The Great American Smoke-Out

Today is the American Lung Association's annual Great American Smoke-out. When I was a teenager, a smoke-out was something completely different... but that's another story. 

I don't have too much to say on this subject that I haven't already written in my post: How to Quit Smoking Overnight, but because last year I almost considered participating in the well-meaning event and just couldn't bring myself to do it, I thought that it was worth a few minutes of my lunch hour to put together a few paragraphs.

I was a real idiot in that I didn't start smoking until I was 25-years old. It was just a game to me and the stupid carny tricks I did turned into a pack-a-day habit for 16 or 17 years. In those years, I tried more than several times and methods to quit, but never lasted any more than two to three weeks. One of my more successful attempts, however, was the Great American Smoke-out of 1998. The reason I had some success that year was not only that I had peer support, but the peers participating with me where mainly women-- there is that part of a guy that wants to impress the chicks and an even bigger part that doesn't want to be beat by one.

Most of my more successful attempts at smoking cessation involved women. My wife doesn't smoke and when we met I, first, tried to not light up around her. On our first date, I searched, unsuccessfully for a place to sneak off and get one in. Later, I told her I would quit but, after about six-hours with me and my mood swings she searched through all of my stuff until she found a stale pack and made me made me give up quitting that day.

Yes, I know it is hard because I have been there and I am not the kind of person that is going to preach about it or condemn you for killing yourself but I will say this-- you should quit and even more important, if you don't smoke don't start. 

The American Lung Association says if you can not smoke for one day-- you should be able to not smoke for one week and if you can make it a week-- a month should be a breeze and so on. I don't agree because I haven't had a cigarette in 357 days and I still want one. There are lots of plans and information and groups out there to help you kick the habit but, for any of them to be successful, it all boils down to you not wanting to die prematurely more than you want that one cigarette. That is the basis of my theory on How to Quit Smoking Overnight.

Sure, I had a extraordinary circumstance that scared the living stuff out of me but if you can keep that one thought in your head every single time that you want to light up I think it can work for you too. 

Read this. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Who's the fat guy talking to Mark?

A good friend posted some pictures of our visit to the pumpkin patch on Facebook. I was going through them looking for shots of my Son in the vast sea of children (most of them hers), not recognizing anyone until I caught a glimpse of her husband in the crowd. My first thought was, "Who's the fat guy talking to Mark?" but on closer inspection I realized it was me... I thought he looked familiar!

I made the mistake of standing, nakee, in front of the mirror on Friday. At home I know where the full-lengths are strategically located and I make it a habit not to get caught in front of one, but we stayed in a hotel this weekend and I wasn't paying attention. I woke up from an afternoon nap and dropped my clothes on the floor before darting into the bathroom for a shower and spun right into a full-frontal. I think it would be safe for me to say that you can ask anyone that knows me and they would say I am anything but vane, however, this was not a pretty sight.

What I saw made me disgusted to think that, not a year earlier, I stood in front of a mirror looking at a body that was mostly crippled on one side, promising myself that, if I regained my strength and coordination, I was not going to fall back into the bad habits that allowed me to get out of shape. I, honestly, don't know what happened. Although, I haven't been a fitness fanatic, I am still eating ten times better than I was before the stroke and working out more often also, yet I have gained more weight in the last 12 months than I have in any period in my life.

I have cut the salt, the fat, and the carbs and, as a result (and with the added help of some really good meds) I have brought down my blood-pressure and my cholesterol to acceptable levels but even with the additional exercise, I am still not losing-- and sometimes even gaining, pounds. My first thought was that the medications could be contributing to my difficulties, but nothing I have read would lead me to believe that any of them would cause a problem.

I tried to blame some of the weight on sympathy gain because my wife is pregnant with our second child. I could believe that was the problem until my sympathy gain exceeded her actual weight gain and M3S exclaimed that Dada was going to have a big baby when he understood that Mama's belly was getting big because it had a baby growing in it.

