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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Yeah well, I'm not fat, I'm just fluffy

Current Stats:

CW: 247 lbs
SW: 260 lbs

TL: -13 lbs
1st goal: -26 lbs

*****

So I find it ironic that after I preached and ranted for a little bit (okay, maybe a lot) in my last post about not being down on yourself, the only person who can beat you is yourself, yadda-yadda, I hit a slump. Down in the dumps, not eating right, not exercising, upset at night because of how I look. Fitting, is it not? ;)

Each morning, though, I'm trying again. Breakfast is usually decent (I've discovered it's amazing how much cereal you can have it the morning and still be pretty low on calories), lunch can be okay, depending on if I go get food or eat what I've brought. Dinner starts the downhill slide, especially now that Patrick has gone back to working nights. Not that I'm blaming him, or anything like that. It's all on me to lose weight and eat right, and I don't expect anyone to stand over me and monitor everything (wouldn't that be nice, though?). However, when he's home, there's no binge-eating late at night. There's no cake for dessert, and if there is, there's definitely not two pieces. I guess this is because, even though he's been with me for over ten years now, I still don't necessarily want him to see me stuff my face like a pig.

It's is nice, however, that I haven't gone back into the 250s. It's come close. Closer than I wanted to. It's stayed int eh 40s, though, so that's nice. Now I just need to focus on getting down out of the 40s and into the 30s. This is the disappointing part about actually setting goals - failure to reach them. According to my goals on the side of the page, I was supposed to be down 10% by now and working on another 10%. But at least I'm down a little bit, right? Every little bit is nice and means that I'm working on it.

I went shopping for shirts recently. I've discovered two things: I can wear 12/14 (misses) and XXL (19 in juniors), and because of this, they are cutting clothes bigger these days. I look at myself in the mirror and yes, I know I've lost some weight. I've maybe lost some inches, although I can't really tell where. However, I definitely don't think that I've lost enough to be able to say that I can wear a 12/14. Maybe that's just because I've been out of that size for so long that I see it is something only medium-size people can wear. Maybe that's where the faulty thinking is coming in. Not sure. However, it does mean that I get some cuter shirts as an option, as well as firmly being in the 16 sizes.

Now for the smoking side of things - the last I checked in with smoking, I was depressed because my lungs hurt, I couldn't breathe, I wasn't doing great on not smoking... Now I have an electronic cigarette and things are definitely looking up on that front. I haven't had a real cigarette since May 30th (8 days ago, right?). I did have a puff off of a cigarette this past Saturday, but that was just to compare. At first, I was like, there's no difference between this real cigarette and my e-cig! In fact, I feel like there's something in the real cigarette that I've been missing! Then the nastiness hit me - the smell, the gross taste in the my mouth, the heaviness in my lungs... No thank you.

So for those who don't know what an electronic cigarette is, you can Google it. I'll tell you that it has a battery and vaporizes a liquid that you inhale. You can get nicotine (which is, in fact, the point) or not. There are all sorts of flavors you can get. We have stuck with nicotine for now, however. It's supposed to taste like a Marlboro Light, but I call shenanigans on that. That's fine, though, because it gets the job done. So you push a button, it vaporizes some liquid, and you inhale it. What you exhale is supposed to be pretty close to just water vapor, which is why, technically, we could use these things anywhere (school, work, hospitals, restaurants, whatever). I "tested" it on someone who doesn't smoke and is pretty sensitive to the smell of cigarette smoke (by testing it I mean I smoked it right next to her) and she didn't smell anything at all.

We can use them around the kids and there's no chance of effects from second-hand smoke, because there's no smoke. There's no tar, no carbon monoxide, not nearly as many additives (I've read that it went from 200+ additives in cigarettes to about 14 in e-cigs). The carcinogens are gone from this. Nicotine itself is addictive, yes, but from what I understand is not the ingredient in cigarettes that gives you cancer and emphysema and all that other nasty crap. We don't smell bad anymore. We don't have to carry lighters anymore. There's no litter because there's no butts. I don't have to worry about live embers catching grass on fire or burning someone as they walk by or whatever.

It's a pretty good deal in my head. Now I'm thinking that there have to be *some* side effects, because otherwise, why wouldn't e-cigs completely replace regular tobacco cigs? (Okay, with that question, I've answered it myself. Tobacco companies would freak at this, although if they'd hopped on the e-cig train from the beginning... Anyways, I digress.)

So my lungs are feeling better although I still haven't gone through the "withdrawal" part of things (coughing up the nastiness from my lungs, getting a better sense of smell, etc). Maybe I just need to wait a little longer to feel a lot better. When we were in the store buying the cigarettes, there were two people there who already use these things. One guy went from smoking 2 packs a day (!) to just using his e-cig and has been for a couple of months, and another lady had been smoking for years and years and has been using only her e-cig for 21 weeks with no plans to go back. So it looks like this has definite possibilities for long term use, as well as for weaning ourselves off of nicotine completely. It's definitely cheaper. Besides the start-up cost (about 120 bucks), we'll go from spending over 200 bucks a month to spending around 30 a month (on the liquid and apparently the atomizers). Within the first month, it's paid for itself.

This thing is good. I like it. And don't worry, unless you tell me I can, I won't smoke it in your house or car, I'll still go outside. I'm a polite person. :)

And on another random note, I'm a very parenthetical writer, aren't I? I wonder if that's annoying to other people. Not to me. It's just how I write my thoughts down. :) Thanks for reading!