Day 16

Well, I feel kinda normal today. No doubt I'm hopped up on coffee, though. I had a 7am breakfast meeting this morning and have been up since 5am. I'm not a morning person so the caffeine infusion has been imperative. ;-)

So far I've done the following things right:

• Watched my diet like a hawk. My typical "day of food" is as follows: Breakfast is coffee. Always coffee and then a bit more coffee. Lunch is enormous. If I have a day without lunch meetings, it's a big, organic salad with very little fatty stuff and lots of omega 3 stuff. No bread with lunch. Dinner is not really dinner - it has become low-calorie low-fat low-carb rice cakes (7 of them at 35 cals., 0g of fat and 8g of carbs) and some kind of carb-conscious meal replacement bar. Before I go to sleep I always always always drink 2% milk.
• Exercised on schedule. I work out four days a week and the workouts are an hour a piece. Three days is kickboxing aerobics which is a GREAT workout combining heart-rate work, stretching, and isolation floor work. The four day is an hour of advanced floor pilates focusing on arms, abs and legs. I haven't wavered with that. When I get jumpy from lack of smoking I walk around outside for ten minutes.
• I still go outside. Before I quit, outside was always social/relaxing etc. but involved smoking. Now I still go out - talk to neighbors, bring my laptop out and sit on the front porch, etc. I just don't smoke.
• I chew LOTS of gum. LOTS and LOTS.
• I haven't played golf. That will be the challenge - I haven't had any trouble yet when singing with the band, which brings me into direct contact with smokers and cigarette smoke. I'm not and never have been much of a drinker, so that's not an issue. For me, golfing and smoking go together. I won't be playing until Labor Day weekend when, hopefully, I'll have enough time under my belt to fight the smoking demons.

I have been irritable and intermittently (and sometimes severely) depressed. I've substituted a little kick of caffeine when that happens.

Here's a secret - my goal, when I quit, in addition to staying quit, was to actually see if I could lose a little weight. I don't need to lose any - I'm only talking a pound here - but I wanted to prove to myself that I could use quitting to reinforce dietary and exercise discipline. So far I'm succeeding.

Thanks for all the feedback!