I know that some people pack on the poundage when they quit smoking but I would have a very hard time using this as an excuse considering I quit overnight with the only ill-effect being that I was tired all of the time. I continued to lose weight for the first three or four months afterward so I don't think the delayed nicotine withdrawal argument is going to fly.

My wife tends to think that it is all because of my age. 43 is not what I would consider old now, though, 25-30 years ago I certainly would. If I can't use my lost youth as a legitimate explanation for the stroke-- I can't use it for a good reason to be lazy and out of shape either.

During my rehabilitation, I fell into some excellent habits. I took my diet and exercise to the extreme-- partly because I was scared to death of dying, but mostly because I wanted to be sure to get a good head-start because it would be hard to keep up that pace and not start slacking. That slacking, however, came back way too quickly once I got back to a semi-normal routine. I went from being bored and looking for things to do with all of the free time I had to being worn-out all the time when I went back to work. In addition, sitting at a desk all day isn't very healthy either-- at least with my nicotine habit, I would get up to go to the smoking area four times a day.

I have always enjoyed working out earlier rather than later and, from what I've heard, this is much better for burning calories. I find it extremely hard to get myself motivated to go to the gym after work-- or even worse, after dinner. There is a group of people at work though that actually workout before they come in but I could just never see myself getting up before the Sun, dragging my butt out of bed, into the car and up to the YMCA, when I could do something much more sensible and enjoyable, like... sleep!

This was before the incident with the mirror, though, and my knee-jerk, paranoia, hypochondriac reaction to get up early the next morning, drag my sorry butt out of bed, down the stairs (instead of the elevator) and into the hotel "fitness center"-- two treadmills and a stationary bike. They weren't the best facilities but I got in an almost 50-minute session before MLW and M3S came down looking for breakfast and the other key to the room.

Later in the afternoon, I commented how it felt good-- mentally and, surprisingly, physically-- to get up and get in that workout early in the morning... and while on vacation to boot. My wife suggested that I should try it when we get home, and reminded me that I usually get up to load our Son in the car for her at 5:30 anyway. I never thought of it like that.

So, this morning, I gave it a shot. MLW, gently, woke me at 5:30 so I could carry 38 pounds of dead weight 50-feet to the garage and load M3S into his car seat and then I dragged my sorry butt into the car and to the Y. I got in a 5-minute warm-up and stretch, 18-minutes on the treadmill, a quick upper-body circuit and 16-minutes on the elliptical machine. I still had time to take a nice hot shower and stop back by the house to pick up a few things that I forgot before I was off to work.

I don't know how I will hold up the rest of the day. It is only lunch time now but I am already feeling a little tired. I hope that I will soon pick up a second wind, though, because I am committed to giving this a shot, at least, through the end of the week. I'm sure it will get easier if I get used to it.

Besides, I weighed in while I was at the YMCA and I'm a little embarrassed to say that I tipped the scales at 191. I'm embarrassed but still willing to post my weight here as well as my goal of 182 by December 31 and 175 by February 19 to better hold myself accountable. There is not a lot of people that are reading this blog but, probably, enough to get on my case if I start slacking again.

I will give periodic updates on my progress in the upcoming weeks. Until then... Read This. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Mell This!

A recent Web Poll question asks, "Which of your five senses would you most likely give up for $5 million?" 84.8% of the respondents chose smell. Although I can understand why they feel that way, I can't imagine going through life without any one of my senses, for any amount of money, but I think it would be especially hard to not be able to smell.

I am an visual artist by profession so, I suppose, being blind would be just incredibly tough to deal with. Music is also very important to me as a performing artist so losing my hearing would be very hard too. The sense (and scent) of smell, though, is very powerful. Smells can, among other things, cheer us up, calm us down, wake us, put us asleep, make us hungry, make us sick or trigger emotion or memories.

