This or That

I had a comment a while back from Don who noted my difficulty with both trying to avoid junk foods and attempting to quit smoking. Don made the suggestion that I concentrate on giving up the cigs and worry about the diet later. The reasoning is logical....both are attempts to modify deeply ingrained behaviors and maybe doing both at once just makes everything twice as hard; hence twice as likely to fail.

This is where I do battle with one of my big character flaws; the idea of doing something all out or not at all. In my goal to get healthy I tend to want to do it all at the same time...diet, exercise, and getting rid of the damn smoking habit. Of them all, smoking is the one that gives me fits. I quit smoking and all I want to do is eat. I eat properly I want to smoke. I exercise but I can't do it with the intensity needed to do any good, so in frustration I want to smoke.

Bloody hell!

So what I'm going to do is focus entirely to quit smoking. Oh...I'll still watch what I eat and how much. I'll still exercise. I'll do those things but without a driving goal. I'll just do them so I can develop good habits for when I do get down and dirty with my weight. Until then...for a couple of weeks anyway...I'm concentrating on giving up cigarettes. The little counter in the upper left corner will be updated when I have smoked my last. Most blog entries here are going to be about quitting this filthy habit, my progress, my struggles, my (hopefully) success.

Because, let's face it, without doing that, I may as well just resign myself to dying in a very few years.