I DIDN’T SMOKE.)
In other news, my little strength-training program – crunches, squats, and pushups – is having interesting effects. I still don’t LIKE exercise, not really, but it doesn’t suck as much as it always has for the whole rest of my life. I attribute the change to being free for the first time ever of carbon monoxide poisoning. I always felt weak and icky and pissed off after exercise before, and thought all those annoying sporty people were fucking lying about their post-exercise clarity and peacefulness; now, while I’m not yet ready to say “I feel good” after a work out, at least I no longer actively feel bad.
Apparently I build muscle really fast, too. My new-found muscle tone just makes me hyper-aware of the uncomfortable and unnecessary amount of fat I have layered on top of it. I’ve decided I want to drop 20 pounds by the end of June. Since I’m freshly conversant with the whole suckage of self-denial, I went straight from quitting smoking into dieting. Instead of jonesing for smokes, I’ve switched to jonesing for food. Fucking YAY!
Plentiful, ubiquitous, high-fat, high-calorie, First World freakin’ food. It’s just so easy to get.
I’ll tell you what: quitting hard drugs is much easier than dieting, because hard drugs aren’t available EVERY SINGLE FUCKING PLACE YOU GO. It takes a strong will just to run a simple errand when you’re dieting because there’s a fast food joint every twenty feet. You can buy 1,350 kcals in a drive-thru for three bucks in four minutes! It’s insane!
Belonging to a rich culture in a rich era is a bitch, am I right? I’m not spending resources trying to obtain things… I’m spending resources trying to avoid them. It’s weird. I have to decide to make things harder; I can drive everywhere and buy cheap, high-fat, high-calorie food when I get there. Trying to walk places and eat well is like swimming against the current.
It’ll be interesting to see what sort of adaptations come out of this richness and sedentary-ness. Will we evolve digestive tracts that ignore most of the nutrients thrown into them? Will they shorten, so the food’s not in there as long?
Just a thought.
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I’m so proud of you for quitting. You’re so awesome.
Right back atcha: I’m so proud of you for quitting! You’re so awesome! -m
yay! for quitting smoking. bran and i quit on march 26, 1999 and we’ve done so much better since. i hated waking up all congested and coughing up a lung in the morning sucked big time.
i’m surprised that exercise isn’t sucking more than it is. i mean, i still hate sweating but it’s less hateful than it’s ever been. i can see some of the body changes and like you, i’m becoming far more conscious of my body fat than ever before, especially when i do the arm stretches and i start garroting myself with my own body fat or that i can’t sit with my legs directly in front of me on the floor because of my belly fat being in the way. i’m carrying about 100 lbs of extra body fat that i need to get rid of. it’s going to take a while, but i’ve made the start and am doing it in a healthy way.
yay for us being healthy!!
Yay! -m
YAY! The exercise thing is really gonna help it this whole thing. Great that you’ve quit.
Yay is right! -m
I am way proud of you! I tell all the people I know who still smoke: If you can get through the first three days, you can get through the next thirty years. So true. Those first three days are crucial. Under three days, you haven’t been quit long enough for it to matter if you back slide. After three days, and you’ve made too much progress to mindlessly light up. I have been nasty-free for over 3 and a half years! What’s weird? Every once in a blue freakin’ moon, I will forget . . . and think, oh, I’ll just go have a ciggie and then get back to work. For 3-5 seconds, I get all the joy of anticipating then for the rest of my life, all the joy of being quit! Naughty is mondo weird that way.
When I was going to the gym last year, I gained weight first as I put on muscle mass, but my clothes fit better even so. Now that I’m a lazy boiled squash, I resemble in shape the butternut I so worship. I am twenty pounds heavier than I was this time last year. But as soon as I finish this semester TEN DAYS HENCE, I will begin some kind of routine again. Isn’t it weird how you get Stockholm syndrome about working out? I totally started identifying with those annoying “healthy” bastards about three months into my morning routine. With the Netflix, it’s kind of a fun thing to allow myself to watch the movie only if I’m on the treadmill . . . little things like that. And lately I’m telling myself that taking any food through the window of my car is like feeding the corporate uber-Satan, who conspires to keep us fat and sick so insurance companies get all our money. Rage just works for me!
Yes! What you said. -m