I have a new found respect for smells having recently quit smoking overnight (http://skeetzteez.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-quit-smoking-overnight.html). It was really strange, at first, how smells were so strong. I smelled something burning in my buddy's basement that no one else could find the fire. It was the neighbor's bar-b-que pit... two houses down. The way I found the cafeteria at the hospital was to sniff out, like a bloodhound, the only thing they were cooking at the time-- potatoes... just boiled potatoes. People would tell me for years how bad the stench of my gas I passed was, but I didn't believe them. Now I have a hard time staying in the room with myself when I fart.

Perfume and cologne products have been around since at least 2000 B.C. and are now a multi-billion dollar industry. I wish I had realized how important smell was a long time ago. Apparently there is a reason why the "good stuff" cost $50-$60 or more-- the Chicks dig it! At least a lot more than "the essence of some fragrance you've heard of" offered in the vending machine in gas station men's rooms for 25 cents a squirt.

Not that I ever used that stuff! I was a Polo man. In fact, I'm still a polo man. Not the Polo Sport or Polo Platinum stuff, either. We're talking dark green bottle, gold bulbous lid, smellin' like you just got out of high school gym class and didn't want to take a shower in a public locker room so you'll just throw on a bunch of this, original 1980's Ralph Lauren Polo. MLW hates it so I don't wear it much but I keep a bottle around because the smell reminds me of when I was cool (or at least thought I was cool).

During a recent trip to the mall we got turned-around in a department store and ended up in the middle of the men's' fragrance section. MLW who, by the way, smells everything before she buys it (and I mean everything), went about sticking sample bottles under my snout and asking me what I thought of this scent and that scent. M3S, imitating his mother and I, proceeded to grab the samples that he could reach (and some that he couldn't) and took a sniff himself. I don't know if is in his genetic makeup or if was pure, darn luck when he proudly showed us that green bottle of Polo and exclaimed, "Mell dis, Mama. Dis mells sooooo good! Dada should buy dis pray!" 

That's my boy!

He's only three-years (and has trouble with his consonant blends) but he doesn't get the concept that there is a difference between him and the older kids, or adults for that matter, so I give him a couple of sprays of my fancy cologne when I put it on. It makes him feel big and it makes me feel good that he wants to be like his Daddy.

I almost feel bad, though, that I used this little routine to trick him. M3S doesn't like to take a nap, or should I rephrase that? He doesn't like to sleep anytime! (He thinks he's going to miss something.) Well, he was getting excited when we did this cologne routine and I thought it would be fun to also spray his Teddy Bear (named not Teddy, but Barry). Barry, though, gets his own cologne, which is actually an aromatherapy, pillow spray that is supposed to make you sleepy. Since he takes Barry in the car seat and to bed with him, he has been much easier to get to sleep. Now if I can only find a smell to wake him up and clean the house.

See-- smells are powerful things, and we didn't even touch on the power that it has over your appetite. My mouth will start to water at the first whiff of a food that I really like. I bet you can't tell me that you don't get up from your desk at the office and track down the person that just microwaved a bag of popcorn late in the afternoon. 

Other smells can bring back memories. After my stroke I had the strangest thing occur (besides being able to burp for the first time in my life). My memories were so vivid that I felt that I could really smell them-- almost like a photographic memory with my nose. I could smell mornings after spending the night with my Grandparents when I was very young... bacon and eggs and cigarette smoke, as well as other things like the way my 5th grade teacher smelled of BO, coffee, moth balls and Old Spice. Weird, huh? I told my recovery psychiatrist and that's all he said... "weird, huh?"

There is one smell, though, that I remember from the years in my teens when my friends and I would hang out at Six Flags. It wasn't just the smell of the park itself although it had many distinctive odors like the wooden turnstiles, landscaping mulch and lemonade stand in the humid air in the line to ride Thunder River; the strangely appetizing combination of tasty funnel cakes, popcorn, freshly airbrushed T-shirts, fryer grease and electricity from the bumper cars through the game booths up by the Screaming Eagle; or the strong fragrance of vomit, consisting mostly of-- a powdered sugar donettes and Canadian Mist-- breakfast, behind the Galaga machine in the Pac 'em In Arcade. 

