Sadly this is not a Post-Adepticon entry, though that will be coming in the next few days, for today I have bigger news. Albeit less Game related. I have quit smoking. This is another step in the ‘Building a life’ process have been under taking for years now. So far, so good, I have bagged a full-time job I love, which I will also go into more detail on in another entry, I will be starting my course very soon, I have a testing but wonderful Fiance whom I love, I have my own house and am day by day edging closer to the upper more relaxed borders of finincally stable. work, I cook, I clean, I pay my own bills and I game. I am woman. Hear me roar.
However, there are more ‘Steps’ I have yet to breech, one being Driving, but we will get to that another time, for now we have smoking and dieting. Lets do this.
Smoking. And lack thereof.
I have been smoking about 5 or 6 years. I don’t smoke that much, about 10 a day. A few years ago however this peaked to roughly 20 or more a day, being that smoking, for me eases my anxiety. I am a very anxious person. Being able to step outside for five minutes, itself made me feel better, then the nicotine’s ‘downer’ properties and chemicals more so. And at the time in recovery with little other way to vent it, I smoke a lot more.
I have estimated that I will save almost two thousand pounds a year by quitting. I also want to quit before my wedding, and have always vowed to myself that I will never smoke with intention of having kids. Not that Aaron and I are planning this but should it come along, I will be prepared in advance. Also, now having a job around children is a big influence.
The plan, however, and you guys need to know this because you need to keep me on track and hopefully not get mad when I get frustrated, anxious and bitchy, is a conbination of a few things.
1. Replacement therapy – If I feel I NEED to go outside for a smoke, I am going to instead go and have a Citrus green tea or a walk, or a walk WITH tea, who knows. This is also supplementary to part two of this blog; Dieting, as it is a detoxing tea. Win-Win.
2. Blogging/Facebooking – Yay, you all get to listen to progress reports on this blindingly dull topic for the next 3 months. I bet your thrilled already, no? This is an effort to use my weakness against myself and hopefully towards a -good- outcome. I have Sociphobic traits, apparently. I am really quite terrified of disappointing people. Especially my mother. So I am hoping that by blogging and keeping you guys on board I can blackmail myself into keeping this up out of fear of letting you down. I am my own enemy.
3. Drugs – Because who isn’t medicated these days? I wanted to get Champix, a non-nicotine based pill that combats the withdrawal symptoms, I wanted this because I really could not see the point in nicotine ones. It’s exactly the same, you end up weaning yourself off patches instead of cigarettes, and patches aren’t as enjoyable. However. This did not come to pass. I went to see my Doctor this morning and he was…strongly against giving me Champix as it’s known side-effect is that it is said to cause depression, and with my…colorful mental health history he didn’t want to give me that as anything but a last option. I caved and opted to -try- the Nicotine patches first.
So far day one has gone okay. I’m not in a hideous mood, am however a little restless and fidgety. I also had my blood pressure taken and he measured and weighed me. And I do not weight as much as I thought I did, this is always good news and leads nicely into part two.
Dieting.
I have a wedding dress to fit into, yo.
This seems a very silly thing to need it own topic on the surface, but i shall explain. However first here is the basic plan. I need to lose about a stone, perhaps a stone and a half. I plan to do this by cutting out junk food, save for Friday nights, cutting down in snackage, and replacing easy and face microwave food-stuffs with more…better…things. Yes. Also, I need to start eating breakfast. Example: Toast for breakfast. Boiled rice and a tin of Tuna fish for lunch. A fruit yogurt bar for afternoon snack instead of crisps, and some sort of decent home-cooked dinner in the evening. Added to this is working 6 hours a day chasing around after four year olds, and I plan to walk or cycle for an hour at least three times a week. This starts tomorrow.
Here’s the catch.
The ‘catch’ loomed out at me in pixilated green text from my Doctors computer screen just this morning, which for once wasn’t angled away from me, right up there at the top of my record under the ”Notes to be aware of” section where most might find heart conditions, genetic family traits and other such. ”Chronic Depression. Anorexia Nervosa.”
