No Smoking

It was National No Smoking Day in the UK on Wednesday. Apparently the 27th  year they’ve held this event. Which means I must have been aware of it for at least 26 of those years.

Way back in the eighties I recall my first introduction to No Smoking Day. I was working for the local Health Eduction Department at the time as their ‘Media Resource Officer’. Amongst the variety of stuff I did one of them was organise and mail out locally the publicity material from national campaigns to our local Health Centres, GP’s etc.

I can still remember the image on that poster and the leaflets. A blue background with a large ashtray and some anonymous hand stubbing out a filtered cigarette. Why do I remember it so clearly? Well it had me practically chain smoking in my office. Yes smoking in ones office was allowed even in the NHS back then.

Oh dear even thinking of it now makes me want a cigarette. So really not the best choice of image all those years ago.

Its been five days or 120 hours since I stopped. Not the longest I’ve ever managed. I gave up for eight weeks with the help of acupuncture once.

This time I’m using nothing but willpower, and a hypnosis CD every night to lull me to sleep.

I tried nicotine replacement once, many years ago and I’m convinced they pumped more nicotine into my body than I would have got from smoking. They’ve refined them since then. Recognising light smokers don’t need the full on patches but I’m still leery of them. If I’m pumping nicotine into my body then I’d prefer to do it the old fashioned way.

I have noted my weight, and shook my head at it, causing wobbling the length and breadth of my body. 177 lbs  is not good.

I’m going to need to exercise, I have no space left to diet. Think everything really fatty has been banished from my diet.  Look one packet of Pringles a week is banished compared to the five I was getting through a while back. The cookie dough ice cream on Friday was a bit of comfort food for three days not smoking. It shouldn’t happen again. Well not without pulling out the calculator and figuring out how much exercise I need to do to achieve a “zero growth situation vis a vis calorie intake”.

120 hours without a cigarette – Go me!

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