Tikibarjohn

Thank you to everyone for the kind words. I met my trainer at the gym today and told her I joined this site and she was thrilled. Really she was all smiles. Anyhoo, some of you have asked about my quit date. Their are several reasons, I'm going the Chantex route and that takes awhile to kick in, secondly I have a 5 day respite care scheduled for my mom the first week of Aug. It will be the first time in almost 4 years I will be getting a break from caregiving. I have not had an adult beverage in 13 months and my bday is the same week. So I'm going to indulge in a few, maybe several Miller Lites. The drinking bone is connected to the smoking bone, so those are essentially the reasons. May not be the best reasons, but it's the truth. Also joined the ashline here in AZ and spoke with a quit coach today. Again, thanks for all the positive comments and support.

Hello, I'm 55 and have been smoking for about 40 years, I did quit for six years about 20 years ago, however after just one puff of a "harmless" cigar I bought a pack of cigs and here I am today. After a personal loss and tired of the rat race, I left a job making 6 figures, and moved to Key West. I had 5 years of literally swimming with dolphins, fell in love, was living a dream. Unfortunately, my father broke his hip and I chose to move back home to care for him. I was his caregiver for about two years and it was sheer misery. I was then diagnosed with depression, anxiety, etc, I ballooned to almost 500 pounds, yes 500 pounds. I didnt turn to drugs or alcohol, I indulged in extremely unhealthy amounts of bad food. 2 years ago after my father passed, I had to now take care of my mother who was diagnosed with COPD and ALZHEIMER'S which is a cruel, cruel disease. 18 months ago I choose to try and get my life back. I knew I had to lose weight and quit smoking, however doing both simultaneously was a recipe for failure. So I choose to take on the weight first. I am fortunate to have an extremely passionate health coach I see twice a week and a dietitian once a week. In the past 18 months I have lost 150 pounds. My goal was to quit smoking at 299. I am currently 18 pounds away. However, I have a hernia, that has now progressed to a serious issue and potentially could be fatal. I now need abdominal wall and muscle reconstruction in addition to the hernia repair. My surgeon wants me to lose 30 additional pounds and have at least 4 weeks tobacco free prior to the surgery. So, I've chosen August 9th as my quit date and it scares the crap out of me. I still have a long way to go on my weight loss journey and never want to go back. As my moms caregiver I need to figure out what to do with her for the 3-5 days I will be in the hospital, the 3 weeks of healing time, etc.. so unfortunately the added stress and anxiety of this, and the surgery has me questioning my ability to deal with all of this and quit smoking. Sorry for being so long winded, I don't get out much.