No screaming, crying, depression or overeating. No telling everyone I’ve stopped, then sneaking out to buy a packet and smoking around the corner. Earlier this week I described it as if the nicotine addicted part of me was behind a wall of soundproof glass – I can see him, he’s going nuts, but I feel nothing. I can now recognise that the big stompy monster in my head had a secret – there were TWO of them! He had a sidekick – the little nicotine monster. I thought there was just one big angry guy, who encapsulated nicotine addiction and the psychological need to smoke. However, now that I know what’s going on, I’ve booted out the big angry one, and strapped the little nicotine one to a chair, with duct tape over his mouth.
The book describes how nicotine addiction and withdrawal itself is actually so mild that you barely feel the withdrawal symptoms. Any current smoker reading this is going to think I’ve gone off my rocker. It’s all the stuff in your head that makes quitting so horrible. The book takes you through all this stuff, and helps you deal with it one thing at a time, so that when you read the last page, you really can’t remember why you ever wanted to smoke in the first place! Here's the book - if you smoke, you should read it. Don't worry, he doesn't try and scare you, there's not really much talk of cancer or anything like that. But it does work.
So now I can keep going with the diet, and have more energy (and lung capacity) to exercise and not feel like a social pariah. I actually had lunch INSIDE a café on the weekend! Not on the fiddly little tables out the front in the freezing cold!
Weight: 118.4kg
Muscle percentage: 37.1%
Fat percentage: 41%
Goal progress: 23%
I am slightly concerned that the weight loss is slowing down somewhat. I know that as you lose weight, it starts to happen slower and slower, but I figured I’d get at least half way to my goal before I started slowing down. I am going to have to bump up the fitness regime a little, I think. Also, you’ve probably noticed a new category above. I’m adding another marker to my KPIs – a friend of mine keeps track of his weight loss as a percentage of his goal. Here’s what I mean – I started off weighing 128.4kg. My goal weight is 85kg. The amount I need to lose overall is therefore 43.4kg. I have now lost exactly 10kg… holy shit – milestone! How’d I miss that? Anyway, so 10kg as a percentage of 43.4kg is 23%. This means that I’m 23% to my goal!
As some of you may know, I moved last weekend. I now live in the city, and have a much shorter commute to work. This translates to a little more free time each day. I also now have a gym and a pool in my building. Talk about no excuse not to exercise – you need to walk past it to leave the building! So I will endeavour to exercise a little more, and hopefully lose a bit more next week.
Major plusses this week included quitting smoking obviously, and also it marked the first round of compliments. I had 5 people exclaim over the weight loss, and it was awesome! Major negatives this week include the fact that I now REALLY need new jeans, and also the weight loss distribution has had a rather unfortunate side effect – I seem to have lost a lot of weight from my chest, face, neck and waist, but my hips haven’t kept up. Sure, I realise that I’ve lost some weight all over, but my spare tyre now looks rather prominent… ah crap. I have a friend who’s a personal trainer, and she once told me the only way to get rid of that is crunches. Guh. Hate crunches. Crunches can bite my slightly-less-doughy-than-last-week behind. I’ve been happily following the diet and just doing general exercise for the past month, but now it looks like I need to start targeting things.
Until next week, everyone!
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