My favorite smell was, simply, the peaceful, clean odor of a strong, late-afternoon thundershower meeting the fresh blacktop that was heated to a comfortable 112º in the unbearable, hot, August sun. Every once in a while I will catch a bit of it drifting across my nostrils and it brings me back to our days and nights in that amusement park when our biggest worry was, "where did we park the car?" and we thought we were cool cause you could smell our Polo from 120 feet away.

No-- if you ask me, I am not going to give up my sense of smell. I'd just as soon cut my nose off. Besides, speaking physiologically, as I understand it, you would automatically lose your sense of taste if you lost your ability to smell. Therefore, you might as well just pick taste. Think of all the weight you would lose!

Buy T-shirts! http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez

How to Quit Smoking Overnight

I just drove past the company smoking lounge on the way back from lunch and realized, for the first time, how stupid people look standing out there on the side of the building in an almost perfect circle, like there are some imaginary lines drawn on the parking lot in 103 degree weather (or 9 degree in the middle of Winter) puffing away on those expensive little suckers (do you realize one cigarette costs over 20 cents now?) like it is the last one they will ever be able to smoke.

I can say this, only because as little as nine months ago, I was one of those people standing under that large plume of smoke, out there, getting my nicotine fix thinking mainly about when I was going to get to sneak out for another one. That was until 258 days ago when I found a way to quit smoking overnight!

I had tried just about everything there is to help an individual quit: the gum, the patch, the ear thing, hypnosis, pills and cold turkey. Each had different levels of success (or failure) but the final results were the same. I was still out in the smoking lounge a day or week or month later.

It's not as if I didn't have any motivation to quit. I tried when I met my wife (she hated it but was very understanding) and before our Son was born because I didn't want him growing up in that type of environment. Each time, though, I started up again and blamed it on the stress and pressure of everyday life...

Until the early morning hours of November 28, 2007. I woke a little after midnight to go to the bathroom. I felt as if my leg was asleep, did my business and went back to bed. Again, at 3:30 I got up to pee, but this time my right leg wouldn't hold me up and I fell to the ground waking my wife. I knew that this was serious as it wasn't just my leg, but my arm and the right side of my face as well. As my wife got the herself and the baby ready to get me to the hospital, I went out to the garage to have, what I somehow knew, was my last smoke.

In the emergency room, just before they told me that I had suffered a stroke, I relinquished my two-thirds full pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights to my wife to be disposed of. That was it. I quit just like that. It took a major brain injury, but I will never pick up another cigarette again.

And it was really, kind of simple. The doctors offered me all kinds of aids to help with the withdrawal but, because I was putting so much effort into my recovery, which was not at all simple, I hardly noticed any. If I did, it certainly wasn't as painful or hard as the physical rehabilitation.

I feel very blessed that I have made it back close to a 100% in the last eight months. It took a lot of time and hard work, not to mention a whole team of doctors and therapists, but we made it through with, what we can only call, a remarkable recovery.

Besides me kicking the habit, there was some other good results that came from my brain attack. I have a new outlook on life and am trying to spread the word about how precious each moment is and how to keep your priorities straight; some of my fat friends have gone on diets and are exercising; and maybe the biggest impact has been that several people at work and my "I'll smoke 'til I can't breath on my own" sister have also quit the nasty habit (although she got her nose pierced as "a reward" for herself... but that's another story).

You know, my brother smoked for many years until a doctor told him there was a spot on a routine chest X-ray. He quit overnight, before they had a chance to tell him that it was nothing to worry about. Thank God.

It seems like there is something to say about being "scared to death" or "scared of dying" to clean up a person's act. It's a shame that doctors can't say, "You will die if you don't change" and have people believe them, but I guess that wouldn't go along with their ethics and stuff.

Too bad... it may be the best smoking cessation ever!

Oh– buy T-shirts at: http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez