Yes! If you Google “weight loss blog”, my blog comes up in the 237th spot!!! Only two spots behind Jason Alexander’s Jenny Craig Blog! (And I’m willing to bet a truckload of Little Debbie’s that his is ghostwritten.) I’m on a roll!
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Like, for example, why does WordPress automatically change the title of each post to Auto Draft? That doesn’t look professional at all. Then I have to go back and manually change it back to my original title. Still have virtually no readers, as far as I can tell from the lack of comments. Which is understandable. I hear there are lots of things you can do to get your blog noticed, and I’m not doing any of them. There are courses you can buy that explain all that stuff, but right now I don’t feel like spending any more money, and I don’t have time to go through a course right now, anyway. Yes, it would be nice to have a vibrant, popular blog, with several hundred readers a day, and lots of comments from people, and maybe one day I’ll get there. But right now I need to concentrate on two things – getting my weight headed back down (toward 300 and away from 330), and learning the basics of how to operate a blog. Update: I figured out how to add links. Check out some of the people who’ve inspired me in the right side bar, under Heroes. I’ll be adding lots more as I get the hang of this, and as I discover more people who’ve lost lots of weight. Posted by Greg McDivitt I can barely put on my socks. I HAVE to start walking again, every day. I HAVE to cut back on the Pepsi, ASAP. It’s great to be off cigarettes, but I need to start doing something about the weight, like yesterday. So tonight, no later than 6:30, I will head out for a walk of at least an hour. If I can only walk 3 minutes at a time without resting, that’s fine, but I’ll get an hour of walking in. I have to do something before my belly explodes. Posted by Greg McDivitt Well, here we are. Haven’t walked at all since the Official Kick-off of Phase 2. That sucks. So does the readout on my electronic scale. So far, so does this Weight Loss Blog. Oh, well. Nothing to do but keep going for it. One of these day it will stick. Besides, I knew going in it was going to be a long hard road out of hell. Missing a few days of walking isn’t an excuse to turn around and go back. Got 61 minutes in. I could’ve done more, but I don’t want to overdo it. I want to work up to two hours a night, but there’s no rush. I’m out of practice, as I’ve only walked once in the last 45 days or so, and I don’t want to strain anything. I only had to stop twice to rest my back – at 20 minutes and at 48 minutes. It’s the official kickoff of Phase 2 of Rebuilding My Life. I haven’t been this excited since Hands Across America! There are a lot of smokers who would love to quit smoking for good, but they’re terrified of withdrawal symptoms. They’ve tried quitting in the past, and just couldn’t handle the withdrawal symptoms, especially the cravings, and finally gave in to the beast and went back to the cancer sticks. There’s no denying that nicotine cravings are a serious hurdle to overcome if you’re going to quit smoking, even if you’re wearing the patch. I’ve always found cravings very difficult to deal with in my numerous past attempts to quit smoking. This time, I managed to overcome them. On my 2nd day without cigarettes, I had some very strong cravings around 6 in the evening. I realized if I was going to quit, I was going to have to come up with a plan for dealing with the cravings. I came up with a three part ritual which I’ve found very effective. It may sound kind of “New Agey” to a lot of people, but if you’ve tried to quit smoking but failed because you couldn’t handle the nicotine cravings, don’t write it off. Give it a try. It worked for me, and it just might work for you. Here it is. 1. When the cravings first hit, I immediately spend about five minutes practicing deep breathing. This forces me to think about my body, and especially my lungs and cardiovascular system. As I breathe, I visualize my lungs taking in clean, healthy oxygen as I inhale, and expelling tar, gunk and other toxins when I exhale. 2. Next, I spend five minutes meditating. Meditation is very centering and calming, and helps me experience a level of detachment from my cravings, by going inward. This enables me to see the cravings as a form of false consciousness, at war with my true self, which I honor by not giving in to them. 3. Then I spend an hour or so driving around giving people the finger. At the end of this three part ritual, I alway feel much more relaxed and calm, and find that the cravings have disappeared. As I said, it might sound “New Agey”, but don’t write it off without giving it a try. Actually, the way I dealt with cravings was patches, and straws. I’ve tried going cold turkey before, but it doesn’t work. I’ve tried patches before, too, but they generally don’t work, either. It seems most nicotine patches these days are the “clear” kind, and the glue in them doesn’t seem to hold as well. So I got some of the generic kind, which aren’t clear. They have them here in Huntsville at Publix and Kroger, and they’re made by the same company – Novartis. If you’ve had trouble with the clear patches falling off, look for Novartis brand patches. Plus, they’re much cheaper. At Kroger, a 2 week supply of the 21 milligram patch is $27. That’s about half the price of the big, famous brands, and quite a bit cheaper than Wal-mart’s Equate brand, too. Plus, I buy a big pack of straws and use them for cigarette substitutes. Just cut them in half, and hold ‘em and