MarylandQuitter

The only food that I truly miss is PP&J. So freaking good!! The Smuckers Natural Strawberry is pretty good, I buy it for my daughter and it doesn't have any high fructose corn syrup; something I refuse to let either of us eat, if can help it. My month isn't quite up yet but once it is, PP&J is my reward. Forget the Ben & Jerry's, give me a PP&J!

I quit sugar about a month ago. The results have been incredible. It started as an experiment to see how sugar was affecting moods due to insulin spikes from the sugar. I am a junk food junkie and always have been. My moods have been even-Steven and I'm not hungry all of the time like I used to be. There are some very good scientific date about refined sugar the effects it has on our appetites. I had never heard of restricted eating before but since I cut out sugar, after about two weeks I noticed that I was no longer hunger after 4 or 5 PM and didn't have to eat for the rest of the night. I was getting all of my calories within a 12 hr or so window. It's all very interesting so continued to learn about it but what's more, I lost 15 lbs of fat, not muscle but fat, without changing a single thing except cutting out sugar. By cutting out sugar I mean barely eating any at all. Sweets obviously went out the window but the sugar included in every food that I ate accounted for 4-8 grams of sugar per day - total. Within this month, I never went above 20 grams and there were two days that I ate close to 20 grams of sugar, but only those 2 days. This is not something that I'll continue to control so tightly but to be honest, I don't crave sugar anymore and I don't like how I feel when I get a sugar rush. I like not being hungry all of the time and it's comforting to know that if I'm in a situation where I can't eat, I'll be fine and still be able to focus.

