Quit Smoking to Ride
 

Hi all. So I recently moved back to the Bay Area from LA and found myself without a car. I ended up getting an old Nishiki road bike to get around. What at first was function turned into fun and I really started to enjoy riding.

I have probably been riding for a month now and realized that I would like to do this as a sport eventually so I decided to quit smoking and change my diet. This decision started last Sunday and I'm pretty miserable.....:(

I wanted to find out if anyone else has ever quit smoking while also being athletic? Right now my body is going through some pretty wild gyrations, my lungs seem to be adjusting somehow and I want to know how long this withdrawal will last.

Any ideas?

First of all congratulations on making the choice to live a healthy lifestyle. Stay strong and fight the urges, they will go away. When you get an urge find something else to replace it with. I know it sounds silly but it will help take your mind off of it. If you keep riding that bike then smoking will become the last thing you want to do.

2 to 3 days for the physical stuff. after that, it is all in your head.


I haven't made it past a week for a long while now.

You really have to WANT to quit...

Biking helps.

I've been slacking like mad on the commute recently and smoking doesn't help.

keep it up. You really feel amazingly better after a while. It is worth it.

Just don't restart like me!! Then you just have to quit again.

you can do it!! (i need to too)

Thanks for the moral support guys. It really has been crappy but I'm really happy I'm doing it.

One major question is do you think my lung capacity will be better or less? Right now I'm even more winded than when I was smoking. Lungs readjusting or what?

Maybe these are questions for a doctor but I don't feel like making the trip....

I was really good at smoking for a long time. The key for me was when I asked myself if I was going to smoke the rest of my life. If the answer was no, what was I waiting for exactly? it was time to htfu and take care of it! Cold turkey. I sucked on cinnamon sticks for a while.

Of course your lung capacity will get better. That's a no brainer. You're probably starting to ride harder, that will wind you whether you smoke or not.

One more thing, you may put on weight. Don't sweat that until you take care of the smoking thing. Once you can start to tackle the weight, you'll have biking to help. You can do this but you gotta have your game face on. :)

Good for You for quitting, you will be happy you did in the long run. I quit after many years of smoking. It has been about 5 yrs since i quit and now I cant stand to be around a smoker. Keep it up and it will get better as time passes

Thank you guys very much for the support!

As far as weight goes I just noticed today that I lost some fat from my love handles...who knows how or why but I'm not complaining.




That's funny because my reaction right now when I see a smoker is one of lust...:D....:(

To be honest though things are getting easier...caffeine seems to help.

When I quit the only problem was hunger. I ate everything in sight for the first month. Like someone else said, it's all in the head.

True enough. I have had some crazy impulses to go to corner stores and get some crappy food.

For me the difference was just making up my mind that I was done with it, the physical stuff lasted about 3-4 days and I had issues with realllyyy wanting one for a couple of weeks and it has tapered off from there. At this point they don't even smell good, but for awhile there man I could smell one from a mile away and it smelled wonderful.. Just hang in there and it will get better.

Chief

My wife and I both quit the day we got off the plane from our honeymoon. We both actually did pretty good. I cheated about 3 months later when we through a big party. Okay, no big deal. Well about 6 months after that we were at a local bar and both decided to buy a pack from the vending machine. We smoked the entire pack that night. All I can say is the next three days were hell. The good thing was we both lost every desire to smoke ever again.

Anyway, if you feel like eating, go ahead. I think it's okay to satisfy one craving with another within reason. In other words, eat one slice of cheescake and not the entire thing. Otherwise, try and eat healthy as much as possible, with losts of green vegetables. Start eating as much anti-oxidant rich foods as you can. You'll be fine!

I quit 3 1/2 years ago and can echo what everyone is saying. The first three days are the hardest, but once you're over that, it gets easier every day.

your lung capacity will improve almost immediately, but i remember it did feel sort of blech for about a week.I had a really bad cough and felt lightheaded, like i was getting sick. ANd i had trouble sleeping. The worst is over in about a week. Trust me, you'll be thankful when you get past it and are addicted to riding. You'll wonder what you ever saw in those stupid cigarettes.

I quit almost 1 year ago, and am now in better shape than when I was a student or when I was in the military. (im 33 now)
It can be very tough, but focus on something that motivated you to stop, dont lose that focus, and dont ever smoke again. Not even one.

My Cousin died at 34 from Cancer.

That help?


Seriously tho. Go to the Doc and get him to precribe Chantix.
Its the bomb, screw cold turkey.

How about quit smoking to keep living. My father died at 56 due to lung cancer....smoked for 30+ years.....

You can do it.

Former cigarette smoker here.

Nate Dog is right, the nicotine is only in your system for a couple days, after that it's all psychological. (btw, a good bike ride takes care of a nic-fit like nobody's business)

Cold turkey is one of the best ways, and while I'm normally against medicines (because they are usually nicotine based, meaning they just prolong your withdrawal symptoms) Chantix is different, because it blocks the receptors, meaning that if you cave and have a cigarette, you're not going to feel it, so it won't as easily send you back into an addiction cycle. But it's perfectly doable without it.

Just remember that you might need to attempt it a few times before it sticks - don't feel bad if you fail the first couple times, attempts are the clearest sign you will succeed in the future.

