Quitting smoking
 

This is my third (or fourth :D) real attempt. But this time I went to see my dr for help and she put me on a program. I was going to wait until the 1st but decided to start today. I don't want to wait. I don't want to be a prisoner to this bad habit anymore. Wish me luck!

Wishing you the best luck! I quit August 27th, 2005 cold turkey...funny how I still remember the exact date. I hope you have great success!!:D

Wishing you the best of luck. You will be so proud of yourself for doing this. My husband is battling Stage lV lung cancer from smoking and it is a horrible disease. If you need any support pm me. Praying you quit for good!

doesnt matter how many times you have to try ...just keep trying until you getter done!! i quit dont remember the exact date but sept like 3 or 4 years ago cold turkey. my husbands boss a heavy smoker died of a heart attack...i quit the day of his services and never looked back. amazing how you can smell it on others compared to not smelling it at all when you smoke. super good luck and stick to your guns!!

Buy a treadmill and get on that and walk till you are tired every time you really start to crave a cigarette. After 20 - 45 minutes going hard at the treadmill, all you will want to do is breathe - not smoke. That and prayer helped me stop 11-19-1988 after 10 years of smoking. Inside of 2 months, I was completely free of any thought ever of smoking and began to fear cigarette smoke - didn't even want to be in the same room with it. It is such a dangerous and deadly habit. Your body will love you for quitting now.

Thank you everyone. I am so ready to quit. I know its more of a mental thing after the first few days. I've tried cold turkey and I pace around the house and don't know what to do with myself. A treadmill is an AWESOME idea actually. I have a gym membership. I will probably be going there a lot more now.

Exercise really does get the body and the mind focused on anything other than craving that cigarette. And your body does crave one, too, not just your mind. So that is why exercising helps so much as it give the body some other sensations to process. Plus, you have those great endorphins coursing through your body making you feel good and find that you think about smoking a whole lot less.

So sorry your husband is battleing that disease. My mom is a cancer nurse so I know how ugly that one is. :( Sending prayers your way too. Can you believe my mom smoke for years as a cancer nurse. She's quit for years now but that just goes to show how bad a grip cigarettes can have on someone.

And another huge plus... It will help keep the weight off from quitting. Exercise will def be my friend. I want to go run around the block right now. LOL but I'm working and cant.

That's great you can do it! My niece smoked for years and quit 3 months ago. I am so proud of her. She has an app on her smart phone that tells her how many days since she quit, how many cigs she hasn't smoked and how much money she's saved. The money alone would make me never smoke! Good luck and keep us posted!

Sounds like a cool app. I'll have to look for it. :)

You can do it! I quit cold turkey 7 years ago. This is crazy, but drinking Egyptian Licorine tea was the only thing that took the edge off. Stay strong, and do not take one puff. Not even one.

It's great she shows me on a weekly basis. It has helped her a lot. I will have to ask her the name of it and let you know.

Here's what my kitchen table looks like right now. And that's not including the broccli and artichok i have in the fridge. :) Bring the snack cravings on!!

Sounds good. Let me know. If i search in my market I'll probably find it.

She said if you search quit smoke it will come up. Again, good luck and keep us posted;)

Ok will do. And thanks for asking her. :)

You're welcome!:)

Oh, yes, the money saved will be huge. A windfall. You can do it! When I was at work and I would get the urge at first to smoke, I would open a cold diet Coke and pour it over ice and think about how I would exercise and work out once I got home. I would plan how much longer I thought I might could go on the treadmill and how many more healthy lung cells I would have developed by evening time by skipping the cigarette I was thinking about. Skinnier, fitter and healthy lung tissue - those became my goals. And I never did gain the 5 - 7 lbs. they say you gain - in fact, I continued to lose more weight as I got fitter and healthier. So it was a win-win for me. Go out and make it a win-win for YOU.

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: Awesome. I love to hear about someone who quit and didn't gain weight and got fit instead. That is for sure a goal for me. I have put off quitting in fear of gaining weight when in fact it is completly controlable.

And for when urges to put something in your mouth to busy it just get overwhelming, I kept strongly sour dill pickles, sugarless chewing gum and rice cakes for low calorie crunching and drank water until I almost drowned. In my case, very quickly the urge to smoke became associated with walking on my treadmill or my low cal snacks rather than a cigarette and in my case, my mind began to anticipate getting one of those things when it craved a cigarette, rather than the cigarette itself! And as the nicotine cleared my body, the urge to smoke did too. Be sure you don't drink so much water you get low on sodium as I did once or twice so if you are going over 8 glasses a day, have blood tests from time to time to have your sodium chloride checked.

I keep forgetting that I did smoke almost 1/2 of a cigarette the March or April of 1989 when I learned our office accountant had quit and I was going to have to add her duties to mine for how ever long it took to interview and hire another - but that was only after my boss handed me a lit cigarette, I guess to ease the blow. After those puffs and putting it out, I was horrified that I had let myself slip up like that and made myself a promise that that would never happen again and it never has. I've had many worse shocks and my share of bad news since and not once have I smoked. So even should you slip up, don't let is deter you - use it to reinforce your commitment never again.

All great advice. Thank you. I will use it. :)

BEST of Luck!!!! I'm with you, I am looking into quitting now too! Its a gross habit that really does take control away from you!

Do it!! Do it!! We can do it together. :D I know, YOU have to be ready or it won't work. :) It really is a bad habit. :(

I have been smoking since I was 15! I'm 35 now. That's a long freaking time!

To you guys who have been quit for a while, do you still get cravings? Even years later? My friend told me it's been 5 years and she still does. I'm not looking forward to having them forever.

No I never have cravings. I did on and off for a couple of years, but that was in the early days.

Oh good luck...I know it's difficult...:)

Just remember this word: NOPE

N...NOT
O...ONE
P...PUFF
E...EVER

You CAN do it....Sally x

Day two. Feeling good. Woot. :)

I do not have cravings and didn't have once the initial 2 or 3 weeks was over and those were not severe for me. It is like my body was working so hard to try to keep up with my hard exercise program all it wanted was air, water, food and rest to keep up. I think it craved what it most needed to just exist after those first 3 weeks and the nicotine was gone. Plus, I'd determined in my head I was just done - done with smoking - however bad it got I wasn't going to cave to that habit anymore. I was so over it headwise. But I think that exercise and praying for strength mightily helped keep my will stronger than the drug of nicotine.