This is so motivating and in fact, it's what I kept handy on my phone when I first quit. I would look at it several times per day as motivation to keep it moving and not look back. Within ... 20 minutes Your blood pressure, pulse rate and the temperature of your hands and feet have returned to normal. 8 hours Remaining nicotine in your bloodstream has fallen to 6.25% of normal peak daily levels, a 93.75% reduction. 12 hours Your blood oxygen level has increased to normal. Carbon monoxide levels have dropped to normal. 24 hours Anxieties have peaked in intensity and within two weeks should return to near pre-cessation levels. 48 hours Damaged nerve endings have started to regrow and your sense of smell and taste are beginning to return to normal. Cessation anger and irritability will have peaked. 72 hours Your entire body will test 100% nicotine-free. Over 90% of all nicotine metabolites (the chemicals nicotine breaks down into) have passed from your body via your urine. Symptoms of chemical withdrawal have peaked in intensity, including restlessness. Unless use cues have been avoided, the number of cue induced crave episodes experienced during any quitting day have peaked for the "average" ex-user. Lung bronchial tubes leading to air sacs (alveoli) are beginning to relax in recovering smokers. Breathing is becoming easier and your lung's functional abilities are improving. 5 - 8 days The "average" ex-smoker is down to experiencing just three cue induced crave episodes per day. Although we may not be "average" and although minutes may feel like hours when normal cessation time distortion combines with the body's panic response, it is unlikely that any single episode will last longer than 3 minutes. Keep a clock handy and time the episode to maintain an honest perspective on time. 10 days The "average" ex-user is down to encountering less than two crave episodes per day. 10 days to 2 weeks Recovery has likely progressed to the point where your addiction is no longer doing the talking. Blood circulation in your gums and teeth are now similar to that of a non-user. 2 to 4 weeks Cessation related anger, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, impatience, insomnia, restlessness and depression have ended. If still experiencing any of these symptoms get seen and evaluated by your physician. 2 weeks to 3 months Your heart attack risk has started to drop. Your lung function has noticeably improved. If your health permits, sample your circulation and lung improvement by walking briskly, climbing stairs or running further or faster than normal. 21 days The number of acetylcholine receptors, which were up-regulated in response to nicotine's presence in the frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, basal ganglia, thalamus, brain stem and cerebellum regions of your brain have now substantially down-regulated. Receptor binding has returned to levels seen in the brains of non-smokers (2007 study). 3 weeks to 3 months Your circulation has substantially improved. Walking has become easier. Your chronic cough, if any, has likely disappeared. If not, get seen by a doctor, and sooner if at all concerned, as a chronic cough can be a sign of lung cancer. 4 weeks Plasma suPAR is a stable inflammatory biomarker that helps predict development of diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer in smokers. A 2016 study found that within 4 weeks of quitting smoking, with or without NRT, that suPAR levels in 48 former smokers had fallen from a baseline smoking median of 3.2 ng/ml to levels "no longer significantly different from the never smokers' values" (1.9 ng/ml) 8 weeks Insulin resistance in smokers has normalized despite average weight gain of 2.7 kg (2010 SGR, page 384). 1 to 9 months Any smoking related sinus congestion, fatigue or shortness of breath has decreased. Cilia have regrown in your trachea (windpipe) thereby increasing the ability to sweep dirt and mucus out of your lungs. Your body's overall energy has increased. 1 year Your excess risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke has dropped to less than half that of a smoker. 5 years Your risk of a subarachnoid hemorrhage has declined to 59% of your risk while still smoking (2012 study). If a female ex-smoker, your risk of developing diabetes is now that of a non-smoker (2001 study). 5 to 15 years Your risk of stroke has declined to that of a non-smoker. 10 years Your risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer is between 30% to 50% of that for a continuing smoker (2005 study). Risk of death from lung cancer has declined by almost half if you were an average smoker (one pack per day). Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus and pancreas have declined. Risk of developing diabetes for both men and women is now similar to that of a never-smoker (2001 study). 13 years The average smoker lucky enough to live to age 75 has 5.8 fewer teeth than a non-smoker (1998 study). But by year 13 after quitting, your risk of smoking induced tooth loss has declined to that of a never-smoker (2006 study). 15 years Your risk of coronary heart disease is now that of a person who has never smoked. Your risk of pancreatic cancer has declined to that of a never-smoker (2011 study - but note a 2nd pancreatic study making an identical finding at 20 years). 20 years If a female, your excess risk of death from all smoking related causes, including lung disease and cancer, has now reduced to that of a never-smoker (2008 study). Risk of pancreatic cancer has also declined to that of a never-smoker (2011 study). http://whyquit.com/whyquit/A_Benefits_Time_Table.html

Good to see you again! Thanks for not giving up on quitting. I noticed you said that you're going to give this quitting thing another try. Perhaps a change in perception might help. Why give the power to the cigarettes? You're in control of whether or not you remain quit. It's a choice. Make a firm choice to never take another puff instead of simply leaving it to chance by saying you're going to give it another try. You can stay quit and I bet that if you don't relinquish you're control of this choice to remain quit, you'll have a very long and successful quit. Great idea on signing up for the support program that you signed up for. As an aside, I can combine both of your accounts if you like. You'll just have to let me know which one you want to keep.

NOPE!

A history of the tobacco industry’s lies and scams. From the US in 1953 to Africa today, the controversy between individual responsibility and corporate greed is portrayed in a lucid, undaunted manner. https://quittrainblog.com/video/the-tobacco-conspiracy/

Welcome to the forum! Congratulations on your quit! ?

Nope!!!

Congrats, buffy the slayer!

Welcome! Yes, you're still quit if you're on the patch! The goal is to get off of nicotine completely and as quickly as possible. This is a drug addiction so it's very important that we keep nicotine out of our bodies. Once you quit the patch, you'll still go through some withdrawals, which you're delaying by using the patch. However, you're not smoking so that is key right now. Please just plan on getting off the patch as soon as you can so you can put an end to the cravings sooner than later. Of course it's normal to crave a smoke but the more time you put in, the craves will diminish and eventually go away altogether.

Pre-respond to your own SOS!

If your referring to the block on the right of the forum, simply click on the topic and it will take you to the last post in that thread.

