About four years ago, I gave up drinking as a hobby. I was drinking around a 12-pack per day. I had been doing that for about three years is my best guess. I didn’t give up drinking altogether. I just stop drinking daily. I actually haven’t had a drink in a few months, and before then it was months since I’d had one. So, all-in-all I’m completely broken from that habit.
That was my first goal. Once I was able to go months without drinking, I decided it would be a good time to stop smoking. That was my primary goal. I knew that, as long as I was still drinking, I would never be able to stop smoking. So, I went to my company’s nurse practitioner and she set me up with a prescription to Chantix.
Now, I don’t have an affiliation with Chantix. I make nothing from saying this. That medicine was awesome. I went into the whole thing thinking I’d like to quit smoking. I wasn’t very determined. I just thought it would be a good idea to try. Maybe I really had more determination than I thought. Who knows? At any rate, I started taking the Chantix and set my quit date for a week into the treatment. This is how I was instructed to do it. Within three days of taking the Chantix, I stopped smoking. I didn’t even finish the whole week. Smoking started to make me nauseous. I continued to take the Chantix for about three weeks. The instructions I received were to keep taking it for at least two months. I couldn’t handle the sick feelings I got from it, and I was certain I had quit smoking for good.
That was September 13, 2008. I have smoked half a cigarette since then. I hated it. Now I’m smoke-free but I have a new problem.
At the time I quit smoking, I was working in an office position. I was already gaining weight from that. I’m about 5’9″ and when I quit smoking I was up to 220 lbs. Within four months of quitting, I was up to 240 lbs. My weight equalised at that point. That is much heavier than I’ve ever been. Just 6 years ago, I was around 180 lbs. Three years before that, I was around 150 lbs. So, less than a decade ago, I was around 90 lbs lighter than I am today.
I know it’s corny, but my new years resolution is to loss weight. I’m cutting my calorie intake down to less than 1200 per day, and I’m jumping on the treadmill twice a day for no less than 100 calories burned each time. Also, my calorie intake has to be limited to mostly snacks of 100 calories or less spaced out at least one hour apart. There will be exceptions to this and I’m not going to kill myself trying to stick to these rules but those are my general rules for the weight loss program. I’ll probably be eating lots of tuna straight. Hopefully I can stick to this. It’s about the only thing left for me to fix about myself.
Exercise and strict dieting can do magic if you are trying to lose weight. I did a lot of cardio just to lose weight..*.