The Dream Police~

Can't Get it Outa My Head ...
It's now been quickly approaching 100 days -- Should be reason for celebration -- And it is. But why can't I stop DREAMING about smoking?

Last night was yet another one. And they are so real. Always very similar... I smoke and then feel guilty as well as disappointed that I broke my string of smoke free days. Feeling like now I have to start counting all over again.

Last night's dream had a twist most dreams do not but reality always does -- After I had smoked about three cigarettes I still had most of the pack left. Of course I was peeved at myself for having caved and disappointed I broke the chain but how was contemplating my dilemma:

Do I finish the pack because I have to start all over anyway?
Oooor -- Do I toss out my 17 or 18 un-smoked but no doubt delectable cigarettes and start the Smoke Free Day Count from that point right then and there?

Of course, the dreaming of enjoying a smoke is not limited to my sleep -- its a daytime event also. During the day, usually at work I can't help the thoughts such as; 'When is this meeting going to end so I can go outside and have a smoke?' -- And church every Sunday, usually during the Priest's Sermon, same thought; "End - Go Smoke".

There are a lot of other times too ... Anytime I am forced to wait somewhere. "When can I get to my car and go have a cig?"The Anxiety continues and those are other times when the desire is strong. It's like the butterflies in my stomach fly up to my chest cavity and float around there like their own personal playground.

For now, I keep walking and I keep not smoking. It is getting easier and when I do hit my 100 day mark it will be my second longest attempt at quitting in a 30 year run -- the last thing I want to do is give in to my dreams.

Cigarette Boxes to Dispaly Pictures of Smoking's Ill Effects

By By Ranit Mishori,

The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Coming soon to the lives of American smokers: cigarette labels that go far beyond a simple warning.

Imagine gruesome color photographs showing a mouth riddled with cancer, lungs blackened, a foot rotten with gangrene. If the images sound sickening, well, that’s the point.

Under a law signed by President Obama on June 22 — the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act — tobacco companies will be required to cover 50 percent of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages with color graphics showing what happens when you smoke and bold, specific labels saying such things as:

“WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease.”
“WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children.”
“WARNING: Smoking can kill you.”

The first U.S.-mandated label in 1965 tentatively suggested “Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health.” Although the language changed over time, critics have long dismissed U.S. labeling as anemic and ineffective.

Indeed, the inspiration for the new labeling standards comes from abroad. Canada started the trend in 2000 with a label that showed a picture of mouth cancer. “It’s the one that smokers remember more than anything else. Even after nine years,” says David Hammond, a researcher from the Department of Health Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Since then, he says, more than two dozen countries have picked up on the idea.

A sampling of how explicit the labels can be: Malaysia’s cigarette packs bear a photo of a diseased lung; some in Brazil show a dead fetus lying near cigarette butts; Thailand’s show a person with a hole in his throat, to warn about throat cancer; in New Zealand, it’s a gangrenous foot.

Compare these with the American warning label, which has not changed since 1985: no images, and only a small-type surgeon general’s warning that states: “smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth and low birth weight.”

“Every piece of research that I’ve seen with smokers tells us that smokers think that (pictorial warnings) are more effective,” Hammond says. “U.S. smokers and consumers are getting worse health information than almost any other smoker in the world.”

While it is true that smoking rates in the United States are lower than in other countries — about 20 to 22 percent of the adult American population smokes — experts have long argued that a more powerful message would have a far greater impact on smoking habits.

One out of five American adults is still too many smokers, says Mitch Zeller, a former director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Tobacco Programs. “That’s an unacceptable figure. Just because our smoking rate may be lower than other countries around the world is not an argument against graphic warnings when we still have so many people smoking in this country.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 440,000 U.S. deaths are attributed to cigarette smoking every year. That includes deaths from heart disease, lung cancer, obstructive lung disease, other cancers, stroke and other conditions. An estimated 49,000 of these deaths are the result of secondhand-smoke exposure.

“The health effects of smoking are inherently hard and frightening,” Hammond says. “Lung cancer is not a pretty disease. Mouth cancer is not pretty. And any warning that falls short of communicating that probably isn’t doing its job.”

The bigger the warnings are and the more vivid they are, he says, the more they will make people pay attention, “particularly warnings that elicit negative emotions, like fear or disgust.”

The World Health Organization agrees. In May, the organization called for all countries to adopt picture-based warnings on all tobacco packages, calling them “among the strongest defences against the global epidemic of tobacco.” But not everybody agrees that fear and disgust are appropriate buttons to be pushing.

“We are not enthusiastic about any type of graphic image openly displayed in our stores,” says Lyle Beckwith of the Association of Convenience and Petroleum Retailing, a trade group that represents more than 2,000 retailers and their suppliers.

Philip Morris, the country’s largest manufacturer of tobacco products, supported the legislation, which, in addition to requiring stronger warnings, allows regulators to control the amount of addictive nicotine in a cigarette and bans most cigarette flavorings. The rest of the industry opposed the legislation.

Hammond does not think cigarette makers will mount legal battles, because lawsuits in other countries have failed. He said there were such challenges with the earliest graphic labels in Canada, “but the industry lost. ... They challenged the E.U., they lost. They lost everywhere, and I would doubt that they would challenge it” in American courts.

Longtime smoker Karyn Kimberling, president of the smokers’ rights group Virginia Smokers Alliance, sees the coming labels as an attempt to “de-normalize and demonize” smokers and doubts habits would change. “Grotesque labels have not changed people’s habits in other countries,” she says, “so I don’t know why it would here.”

There is, however, research to support claims that graphic warnings educate smokers on the dangers of their habit, and even motivate some to quit. American smokers shown a set of graphic Canadian warning labels, for example, rated them “substantially more of a deterrent than text-only labels” in a CDC-sponsored study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Similarly, an international telephone poll tested several thousand people on their awareness that smoking is linked to heart disease, stroke and lung cancer, among other illnesses. The calls were made in four countries: the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Researchers found higher level of awareness in Canada and Australia, and credit that to the more explicit labels in those countries.

Impotence, for example, is specifically mentioned on Canadians labels, and Canadians polled were twice as likely to agree that smoking can cause impotence as were people from the other three countries.

Hammond keeps pressing the argument that “pictures are more likely to catch people’s attention and to hold people’s attention over time,” especially if the message reaches kids.

“Even the most hardened, recalcitrant smoker will often tell us, ‘Well, they don’t have an effect on me, but my 6-year-old keeps coming up to me and saying, “Daddy, this is going to happen to you?” ’ ” Hammond says. “That does not happen with the text warning.”

Additionally, says Hammond, text warnings don’t work well with those who can’t read — mostly minority populations who don’t have a high level of literacy in English. “For those millions of people, you might as well be writing a health warning in Mandarin if it only has text,” he says. “You put a picture on it and it broadens the scope of those things to millions more people who cannot read English, many of whom are from a lower socioeconomic status and are more likely to smoke anyway.”

The legislation says that the Department of Health and Human Services “shall issue” regulations governing the upgraded labels within two years.

Ranit Mishori is a family physician and faculty member in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
© 2009 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online

Planes, Trains ... Now Automobiles!

Budget, Avis ban smoking in cars

(Another reason it's good that we quit smoking.)

Smoking bans are spreading from planes, trains and buses to another mode of transit: rental cars.

Beginning Oct. 1, Avis and Budget will become the first major rental-car companies to ban smoking in their entire North American fleets and to impose a cleaning fee of up to $250 on customers who smoke in the cars.

"The No. 1 request we get is for a smoke-free car," says John Barrows, spokesman of the Avis Budget Group, the parent company. He says a common customer complaint is a car that smells of smoke, adding, "We're addressing both concerns."

Barrows says employees who drive the vehicles are no longer allowed to smoke and the cars will undergo a new inspection upon return. He says it costs the company more to clean a smoky car, because it often has to be taken out of service longer.

Avis is following a smoke-free travel trend that took off two decades ago. In 1988, Congress banned smoking on short domestic flights and in 1990 expanded that to flights of up to six hours. That year, it also banned smoking on interstate buses.

In 1994, Amtrak banned smoking on short and medium-distance trips and now allows it only in a designated area of the Auto Train, which runs from outside Washington, D.C., to the Orlando area.

Other car-rental companies have taken more limited steps to address smoking. Hertz allows customers to request a smoke-free car but doesn't guarantee it, says spokeswoman Paula Rivera.

Enterpise Rent-A-Car, Alamo Rent-a-Car and National Car Rental do not have an "across-the-board" smoking ban but many of their locations restrict smoking, says Laura Bryant, spokeswoman of parent company Enterprise Holdings.