You can do the same thing. Always click on the date of the last post and it will bring you to the last post in that topic. From there, you can simply scroll up to read anything prior that you may have missed. If you want to read all of your unread content, take a look at the screenshots below. Click on the activity tab and choose unread content. There will show a list of the topics of your unread content and it shows who posted last in it. Click on the how long ago the last post was added and it will take you to that post. Again, just scroll up to read anything prior to the last post in that topic. There is also a screen shot showing this. Hope this helps.

Welcome to the forum! Stay active and please this site and all of us to help you.

Yes, simply click on the date under the username of the last poster.

It takes a full year to experience "life" without smoking. What you experienced is normal. Personally, I think if actually had a lighter, you wouldn't have smoked anything. I'm pretty sure about that. Everything we did as smokers revolved around smoking, everything.

NOPE!

I went through some hard times nine months into a quit and made the choice to smoke. I smoked for about a week and quit. This time, smoking didn't help, I felt guilty for relapsing and I didn't enjoy smoking in the least bit. I remember talking to a fellow-quitter friend while I was driving home from work and I was telling her how I was kind of scared because I felt the addiction stronger than I ever had in the past when I had quit. She said, "well just quit then". Okay, so the next evening I smoked my last cigarette and put it out at 7 PM. I'm now 4 1/2 years quit and have been through some very tough times since and not once did I consider smoking. What's pleasantly surprising is that when stress comes, as it always does, smoking doesn't even enter my mind whereas in the past (especially when I was a smoker) it was the first thing that entered my mind. Not anymore. I strongly suggest that you quit immediately. At this time tomorrow you'll be one day quit and the very instant you put out your last cigarette, you're a non-smoker! Don't delay because the longer you wait, the longer you're a smoker. Don't be that person 10 years from now wishing you'd have quit now.

What you're doing now is putting time in between your last cigarette and the rest of your life. As with most things, they get easier with time and living without smoking is no different. In fact, each day you should treat as a milestone because it is! Each and every day is a victory, especially at the beginning. Reward yourself for making such great progress and sticking to your commitment to quit smoking.

Communication from Joel regarding notsmokinjo's comments about 1% success rates using nicotine gum: Hello everyone: There seems to be a little bit of confusion as to what I actually have in a couple of my videos. I have never said that only 1% of people who use nicotine gum quit successfully. What I have said is that according to Gallup polling done in 2013, only 1% of people who have successfully quit smoking credited nicotine gum as their quitting method. Here are two videos that I have that discuss this issue: http://whyquit.com/joels-videos/whatever-you-do-dont-quit-smoking-cold-turkey/ http://whyquit.com/joels-videos/gallup-poll-most-quitters-credit-cold-turkey/ Here is the direct link to the Gallup poll's page regarding the survey: http://news.gallup.com/poll/163763/smokers-quit-tried-multiple-times.aspx Two other videos that I have that relate to this current discussion are http://whyquit.com/joels-videos/i-quit-the-wrong-way/ and http://whyquit.com/joels-videos/relapses-are-not-determined-by-how-you-quit-smoking/ Also related to discussions raised in this string is the page http://whyquit.com/joels-videos/is-cold-turkey-the-only-way-to-quit/ for it specifically talks about the fact that some people do quit by means other than cold turkey and those people should not be made to feel that their quits are in some way diminished because of the way they did it. Also, regarding the use of statistics that are often quoted as to an individual's chances of quitting, check out the page http://whyquit.com/joels-videos/breaking-free-from-nicotines-grip-is-more-doable-than-most-people-think/. Hope this clarifies the issues at hand. Joel

Nope!

Every now and then there's a little hiccup with all the different experiences, opinions etc. Tolerance is the key to any relationship, especially when it comes to tossing a bunch of people into the big salad bowl.

NOPE!!!!

Perhaps something needd tweaked in the program. I'll look into it.