The holiday season is over and I find myself with a little reminder of all the good times. A few more pounds than I had before the eating, drinking and relaxing started. When I approach the bathroom scales I swear I hear a little voice cry, “No! Have mercy”. I’m heavier now than I have ever been in my life and the time has come to start doing something about it.
Being 54, a smoker and borderline obese is no way to go through life son. There’s a heart attack lurking around the corner somewhere nearby and I’d rather not make its acquaintance.
I avoided making the normal New Year’s resolutions because I find them the equivalent of putting your upcoming failures on a pedestal for the entire world to see but a week has passed and they can now be called goals instead.
Smoking is the number one problem I have and, as my past experience has shown, attacking it will have a negative impact on my weight issue. Be it the oral fixation (calm down now) or the boredom, having a cigarette in one’s mouth is sometimes just something to do. When the smokes are gone, I start reaching for candy and the ounces and pounds follow close behind. Also, thinking about not smoking is a sure way to heighten the desire for one. How then do I tackle this one?
Problem solving methods teach you that you first have to analyze the issue, gather all the details and then begin to work on the solution, taking small steps as required to come to a successful resolution. Ok, let’s try that:
- Analyze the issue – Simple, I’ve been smoking too much for too long and it’s going to kill me. That was easy.
- Gather all the details – How much do I smoke? About a pack a day, more on the weekends. Why do I smoke? I’m addicted to nicotine and it gives me something to do. Cigarettes cost about $9.40 a pack which means that I spend about $3,400 a year. Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster that’s a lot of money!! Hadn’t worked that out for a while.
- Work on the solution – Now it gets tricky. Jan’s been doing something that I think might work. She counts the number of cigarettes she has a day and totals it up at the end of the week. That way, she can work on the goal to reduce the number slowly. Great idea but I think I’ll try to take it one step further. Break the count down by hour of the day as well so I can see at what times and in what situations I tend to smoke more or less. My thinking is that I could then concentrate on situations where a small reduction would result in the largest decrease. Here’s an example – every morning when I get up, I have about 1/2 hour before I need to wake Jan up so I usually sit and watch CNN and have 2 cigarettes. Not much (Monday to Friday 10 in total). If I could cut that in half, I’d already be down 5 cigarettes a week. No big deal but over a year that equals a reduction of 260 smokes or nearly 10.5 packs or a saving of $100. Instead of having that extra cigarette I could spend the time making a lunch (another saving because I wouldn’t be hitting the fast food joints) or do a few sit-ups. Little steps like that could really go a long way.
Losing the kilos is going to be a lot trickier. I like to eat but I don’t eat well. A doctor would probably run screaming if he or she saw my diet. I’m too ashamed even to describe it but, let’s just say, the Canada Food Guide and I aren’t on a first name basis. I am, however, good friends with Mr. Heiniken and spend a great deal of time performing quality control tests of his product. Lifting my bulk off the couch is probably the extent of the exercise that I get during a normal day when the golf courses are closed. Let me work on this a little more and I’ll get back to you.
Watch for updates on the smoking reduction plan.
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