Anti-smoking groups hailed Avis Budget Group's ban. "Avis is protecting the rights of all of its customers to breathe clean air," says Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Secondhand smoke is significantly more concentrated in cars than it is in bars, restaurants and other public places, according to a study released last month by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Phillip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette-maker, believes private business owners "should have the opportunity to make their own smoking policies," says spokesman David Sutton.

"It's disappointing but it's their private property," says Gary Nolan of the Smoker's Club, a part of the Citizens Freedom Alliance, which aims to protect private property rights. Nolan, a smoker, says he used to rent often from Budget, adding, "I won't rent from them again."

Barrows says Avis Budget Group, based on customer research, expects its smoke-free policy will help its bottom line. He says, "We think we may gain more business than we lose."

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

Bans on Outdoor Smoking Cross a Line in the Sand

USA TODAY view on cigarettes and public health:

Prohibitions at beaches, parks lack scientific rationale.

Times just keep getting tougher for the American smoker.

As recently as the early 1980s, smoking was considered chic and socially acceptable just about everywhere. Today, smokers are about as welcome in many places as someone with swine flu.

They often seem a forlorn lot, forced to huddle in specially designated areas outside buildings. Smoking bans continue to spread, most recently to rental cars from Budget and Avis.

For the most part, the extension of "No Smoking" rules has been a very good thing. Smoking has declined from 42% of Americans adults in 1965 to just under 20%

in 2007. But the next front in the smoking wars — the great outdoors — is more problematic.

Scores of municipalities have barred smoking in outdoor public places. Now New York

is discussing a ban in its hundreds of parks and 14 miles of beaches. But the rationale that supported earlier bans — to protect non-smokers from the ill effects of secondhand smoke — is missing.

To be harmed by secondhand smoke outdoors, you have to stand right next to the smoker and in the path of his smoke. Prolonged exposure in a park is improbable.

New York's mayor, reformed smoker Michael Bloomberg, who has been laudably aggressive with anti-smoking campaigns, was right to respond hesitantly when his city health commissioner proposed this one.

The nation's change from a smoking to an anti-smoking culture was greatly accelerated by revelations in the mid-1980s that secondhand smoke could be deadly. Smokers could no longer argue they were harming only themselves. Non-smokers' rights became paramount. By that standard, the gradual banning of smoking in confined spaces — airplanes, workplaces and the like — made sense. And if a hotel or car rental chain thinks it's good business to go smoke-free, that's a competitive decision it's entitled to make.

Government-imposed outdoor bans, though, are another matter. Rather than protecting innocent victims from harm, they amount to an intolerant majority infringing the personal freedom of an unpopular minority that is harming only itself. Just as people should be allowed to smoke in their own homes (unless they live in condos or apartments that have declared themselves smoke-free), they should also be allowed to smoke outdoors, where smoke is quickly dissipated and enforcement is problematic. And though some smokers regard beaches as giant ashtrays, that's best dealt with through littering laws, not prohibitions.

From a health standpoint, the fewer people who smoke the better. Some 440,000 die each year from smoking-related illnesses, which is ample reason people should be persuaded not to take up the habit, particularly in their teen years, when nearly all smokers get hooked. Their addiction, however, should not be an excuse for persecution.

It might seem a fine line, but it's an important one, and banning smoking in airy outdoor public places crosses it.

(From the Opinion Page of USA TODAY, September 18, 2009)

Opposing Views: Take Protections Outside ~

Smoking bans in outdoor places protect health and reduce trash.

By Cynthia Hallett

Kudos to New York City for planning to expand its smoke-free indoor air law to include outdoor spaces. Thousands of communities have 100% smoke-free indoor air laws, and many of those now have or are considering laws that expand protections to outdoor places where people gather or work, such as parks, beaches and dining areas.

In fact, 400 U.S. cities and Puerto Rico already have smoke-free parks laws in effect; 82 cities, the state of Maine, and Puerto Rico have smoke-free beach laws. An additional 158 cities and three states (Hawaii, Iowa and Maine) have smoke-free outdoor dining. Smoke-free outdoor spaces are quickly becoming the national norm, and we have the science and public support to continue moving in this direction.

Fueling interest in outdoor laws is the growing body of science on the negative health effects of secondhand smoke exposure outdoors and the environmental effects of cigarettes and toxic cigarette butts. In 2006, the California Air Resources Board classified secondhand smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant and called it "an air pollutant which may cause or contribute to an increase in deaths or in serious illness."Additional research demonstrates that individuals with compromised cardiovascular systems might be at risk from brief exposures to secondhand smoke, even outside. People spending time outdoors near smokers over multiple hours, such as waitresses or dinner guests, can receive exposure that exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency's limit on fine particulate matter pollution.

