Run away from Smoking

Let me tell you about a BIG hindrance that's causing me a lot of slow-down in my running, hence my weight loss. My lungs... smoking. Now get off your soapbox and continue reading without judgments please. I KNOW...already.

I started smoking in high school, tried my first cigarette in junior high with the new out-of-towner girl who was "bad". We quickly befriended and for an outcast like myself, she was my salvation. I was a late social bloomer, I felt awkward and out of place...I had only arrived in the US a year earlier, and needless to say I was FOB (fresh off the boat). I was only starting to acclimate to the culture and it was overwhelming.

Both of my brothers smoked since they were just teens, my parents despised it, and I was, I guess, curious. I didn't know all the negative things it could do to me and it was JUST THERE, and I got away with it secretly. When I was about 7, I thought cigarettes were just rolled up paper or something...so one day I rolled up an empty matchbox to resemble a cigarette and lit it up...HAHA it was terrible, obviously, and I almost set our house on fire until my brother came to the rescue. He laughed at me and made me do his chores for a long time by threatening to tell my parents. I grudgingly obliged.

Flash-forward to 8 years later, and at 15, I started smoking all the time...I cut class with my girlfriend in high school and we used to smoke all day and be "artistic". Silly, now that I think about it, but I was just trapping myself even deeper into an addiction that I'd have trouble letting go all these years later. During my college years, I smoked even more heavily...there was really none who didn't. Everybody was outside the dorms doing it. All my friends and the boys I dated did - it was the norm, so I didn't have an outer influence to help me stop...my parents still didn't know.

The whole no selling cigarettes under age 18 law doesn't work...let me tell you because I know. Most vendors never even check your ID, some didn't start checking until I was already of drinking age. And even though I studied the human body in depth and knew of all the consequences, that didn't stop me, and it doesn't for many others.

Then I met my husband and we got pregnant...my baby = my savior. It saddens me that I didn't love myself enough to stop smoking, but I sure as hell loved to death the little thing inside me that I REFUSED to taint her health...not to even give her a chance for a healthy start in life. Five days into knowing I was pregnant, I abandoned that which gave me a little comfort and company through everything...smoking had become such a part of me, that it was weird not having it around.

My husband helped me immensely by yelling at me all the time...when I had major withdrawal stress, he would just make me feel bad, asking me if I wanted to kill my baby...and it would make me wake up. After a while, I just didn't need it anymore, didn't even think about it. After months of the baby being born...I made the mistake again of picking up one cigarette. I'd sneak in one every couple of weeks...and feel terrible...feel a loser. I won't continue...but if you are having trouble right now, I feel you...just do it (quit), seriously...I mean don't DO IT, don't smoke!

• If you start forming relationships with the gas station people, then it's time to stop. They never think you're coming just to get gas, you know?
• If this secret activity is lowering your self-esteem...why even continue?
• It's very difficult, but the best thing is just going cold turkey...no patches, gums, or lasering your brain.

I want to RUN, be able to run long enough to feel the "runner's high" and not the aftermath of my own damaging. I want to run fast and FREE of all that is holding me back...which was ME.