Pick an activity, any activity! You can walk, run, swim, jog, cartwheel, or hop on one leg, as long as you find a way to move whenever you have a craving. Don’t sit inside and wallow, and definitely don’t wallow with a snack in your hand. If you do this, you will most likely not gain weight when you quit smoking. Just NOT SMOKING doesn’t cause weight gain; that’s a myth! It’s the snacking and depression that some people experience after quitting that causes the pounds to pile on. I personally chose to train for a half marathon. It took about six months, and I ran about 3-4 times a week. At race time, I wasn’t the turtle beating the hare or anything, but I finished, and when I did I was twelve pounds lighter than I was the day I quit smoking. Just sayin’. 
#4 - Figure out what you’ll do with your hands when you’re out drinking
If you’re anything like I was when I quit smoking, your worst fear is how you’ll get through a night at the bar without bumming a smoke from a friend. The answer to avoiding this is not to have a lozenge, a patch, or gum (the patch doesn’t help your fidgeting and the gum and lozenges will clash with the taste of your drink!), but something else - something that will satisfy your busy hands. I’ve seen some people use popsicles or popsicle sticks, but my choice was cinnamon toothpicks. I never even left the house without them. There are candy cinnamon toothpicks that are OK, but in my opinion your best bet is these tea tree oil & cinnamon toothpicks that you can pick up at either Whole Foods or almost any health food store. Carry them in place of your pack of cigarettes. Pretend they ARE cigarettes. People may think you look silly, but it worked for me, and I hope it works for you. Three and a half years later, I still keep some in my purse “just in case.”
#3 - Make a shopping list of healthy snacks
Kumquats! I know people think I’m crazy when I say it, but kumquats saved me for the first two weeks without cigarettes. Kumquats are a small, citrus fruit, like super-mini-oranges. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to peel them, but I didn’t, because they’re too small. I ate them whole, and if you’ve ever eaten a citrus peel, you know it’s very bitter. The bitterness made my face pucker, and the feeling was so intense that I completely forgot about wanting a cigarette. The juicy inside of the kumquat was a bonus. Try the kumquats, or maybe you’re a celery person. Just make sure your substitute snack is not potato chips, chocolate bars, or something like that - that’s where the common complaint about gaining weight when you quit smoking comes from. If you’re conscious of your diet post-cigarettes, your life will be better and your quitting will go more smoothly.
#2 - Make a list of things to do instead
In order to distract yourself from cigarette cravings, it’s important to have an arsenal of things to do instead of reaching for a pack… Do you have any hobbies? You can blog, do sudoku, puzzles, crossword, video games, write in a journal, draw, paint, go for a walk! Make your own list of things you like to do, maybe something you haven’t made time for in the past. Think of all the time you spend smoking and what you can do with all that spare time! Once you have this list handy, keep it with you in case the cravings are so strong that it’s hard to think straight.
#1 - Pick a date
Picking a date to quit is an easy first on the to-do list… Make sure the date is far enough in the future that you can mentally prepare. I was smoking about a pack per day at the time I decided to quit, so I gave myself about 2 months to psych myself up, and I gradually started cutting back on cigarettes. I was down to about 3-5 smokes a day when I finally quit, so it didn’t feel as much like Cold Turkey. I also used this time to start telling my closest friends and family what I was up to, and asked them to help keep me accountable. I’m normally a bit of an impulsive person, which is probably why my previous quitting attempts didn’t work so well: these two months were some of the most important in my quitting process, because they gave me time to really work on the rest of the steps in my plan.
The Plan
My first step quitting smoking was to read, read, read. I read everything I could find on quitting smoking from scientific articles to success stories. Then, I made a plan. I took all the good advice I could find, combined it, and sat down and literally wrote out a plan to quit. It went something like this (I’ll outline the details of each in my following posts):
1. Pick a date to quit
2. Make a list of things you can do besides quitting
3. Make a shopping list of healthy snacks to calm the cravings (kumquats!)
4. Figure out what you’ll do with your hands when you’re out drinking
5. Decide how to minimize the weight gain
6. Buy Commit Lozenges, just in case
7. Collect inspirational quotes for staying positive
8. Stick to the N.O.P.E. philosophy (Not One Puff Ever)
9. Find a support group
10. Tell all my friends and family my plan
After I made my plan, I shared it with a friend who said, “I quit eight years ago and I still have cravings almost every day.” You might think that was a depressing revelation, but actually it was freeing. The previous times I had quit, when a craving got too strong I thought, “I can’t do this. It’s not time. I’ll try again when I’m older.” But now that I knew that the cravings would probably never go away, and that other people had dealt with that for years on end, that I could overcome the cravings and just let them pass.
“It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it hundreds of times.”
—Mark Twain
Three years without a single cigarette
Today I’m celebrating three years without even a puff off a cigarette. I see so many people around me trying to put their packs away and get healthy, that I decided I would share what I know, and how I quit.
Of course, everyone quits differently - some things work for some people, and there’s not one formula that can help everyone. The most important thing to know, in my humble opinion, though, is that you can’t just pick one gimmick and depend on it to help you quit forever.
I’ve never heard a story about anyone quitting forever because of a patch, a pill, or a lozenge. Everyone I know who has quit for good has had a multi-faceted plan of attack. To start this blog, I’m going to attempt to outline the many actions I took to help myself quit. Here goes…