Cigarette butts are the leading source of pollution in parks and beaches. An estimated 1.69 billion pounds of butts wind up as toxic trash each year. Cigarette filters are made from a plastic that can break into smaller pieces but will never biodegrade or disappear. This substance persists in the environment and is toxic to fish, birds, wildlife and pets, not to mention small children.
We applaud New York City for working to eliminate toxic contaminants and trash from parks and beaches, and expect to see more cities follow suit.

Cynthia Hallett is executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
Posted September 18, 2009 in USA TODAY editorial

~ The Eleventh Week ~

Hey Look At Me! ~ Seventy Seven Days!
Day 75 was on Wedndsday -- I'm now at the 11 Week Mark!
As of today, that's more than 2200 cigarettes I haven't smoked and
Nearly $500.00 saved!
It's been a long road and I still have anxiety but it is getting better!
Please Let me Know how YOU are doing.

FJW

30 Interesting Cigarette Facts:

(Part One): Facts 1 – 10
1. Cigarettes are the single-most traded item on the planet, with approximately 1 trillion being sold from country to country each year. At a global take of more than $400 billion, it’s one of the world’s largest industries.
2. The nicotine content in several major brands is reportedly on the rise. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Health Department revealed that between 1997 and 2005 the amount of nicotine in Camel, Newport, and Doral cigarettes may have increased by as much as 11 percent.
3. In 1970, President Nixon signed the law that placed warning labels on cigarettes and banned television advertisements for cigarettes. The last date that cigarette ads were permitted on TV was extended by a day, from December 31, 1970 to January 1, 1971 to allow the television networks one last cash windfall from cigarette advertising in the New Year’s Day football games.
4. U.S. cigarette manufacturers now make more money selling cigarettes to countries around the globe than they do selling to Americans.
5. The American brands Marlboro, Kool, Camel and Kent own roughly 70% of the global cigarette market.
6. Cigarettes contain arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and 43 known carcinogens.
7. In the early 1950s, the Kent brand of cigarettes used crocidolite asbestos as part of the filter, a known active carcinogen.
8. Urea, a chemical compound that is a major component in urine, is used to add “flavor” to cigarettes.
9. The ‘Cork Tip’ filter was originally invented in 1925 by Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz, who patented the process of making the cigarette filter from crepe paper. All kinds of filters were tested, although ‘cork’ is unlikely to have been one of them.
10. In most countries around the world, the legal age for the purchase of tobacco products is now 18, raised from 16, while in Japan the age minimum is 20 years old.

30 Interesting Cigarette Facts, (Part II):

Facts 11 – 20 ~

11. Contrary to popular social belief, it is NOT illegal to smoke tobacco products at any age. Parents are within the law to allow minors to smoke, and minors are within the law to smoke tobacco products freely. However, the SALE of tobacco products is highly regulated with legal legislation.
12. Smoking bans in many parts of the world have been employed as a means to stop smokers smoking in public. As a result, many social businesses have claimed a significant drop in the number of people who go out to pubs, bars and restaurants.
13. Scientists claim the average smoker will lose 14 years of their life due to smoking. This however does not necessarily mean that a smoker will die young – and they may still live out a ‘normal’ lifespan.
14. The U.S. states with the highest percentage of smokers are Kentucky (28.7%), Indiana (27.3%), and Tennessee (26.8%), while the states with the fewest are Utah (11.5%), California ( 15.2%), and Connecticut (16.5%).
15. Cigarettes can contain more than 4,000 ingredients, which, when burned, can also produce over 200 ‘compound’ chemicals. Many of these ‘compounds’ have been linked to lung damage.

16. The United States is the only major cigarette market in the world in which the percentage of women smoking cigarettes (22%) comes close to the number of men who smoke (35%). Europe has a slightly larger gap (46% of men smoke, 26% of women smoke), while most other regions have few women smokers. The stats: Africa (29% of men smoke, 4% of women smoke); Southeast Asia (44% of men, 4% of women), Western Pacific (60% of men, 8% of women)
17. Nicotine reaches the brain within 10 seconds after smoke is inhaled. It has been found in every part of the body and in breast milk.
18. Sugar approximates to roughly 20% of a cigarette, and many diabetics are unaware of this secret sugar intake. Also, the effect of burning sugar is unknown.
19. ‘Lite’ cigarettes are produced by infusing tobacco with CO2 and superheating it until the tobacco ‘puffs up’ like expanding foam. The expanded tobacco then fills the same paper tube as ‘regular’ tobacco.
20. Smokers draw on ‘lite’ and menthol cigarettes harder (on average) than regular cigarettes; causing the same overall levels of tar and nicotine to be consumed.

30 Interesting Cigarette Facts, (Part 3):

Facts
~ 21 – 30 ~
21. ‘Lite’ cigarettes are manufactured with air holes around the filter to aerate the smoke as it is drawn in. Many smokers have learned to cover these holes with their fingers or their lips to get a stronger hit.

22. The immune systems of smokers has to work harder every day than non-smokers. As a result, a smokers’ blood will contain less antioxidants, although a smokers immune system may be quicker to respond to virus attacks due to its more active nature.
23. Smokers often smoke after meals to ‘allow food to digest easier’. In fact, this works because the bodies priority moves away from the digestion of food in favor of protecting the blood cells and flushing toxins from the brain.
24. Some people (mostly males) can be aroused by the sight of smoker smoking (usually females). This is called the Smoking Fetish, and affects a small number of the population. As with most fetishes, the reason for this arousal can usually be traced back to incidents in childhood. However, cigarettes – particularly menthols, force blood away from the penis if smoked while aroused.
25. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 25% of cigarettes sold around the world are smuggled.
26. Most smokers take up the habit in their mid teens, well before the legal age for purchasing them, and is seen as a right of passage towards adulthood. Other perceived rights of passage include: aftershave, wearing stilettos, alcohol, drugs and sexual intercourse; with a combination of these sometimes being cited as the main causes of teenage pregnancy.
27. Smoking tobacco is the ultimate gateway drug in that it is legally available, and involves mastering a unique method of intake – much more so than alcohol (which has such a significant effect that users need look no further for stimulation). Smokers looking to get ‘high’ will very rarely do so from cigarettes after the initial stages of taking up the habit.
28. Smokers generally report a variety of after-effects; such as calmness, relaxation, alertness, stimulation, concentration and many others. In fact, smoking will produce a different effect in each individual depending on ‘what they expect to get’; turning the cigarette into the worlds most popular placebo (satisfying the brains hunger for nicotine being the only ‘relaxing’ factor). The smoker will then use these expectations as a means to continue the habit.
29. Several active ingredients and special methods of production are involved in making sure the nicotine in a cigarette is many times more potent than that of a tobacco plant.
30. ‘Toppings’ are added to the blended tobacco mix to add flavor and a taste unique to the manufacturer. Some of these toppings have included; clove, licorice, orange oil, apricot stone, lime oil, lavender oil, dill seed oil, cocoa, carrot oil, mace oil, myrrh, beet juice, bay leaf, oak, rum, vanilla, and vinegar.

Remember 9/11 Prayer ~

Almighty God, 2001 will be indelibly inscribed in our memories.

We looked with horror on the terrorist attacks of September 11th. But we looked with honor on acts of courage by ordinary people who sacrificed themselves to prevent further death and destruction.

We shed our tears in a common bond of grief for those we loved and lost.We journeyed through a dark valley, but your light has led us to a place of hope.You have turned our grief into determination.We are resolved to do what is good, and right, and just.

Help us to remember what it means to be Americans—a people endowed with abundant blessings.Help us to cherish the freedoms we enjoy and inspire us to stand with courage, united as one Nation in the midst of any adversity.

Lord, hear this prayer for our Nation.

Amen.

(Compiled by a Navy Chaplain in commemoration of 9~11~2001.)

What's in a Cigarette ~

Nothing New Here:
Just a reminder...
Your body gets more than nicotine when you smoke.
~ There are more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke. Some of them are also in wood varnish, the insect poison DDT, arsenic, nail polish remover, and rat poison.
~ The ashes, tar, gases, and other poisons in cigarettes harm your body over time. They damage your heart and lungs. They also make it harder for you to taste and smell things, and fight infections.

Source:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Reducing Tobacco Use: A Report of the Surgeon General. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000.

