((I need to gain control))
 

Hi everyone.

I dont know if you guys remember me. Its been about 8 months roughly since Ive been here.. Ive had some life changes that has stopped me.

Anyways.. I didnt have the faintest where to even put this post.. So Im crossing my finger and posting it here!
I lost down to 124 lbs and started having low sugar problems. So I kinda slowly gained up to 133 lbs.. LOL I had to keep something sweet with me at all times.. Well this was hard. Because sweet being sugar. Not replaced.

Anyways I stayed at 133lbs for the most part.. well my husband went into the hospital and was in there for a week. They ended up removing his gallbladder.
He comes home not smoking.. Which I was happy of 22 years of smoking and he stops..

However, I didnt want to quit smoking at all.. but to help him out I stopped smoking. My first time stopping (it was the hardest emotional thing I have ever been through LOL)... I sweated, paced, it was just terrible.

Its been 2 weeks and 3 days since I stopped smoking and I have gained 5 lbs. Which puts me up to 138lbs. I need to get my sight back to losing that weight. I know it aint much.. but its very depressing when jeans get tight. They do tend to get tight when you gain 14 lbs ;)

Anyone here that has smoked that has battled this problem? What did you do and how did you gain back control???

Hi!

Well, I am not really in the same situation you are because I haven´t smoked for such a long time.

I was an on/off smokers when I was between 19 and 22 years old. I am a recovered alcoholic and I got sober 16th October 2003 (with 23 years). I started smoking again around 20th October 2003. I smoked quite a lot (10 to 40 cigarettes a day). I am on the road of recovery from ED since this April.

42 days ago, I stopped smoking.:D
And it was terrible!!!! :fr: I stopped drinking, takig pills and bingeing- but smoking was one of the hardest things.
I tried very hard to stay with my eating plan and kept my food journal. My eating behaviour was a bit messed up in the first weeks, but it gets better. And I have a quite ambitous sports program, that helped me a lot.

I haven´t gained weight until now (and I hope it stays that way!). Ok, I haven´t lost weight either. But I guess that is because of my insulin resistance because I stopped losing weight long before i stopped smoking. (Even if WEIGHT LOSS wasn´t a thing I wanted to quit....).
But I guess my metabolism is slower now....

I don´t have physically carvings anymore and my mood swings are gone. But the first weeks were awful! I still have carvings in several situations like sitting with a cup of coffee, unpleasant social situations, when I am angry....It´s a weird and scary feeling because it was my last "crutch".

And it´s harder for me in the morning- it gets easier after lunch. The hardest time is after breakfast.

I heard from several people who smoked longer than I did and stopped that the worst things are the first four weeks. Then it gets easier with each day. And that was exactly what I experienced.

I hope your husband feels better now!


Kate

Maybe that is helpful:

Things that work for me:
- posting on this board
- keeping a box with money saved from not smoking
- having a calender for the first 100 days non smoking (it was made by a government agency which is promoting non- smoking) with tips and semi- funny cartoons
- buying a treat every now and then (in my case, it´s used books...)
- exercising
- always remembering what you gain with non- smoking (no, not weight!! More like quality of life, non smelling rooms and clothes....)
- washing the clothes (so that nothing smells like smoking)
- putting away all smoke accessoires
- acting like a Diva, let everybody participate in my mood swings (I was too friendly for such a long time!)
- kicking something (a ball preferably)
- thinking that I am a non- smoker with a short smoking episode, not thinkig of myself as "a smoker"
- if the carvings are really strong, I have a coffee with milk (interestingly, it really works for me)
- hand- wringing (it really helps to keep your hands busy. Ok, it´s weird)

I remember you! I think you may have to just begin again. You're at a little different starting point but you know what to do.

Susan.. lol I am so glad you remember me! I hope it makes since that I do know how to diet but at the same time you are coming out of a controled area.? So, I am just now getting to the point I dont feel like I need a cig as bad but at the same time my habits haunt me! I will just have to "really" try to kick this thing in the tush! lol

Kate- Nice to meet you! Congrats, on stopping smoking! I admire your strength! To have gave up all (smoking, drinking, pills) those things. You know what I told my husband the other day.. I have a new found respect for alcholics, smokers, people that have true addictions. Never once did I understand why they had a problem.. If cigs are like that I couldnt imagine how other things affect the body. I smoked roughly a pack a day sometimes alittle over depending on whats going on.. lol Since I was 18.. So that is roughly 12 years.
Any addiction is an addiction to me. It is just hard for me because I know how to diet (yes).. but the "habit" area is a very very hard thing to walk through. I need to re-start up my logging, and keep me a diary.

You have a good list there.. and I wouldnt have thought of keeping a box saved with money! I do know that it is saving us a month 160-180.00 a month. So that is a pretty good large chunk there.
Participate in moodswings- I have those every day..lol Hubby says that I have become a extremely nosey and grouchy person since I quit smoking.

Anyways, I do the coffee thing too.. Good thing I had/have it.. and gum.. My first 3-4 days I was at the gas station looking for no-calorie gum or something super low. Just to entertain my jaw muscles.
Your right though.. Some situations you just have a flat out hard time with.

My hardest thing is getting the "not wanting to aways fill my mouth" with something to entertain it.

I know what you mean by smelling the smoke on clothing. I got my fall/winter clothes out the other day and they smelled so bad! Rotten cigs. LOL Its so weird how you can walk into a store and smell a smoker a mile away.

Nice to meet you!

About gum: I found out that chewing gum makes me hungry (don´t ask why...). So I had sugar free bonbons in the first days
And another strange fact: it´s harder for me to watch a movie where somebody is smoking as standing next to a smoker.

But it seems that when you give up an addiction, you gain a oversensible sense of smell according to your drug of choice. I can smell if someone has smoked or drank alcohol even if he is 3m away. Hey, I am a police dog!!

What really helped me is to think of it as a detox. Nicotin is a poison and the first weeks were a detox. After that your body got rid of that stuff and the physical problems are over. That means on the other hand, that you can´t just say "Ok, I am just smoking ONLY ONE" because that would mean re- piosoing your body and having to do the detox again....You have to start at Zero again. And remembering how hard it was the first weeks keeps me from thinking: Oh, just one....
Unfortunately I can´t explain it right.....

My mother told me that I behave HORRIBLE. Ok, that is over after two weeks, but I notice that my behaviour changed somehow.
Normally, someone would be unfriendly or ignorant or whatever to me and I would accept it, smoke 1- 25 cigarettes, have a box of ice- cream to calm me down and forget about it. Now cigarettes and ice cream are gone (ok, ice cream not really- but the Family-size-box-just-for-me is gone) I have to find another way to cope with that.
It´s really that you use your mouth to smoke or eat instead of saying your opinion- it was in my case.

Well, I have to find another cup of coffee before I finally start to work....

Good luck with non- smoking today!!

Kate