And if you find that you are not emotionally ready to "give them up for the rest of your life", you might have to play some psychology tricks to keep from getting discouraged.

I would get down and think how I didn't want to say in absolute terms that I would never ever have a cigarette in my hand (I know, it's silly). Then I'd let myself have an occasional cigarette, and it would creep back up. So I had to make the illusion of concessions, but with very strict limits, to keep from getting discouraged. I would make rules like: you can only have a cigarette under very strict circumstances. They are: 1) You have to bum it 2) from someone you don't hang out with regularly 3) No more than twice in a month 4) it has to be a hand rolled cigarette. This way, it felt like I had freedom, without really giving myself room to slip.

Be happy. Addiction has a hard time with happy people.

Good luck.

Quitting was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my entire life.
The day my wife showed me the little pee-stick that said she was pregnant, we quit cold turkey.
Cold turkey is really the only effective way to quit, IMHO. I was smoking two packs of Marlboro's, and chewing a can of Copenhagen daily. It was harder to quit the chewing than the smoking.
We quit October of 2006.

Then came October of 2007, our anniversary. I got a wild hair up may ass and I wanted a cigar while we were out partying. That was the beginning of the end. I'm still smoking to this day.:(
But I never started chewing again. Wife simply will not allow it.:p


I need to quit, NOW!



BTW, anybody ever try the patch? I have and I don't have any faith in it. The only thing I liked was sleeping with a fresh patch on my arm. It makes you trip in your dreams!:twitchy:

my father had to quit cold turkey years ago because he got Buerger's disease. It causes blood clots and it's almost exclusively caused by tobacco, nicotine actually. This was like 50 years ago, so they didn't have gum and patches, but even today, you can't use any of that. It's the nicotine. I guess you could use antidepressants or acupuncture. But you have to be a pretty heavy nicotine user to get the disease.

Exercising is the best way to quit anyways...the reason people fail is because they sit around on their asses, stuffing their faces and have nothing to take their minds off of it. And the weight gain worries people, but if you start ridining or running or join a gym, you wont' gain as much weight. You may gain a little bit but not as much as if you sit around and quell the cravings with Oreos!

Thank you guys for the support! I thought I'd give an update.

It's now officially been a week since I quit smoking. I can't say it hasn't been hard but certainly rewarding. I have cravings every once in a while but they have been getting less and less. It's starting to be bearable.

As far as the weight goes I have lost 6 pounds in the past week and a half. I currently weigh 155 and am 5 ft 11 in. Anyway the point is things are getting more and more ideal.

Just today I went on a 5 hour ride with some major hills and actually made it through. The lung capacity is getting much better; a little flemmy from time to time but better.

I'm getting addicted to cycling guys and it's the best thing that could happen to me mentally and physically.

Thanks again!

PS
I haven't had a single smoke this past week.

You're already feeling a difference after just one week? Have any of you other quitters (and I say "quitters" with deep respect :thumb:) experienced the same thing? I've got a race coming up in the middle of September... if I quit smoking for a week before the race, would I be noticeably faster?

Good job on the quitting! Last time I tried, I cracked on the third day. Pretty frustrating... I was sick, and was doing pretty well. Hadn't even wanted a smoke the whole time, and I knew I'd be fine if I made it past the third day. Then I got really mad at something, and a friend with a fresh pack of smokes was nearby.

Reading everyone's success stories here made me want to make another attempt, but I'm a high school teacher and second term starts on Thursday. Horrible, horrible timing.

Four and a half years ago, I was kinda out of athletic shape and a smoker. I smoked about 1/2-3/4 pack of Camel Lights daily, ate junk food, and really didn't take care of myself. Got a mountain bike, started running some, and eventually bought a road bike. By summer of 2004, I was going two to three days without a smoke, and on the days that I did smoke, I had maybe 5-8. By December, I was putting in 150-180 mile weeks, getting in good shape and I was finally off the smokes. Two months later, I entered into my first race, a brutal 55 miler in February, and won in a solo breakaway.

Now I'm a Cat. 3 racer, occasional runner, and in pretty damn good shape, if I might brag. I'm doing 180-260 miles a week and can climb better than I can sprint.

I still crave a smoke sometimes, though. If someone walks by with a cigarette and I catch a whiff, my mouth waters a bit. It is right now – which means that the addiction hasn't really left. If out with my friends who smoke, I might take a drag or two off of their cigarette, but it hurts so bad to do so, so I usually don't.

Either way, I'm not a smoker now, nor will I ever be again.

Good luck on quitting. You're gonna need a little, but it sounds like you're doing alright.

I had big improvements after I quit.

Good luck with it =) I have become a self-righteous anti-smoker. Ohh well.

I'm either ALL IN, or not at all. No gray area for me.

well i'm still live and let live about smoking...for other people. But i find i've lost a lot of my tolerance for breathing it in...like when the neighbors smoke outside and it drifts in and stinks up my house!

It's amazing how easily you can smell a smoker a mile away after you quit. You don't realize how bad you smell when you do smoke. That being said, I've quit & started more times than I can count, & I've tried all of the methods (patch, inhaler, auricular, gum, lozenge). I really want to quit again, & next week I'm on vacation which should be the best time to do it. If I could afford it, I'd go to Carmichael & have them do a VO2 max test on me. That would probably do it right there! Good luck to the rest of you!