Tobacco Facts ~

Tobacco is one of the strongest cancer-causing agents.
* Tobacco use is associated with a number of different cancers, including lung cancer, as well as with chronic lung diseases and cardiovascular diseases.
* Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, causing an estimated 438,000 deaths - or about 1 out of every 5 - each year.
* In the United States, approximately 38,000 deaths each year are caused by exposure to second hand smoke.
* Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women in the United States, with 90 percent of lung cancer deaths among men and approximately 80 percent of lung cancer deaths among women attributed to smoking.
* Smoking also increases the risk of many other types of cancer, including cancers of the throat, mouth, pancreas, kidney, bladder, and cervix.
* People who smoke are up to six times more likely to suffer a heart attack than nonsmokers, and the risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked. Smoking also causes most cases of chronic obstructive lung disease, which includes bronchitis and emphysema.
* In 2007, approximately 19.8 percent of U.S. adults were cigarette smokers.
* Twenty-three percent of high school students and 8 percent of middle school students in this country are current cigarette smokers.
* In the United States, an estimated 8 percent of high school students are current smokeless tobacco users. An estimated 3 percent of middle school students in this country are current smokeless tobacco users.

Happy Labor Day ~

Two Months Smoke Free ~

I haven't had a cigarette for two months now -- but that doesn't mean I'm out of the danger zone!

This seems to be the time most people -- including myself many times in the past -- experience a relapse. Our biggest challenge isn’t always the quitting, it’s the staying quit. One ingredient to a successful quit plan is to be prepared to handle difficult situations that increase cravings and ‘triggers’ when they occur or are at their most intense. See Combating Those Nasty Triggers ~

From the Center for Disease Control and Prevention:

* The greatest risk for relapse is with in the first three months of quitting.
Plan ways you can cope when you are around other smokers or in difficult situations where you're tempted to take a puff.

* If you used to smoke to handle stress or calm your nerves, (and you know we all do or did), it's important to find other ways to do that. Integrate stress reduction into your daily life. I took up not only deep breathing but also I try to walk some daily.

* If you do slip and have a smoke, don't beat yourself up, and don't give up.
This has always been my downfall in the past -- thinking I could ‘handle’ just one and then not stopping there rather thinking I would stop again after this pack or the next!

* Recognize these ‘triggers’ and try to avoid them if possible. But lets face it, its not always practical -- one of my triggers was spending the morning writing out my monthly bills. I had to change the way I did that and not give in during this time.

* Limit or monitor your use of coffee and alcohol; these trigger the urge to smoke for many people. (I had to do that during the monthly bill paying I wrote about above.)

* Eating healthy food and exercising is important. I already spoke about my daily walking but I also have take up eating a lot of Popsicles -- maybe not the most healthy but they are only 35 calories each. (Did I ever mention I am handsomely slender and that’s not really an issue for me anyway.) However, research shows that large weight changes are unusual and there’s medication that can help limit weight gain.

* Don't forget to remember all the benefits of quitting smoking. (This is important. It’s really helped me this time.) One good thing to keep pictured in your mind is this PSA I posted last month. ~I Heart New York ~ (This video creeps me out, I’m so glad I didn’t see it until after I quit smoking!)

* Finally, read the exercise article I posted Monday of this week (8~31~2009) & Kevin's comments below... I keep saying I've taken up walking to combat my cravings, triggers and desires; I believe it's helped a great deal. I would encourage anyone to do the same.

The Best Testimonial Yet~

Just wanted to reply about exercise staving off cravings and let you know it really has worked for me. When I first quit July 1st I could barely squeez out 15 push-ups. I started doing them and crunches every time I had a craving. Now I can do 60 push-ups at a time and over 200 a day, I don't count the crunches reps. With walking I've actually lost weight since quiting.

Welcome Phil. This a really inspirational blog that's done wonders for me. FJW does a great job

so check back often and good luck. It can be done.

Thanks again,Kevin

Sometimes something from the comment section is so good,

I have to pull it out here to the main page ...

I'm just not sure how many people read the comment section.

Heck ~ I'm not even sure how many people even read this blog!

Thank You Kevin... comments like this inspires me to keep blogging!

No Smoking Bra ~

Introduced by Swiss Panty Maker Triumph International.

(In keeping with my women's health theme.)

This Swiss-based underwear maker has developed a bra it claims can helps women quit smoking. Embedded with perfume capsules that react with cigarette smoke making it unpleasant smelling.

The capsules contain lavender which has a sedative property as well as jasmine which alters the taste of cigarettes.

The bra is also treated with liquid titanium to break down cigarette smoke.

It was presented at a trade show in Tokyo but Triumph has not yet decided if it will actually produce the bra.

Now I'm curious as to what they'll do to prevent panties from smoking!