put ‘em in your mouth like real cigarettes. They wear out fast if, like me, you tend to chew on them, but so what? They’re like a penny a piece, so if you go through 5 straws a day (which would make ten “cigarettes”), you’ve spent a nickel. And most days you’re not going to go through 5 straws. Of course, with my luck, we’ll find out in a year or two that the Chinese manufactures are using some kind of chemical that causes mouth cancer in the straws….but that’s the chance you take. Posted by Greg McDivitt So it’s time to move in to Phase 2 of my Rebuilding My Life plan. I can hardly believe I’ve gone a month without cigarettes, but here we are – tomorrow will be my 30th day. Man, that just sounds too good to be true. But it’s really true, and I’ve certainly noticed some positive changes in my health and other areas. For one thing, I’m not coughing any more. I was starting to cough quite a bit, and it was starting to worry me. Another thing that’s disappeared is my wheezing in bed at night. Boy, there’s nothing quite like lying in bed hearing weird rasping noises coming from your lungs to make you feel old. It only happened when I was lying down, but that’s bad enough. But now it’s completely gone. I’m not getting short of breath nearly as quickly as I did a month ago. I’m getting more work done because I’m not taking a 10 minute smoke break every hour. I’m spending $2 a day for patches instead of $6+ a day for cigarettes, and one of these days I won’t be spending anything on patches. Yes, I’ve put on 8-10 pounds, but that has stabilized; I don’t seem to have gained any more weight over the past couple weeks, and much of what I did gain is probably water weight. All of these are really great, but what might be even better is just the sense of accomplishment that comes from knowing I’m no longer a slave to cigarettes. That was one of the big factors that really motivated me to try quitting – I was just sick of everything revolving around cigarettes. I wasn’t smoking that much, a pack to a pack and a third a day, but I was always thinking about my next one. Whenever I would go walk, the entire time I’d be thinking about how many more minutes I had to go until my next cigarette. The same thing when I’d be writing articles. Having to run to the country store every couple days to stock up again, and every now and then not planning ahead, and having to make the 40 minute round trip into town and back because I had forgotten to get to the store before closing time. But I haven’t had to deal with any of that for a month. And I’m liking the way I feel so much that I can almost picture myself as a lifetime non-smoker. I’m not quite there yet, but I feel real good about getting there. So it’s time for Phase 2 to kick in. Phase 2 is walking for at least an hour a day, every day (barring a thunderstorm). I love walking, and I’ve done quite a bit of it over the past few years. In fact, there’s a good chance that that’s the only reason I’m still alive. 300 pound smokers generally don’t last very long in this world, but taking 2 hour walks on a regular basis helps. In fact, I doubt if there are very many 48 year old 300 lb smokers who can walk 2 hours straight. Now, I’m gonna have to gradually work back up to walking 90 to 120 minutes a day. I went out walking the other night, and it was rough. I got an hour in, but not uninterrupted. Not by a long shot. There’s an elementary school a mile or so down the road, and this summer they built a walking track. Which is great, because walking on country roads can be quite hazardous. The track is a quarter mile around, and it takes me about four minutes a lap. Well, last week I could only manage two laps at a time because my back would hurt so bad from the extra weight I’ve put on, and from not walking for a month. So I had to walk for 8 minutes, and then sit in my truck for 5 minutes to rest my back. But I did it, and now it’s time to start doing it every night. I’ve stocked up on Powerade, I’ve got my pedometer, I’ve got my mp3 player loaded with George Noory, and I’ve got a month without cigarettes under my belt. So here we go. And then, after a month of solid walking, and two months without cigarettes, it will be time for Phase 3. I’ll have more to say about that later. Posted by Greg McDivitt Yesterday, Wednesday, August 25th 2010,was my 28th day without a cigarette. Wow. Posted by Greg McDivitt, with a little help from my little buddy, Barney I drove to Huntsville to write. Went to Books-A-Million (BAM) first, figuring I’ll work there a while, go get lunch, and then head for the library later, since the library has better air conditioning. I was hoping to get a lot done, and was actually on a pace to do so, when I suddenly felt weak and light headed, along with a little bit queasy. I’m not sure what it was, but I’m guessing it was either the relentless heat finally getting to me, or the fact that I didn’t sleep much last night, or (more likely) both. But I couldn’t work like that. Wasn’t looking forward to making the 45 minute drive home, but it went by faster than I thought it would. Got home, cranked up the air, and hit the sack for a late afternoon nap. In a couple hours I felt as good as new, but didn’t get much accomplished. My Omron HJ-112 got here today, so that’s good. The plan was to wait until I had 28 or 30 cigarette free days under my belt before I started walking again, but I’m awfully tempted to just start going for it. Evenings are cooler, I’ve got my pedometer, and I’m itching to get started. We’ll see. Today makes 22 days without cigarettes. |
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