The morning after the day before.

Urgh.... this morning is hard!

I used really enjoy... well ... need my morning cigarettes. And since I woke up, I realise how much.

I'm very decided to be a non smoker and I'm disgusted that I find myself incapable of distacting myself from thoughts of smoking this morning to the point of crying to relieve the tension.

I guess this too shall pass.

The little monster is already dying
... once he's gone, the big monster will bugger off too!

It's time to move on.

I have been smoking more or less every day for the last 20years.

God that is a scary thought.

 

In 2003, I had a really big scare and was forced to quit cigarettes immediately - cold turkey. I did not smoke at all for a year and a half and then bit by bit I started again. Every day of those 18 months I pined for a cigarette. I remember it being a real struggle. EVERY DAY.

 

A few years later my brother got married in the US and I was adamant that I didn't want to travel to the states as a smokers because I know how difficult they are for this kind of thing.

This time, I saw a doctor and took Zyban, medication that helps you stop initially by removing the pleasure and actually it makes you not want to smoke. You take it two weeks before you want to stop. I did this and then a few days before my chosen date, I was in the car on the way to work and my cigarette tasted vile and that was it.

It worked pretty well but I remember having really bad nightmares and bad sleeping patterns while taking the meds.

5 months after, I found myself working at a congress in Barcelona and I was having a bad day... bang!

 

I truly believe that as I hadn't really decided to quit, it was only a matter of time before I would start again. Stupid really.

 

Since then, I haven't really tried to stop as I believe that it needs to click in your mind for any attempt to work and 7 years later, I'm still waiting for the click. HMMM.

But now, there are a few reasons why I'm deciding to stop once again.

I'm about to turn 35.

I'm getting married at the end of the year and I really don't want to be wearing a white dress and having to nip out for a quick smoke during the reception.

I will be spending an obscene number of hours in planes at the end of the year and don't want to be stressed during the whole time.

I'm actually a bit bored of smoking.

 

Notice how none of these reasons are the main ones that smokers always think should make any smoker stop immediately:

 

I can't walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath - let alone have a jog

It makes me stink

It makes me antisocial

It's expensive

It's really not good especially for me.

Even if I think it calms me, actually it does the opposite

It will eventually kill me.

 

As any smoker knows, there are a million reasons to stop smoking, so many in fact that it's a wonder why anyone smokes at all.

And yet...

 

No real mission in this and possible following posts, just that I've just signed up to an Allen Carr course and I'm terrified. I thought writing might help.

We'll see.

 

Tomorrow

So I open Chrome to write this post, and I glimpse the start page which shows the recently closed tabs.
Reviews of hotels, cities searches, flight engines, jobs sites and linkedin!

Kinda sums it up perfectly. Not sure there's much point in a long post now. :)

Tomorrow I need to motivate myself for a busy day in front of the PC.
I'm gonna grab the good chair and work through my lists.

Find a job and organise a wedding.

eeek.

17 days to go

My contract is ending at the end of March.
After one year of 3 months contracts and a very steep learning curve, I'll be (potentially) schussing
out of my current job. I'll miss the people and the atmosphere, and it's all a bit sudden.
That's the life of a Consultant, I guess.

Some other contract will come up.
And until then, I console myself with this ...

Because in 18 days I'll be here !

Wohooooooo. :)

The struggle to be complete.

I've been struggling with my weight for years ... well ever since I remember really.
I have no desire to be thin, or a size 10 or anything like that but I would like to finally have a healthy body where weight is not a "medical" issue.

For the last few years I've been feeling that while I'm happy with who I am and what I look like, I know that I need to lose some kilos in order to be healthier and so that eventually, when I have kids, it won't be an additional thing to worry about.

I've tried many things over the years, the most impressive being a protein diet during which I lost 25 kilos over 6 months and subsequently piled them back on in the space of 2 months when I stopped. While the results were spectacular, I don't believe this is a good way of permanently losing weight as it is not good for the body and it is sooo restrictive it's not fun at all.

Long term goals have always been a struggle for me and making efforts on a day to day basis knowing that I will reap the benefits months down the line is really not something I find easy.
I start off very motivated and stick to eating well for a few weeks, a month even. Then bit by bit I slip into bad habits and find myself back to square one and feeling shit about it.

This time I decided it would be different and rather than following another one of these fad and super restrictive diets, I would go see a Nutritherapist and try and do things properly... Learn about food, the way it reacts with the body and find a new way of eating.

I saw the guy, filled out a 40 page questionnaire on my eating habits and my general health and symptoms and went back the next week to hear the verdict.
Not that I really needed much enlightenment on this!
I know what I do wrong... mostly and already have a good sense on what I should and shouldn't be eating.

But I like this guy's approach as there was no talk of strict dieting or mental exercise routines, just a healthy balanced diet based on whole foods, un processed meals and a few probiotics and magnesium supplements.

My only real forbidden food is white flour (aka. white bread, white rice, white pasta, ...)
This turns out to be a lot harder than I thought.

I have no problem with brown bread, rice or pasta as in all fairness I think they taste great and I could happily replace the white refined stuff with these alternatives.... but it's not that simple!

First of all because Wholewheat/pain complet/pain intérgale is not as easy as you would think to find. Go to a proper bakery and most of the time I was faced with "Yes, we have lots of wholewheat breads, but this one is more complete than the others."
You then realise, they consider brown bread to be wholewheat and that the darker it is, the more "complete" it gets.... NOT TRUE!!!!

Most of these breads - even if the have some degree of wholewheat in them, as mainly composed of flour which has been transformed in one way or another.

I researched this a bit and the best way to find wholewheat, is to check the ingredients. if wholewheat is the first ingredient on the list, then you should be onto a winner... but I've noticed that quite often while this is the case, the second ingredient is listed as "wheat flour" which is not wholewheat and therefore can the bread really be considered as "complete"?

While you are at home, motivated, have planned your dinners ahead and you feel like cooking, the wholewheat thing is manageable, as I have said.

Eating out is quite a different story. When you work, you get bored of the traditional sandwich (Fitness bread which I can pretty much guarantee is not wholewheat) and cafeteria salad bars, you'll go out a few times a week and have a panini, or a bowl of pasta or a pizza. None of these three P's have anything but white flour in them.

I know at this point most of you are thinking "She should pack her own lunch, have a salad, have some soup, ..." I hear you and I've said it to myself already. :(
Hopefully when spring starts I'll be more up for salads and stuff, but not when it's cold out.
Excuses Excuses.

So basically the rules for this guy are simple and when I have done it properly, I have lost a few kilos, I sleep better and my general well being has improved.

But for the last month, no motivation, no planning, lots of lunches and dinners out and the kilos have reappeared. :(

Today I have to go back and face the guy ... not looking forward to it.
(Funny though, how quickly the motivation has returned when I know I'm going to have to stand in the guys office and tell him I'm done crap.)