2nd January 2014: For Fuck's Sake...

24 hours.

I couldn't make it 24 hours without a meltdown.

I'm not going to make excuses. I could say I had a bad day at work (I did), I could say I had such a bad night yesterday that I'm exhausted today (I am), but I've come to realise that excuses don't address the issue.

So it all started so well. I was coping alright at work without the smokes and even had a calorie controlled lunch (small sandwich and a vegetable sushi pack). This afternoon though, things just got weird.  I hit a wall in terms of tiredness, the nicotine gum started making me feel sick and I started to crack.

Cue an infuriating drive home and a lot of grumbling on my part and I just snapped. I bought some tabs and had a kebab wrap for my dinner. Yeah, when I fall off the wagon I leap off it with a lead weight around my neck.

It wasn't all bad. Considering how careful I was with my lunch, I'm still under my target for the day with my calories. I also did something I rarely do. I ate my dinner slowly, stopping as soon as I felt full. Normally I eat quite quickly and aim to clear my plate. It's incredibly rare that I leave any food, so I'm counting that as a win.

The smoking thing is what has annoyed me the most. I know a lot of people have issues in the early days of giving up, but I at least hoped I could have lasted more than 24 hours before I cracked.

I am going to hope that tiredness was the main issue so I'm going to try and get a good night's sleep tonight and try to stop again tomorrow. I definitely want to be smoke free over the weekend, when I can chill out and avoid stress as much as possible.

Ah well, it's a marathon, not a sprint...

The Last Smoke

It's a funny thing when you decide to stop smoking.

No matter how much you've convinced yourself that you want to stop smoking, the final cigarette is a looming, destructive bastard.

You see, when you're hooked on something as insipid as nicotine, your brain can play tricks on you. How ever much you hate smoking and however strong your resolve is to quit, if you have a "final" smoke it is like breathing in the nectar of the gods.

You savour it, you enjoy it, you reminisce about the times when it was cool and cheap to smoke, all those great times with your mates sat around an ash tray and enjoying yourselves.

It's corrosive and horrible. Plenty of times I've wanted to quit and never actually stopped because that last cigarette was just too damn sweet.

I've just had what I hope is going to be my last smoke and for the first time, I felt complete indifference towards it. The last cigarette didn't feel special, it didn't draw up the good times. No, all that was going through my head was "it's 11pm, windy and wet out here, I'm sick of this shit".

Maybe this is what it is to quit and really mean it. Every other time I've had that yearning to buy some more and it's usually ended up with me doing exactly that.  Not this time though, which is very curious indeed.

Hopefully this time I can stick to it and not fall back to what boils down to a very expensive way to slowly kill myself.

Being as overweight as I am AND smoking is a recipe for death before 40 and I don't want that. I also don't want to turn into one of those ex - smokers who condemns everyone who still is smoking. I just want to be healthy and have a bit of change in my pocket to play with.

That's not too much to ask, is it?

January 1st 2014

Ach. Wait. What?

It's New Year's Day? Christ on a bike, when did that happen?

No matter, there are things to be done now. As is customary, I went on absolutely ridiculously this Christmas season. Lots of food, far too many drinks and too many cigarettes. While I may not have a hangover, I am feeling a bit crap in myself.

It's been a while since I blogged last, so here's the quick catchup. In September I started running. The idea was to get into a state where I could do the 2014 Great North Run. I was really enjoying it too, getting up to regular runs of about 3 miles or so and managing it comfortably. I hurt my back this month which has stopped me from running, however I will be picking this up again next week.

In terms of the smoking, I will be stopping again. I managed to do the whole of October without smoking so I know I can do it again with minimal discomfort. That and i've got no money so smoking is something I really could do with kicking.

So here it is, the first day of the year and the last day of living unhealthily. When my current pack is empty, there will be no more cigarettes, exercise commences again next week and the diet starts tomorrow.

As in 2011, I have a wedding to go to in April, so I WILL look good for that.

Bring it on

June 5th 2013

Man, I'm tired.

This diet really takes it out of you, energy wise. With me trying to shock my body into using up its stores of fat and carbs, it's leaving me very tired. Apparently it'll get better by Friday. I sincerely hope it does.

I'm still utterly hungry but I'm getting used to the hunger pans and I'm trying not to clock watch up until 1230 when I can eat today. It's only an hour and a half from this point, but it does feel like a million miles away.

I've tried going for a walk this morning but the blisters on my feet are making it difficult. I definitely don't think I'll be hitting 5 miles today. Lets call today a kind of rest day, still doing exercise but massively reducing the intensity.

In news unrelated to the diet (but related to health), I've now made it a month without smoking. I don't feel the need to smoke any more and it's not bothering me to be around smokers. Also, I've saved a fair chunk of cash, as demonstrated by the NHS Quit Smoking app right here:

If I can do that, I can lose weight again. After all, that only took a month, so this idea of taking things a month at a time should hopefully work for weight loss too.