This is why this section required it’s own section as it is interesting in it’s own right, albeit perhaps only to me. I was fully discharged two years ago. I am what they call ‘Recovered’. I disagree with this word, but that I will go into in another post, but I do agree that I am stable, I am happy and I am content. I am healthy. My ‘Goal weight’ is still, marginally above my ‘LWL’ Lowest Weight Limit, meaning that my doctor will be happy enough with me being that weight. So long as I stay that weight. This is where the crux lies. I am at this point, after two years, certain I can venture into the misty realms of weight loss and remain in control. My problem is not losing weight, it is stopping, and I believe myself to be of solid enough mind to manage that now, but I will also be blogging about this, as it will be an interesting test of the practices and coping methods I have build up around myself, especially without the smoking-anxiety-relief, and I am all for testing and challenging myself.I do not see this going badly, I am confident in my own strength and control over this disorder, nonetheless, I assure you I have an intricate web of safety nets woven for dire emergencies, just in case. So that is my question for the foreseeable future;
Can one venture back into the rabbit hole, and come out in one piece?
Katie's Blog 
I offer many squishes.
On all counts.
x
Dieting???? Your already such a petite girl!
Must be the American in me, but I am actually shocked you are looking at losing weight.
As for quitting smoking, excellent choice! I offer any support I can from several thousand miles away.
Champix sounds like a dog biscuit, steer clear of that. When my mum quit she found the mints and gum useful. One of the few vices I never picked up, smoking.
As for dieting, there’s a big difference between losing weight and changing shape. If anyone can offer advice on that, it’s Aaron. In uni, he was really doughy and then when I moved back to Liverpool about 5 years ago, he had muscle tone. He said it was yoga, I still suspect pec implants.
When I quit smoking the only thing that worked was to break my usual routines. It was get up, fag, coffee and fag, walk to work and fag, breaktime fag, lunchtime fag, home, dinner, fag, fag, bed.
I started separating the cigarettes from certain activities – smoking immediately after meals, smoking during statutory breaks, and that helped. Also the ‘not smoking in the house’ helped too – especially during the winter.
As for the other thing. My wife lost weight to get in her wedding dress and she dropped to 8 stone – on the border of too skinny. She’s now more comfortable just over 9 and looks much healthier for it too. Giving up the smokes will help pile the weight on as nicotine is an appetite suppressant. You’ll find you snack more and you’ll maybe put on a few pounds.
I’ve found the biggest challenges for me over the last ten years or so has been finding the confidence to be comfortable in my own skin. I think that’s the same for anyone.
I have all the confidence in you in the world and you deserve all the goodness and happiness in the world. “Yeah, but you don’t know me.” Well, true – but it’s the same thing everyone deserves and everyone gets from me.
Go Katie!
Just a gamer passing through ….
I quit in January after smoking for over a decade and it’s the best thing I’ve done for me and my family. My best suggestion is to give yourself rewards, there’s no point saving all that money if you’re not going to treat yourself.
http://corbaniaprime.blogspot.com/2010/02/little-apology-but-in-good-way.html
Good luck with goals!
Good luck, I suspect that the psychology of this is going to be pretty interesting as you’re aproaching two established mental conditions you have at the same time and they are interlinked [giving up smoking and weight gain are pretty established though causality is a little less clear.]
As someone who suffers from clinical/chronic depression and has failed to give up smoking numerous times [largely due to the same link you make;] I have to reiterate what you said and has been mentioned above… you have to break the ‘Habit’ not just deal with the nicotine witdrawel [which is 48 hours then 7 days.] You have to dump all the associative stuff and actively form new habits to replace the cigarette break.
I don’t comment on womens weight, I am older and wiser than that ;p What I will say is: stick to your target if it’s a healthy one and don’t allow yourself excuses to shift it, looking back at your post may help that [always good to have these things down in black and white.]
Physiologically; remember that it takes around six months for fat storing cells to ‘self destruct’ so a sustained change is the far better option than drastic changes.
But primarily; luck, best wishes and good health be with you.