Stop smoking. It’s something we all want to do. Now unlike many Stop smoking articles, I don’t plan to lecture you on the harmful effects smoking has. After all, you wouldn’t even be here reading this if you didn’t already know it.
All of us are aware of the negative effects smoking can have on your body physically and mentally. Especially for performance athletes and/or figure models/bodybuilders. Now, the goal of this article is simply to help you STOP smoking. I’ve helped 1000s people stop smoking and it’s just as common for me to help with this problem as it is to help with obesity and other common problems
Alright, guys, I want to start with a very basic scenario that everyone who smokes will understand. In fact, I’d say to understand this you’d need to be a smoker, which is why I was asked to take over and do this article, which I was honored to do.
Let’s look at the scenario then, shall we? You wake up in the morning and you can feel the cravings and the urge right away. The most important thing is not to get that food down to you, or that protein shake, no, it’s to get up and smoke.
Maybe you are a mother with a child, you just want that cigarette to calm you down or just to start the day off right. You are not even out of bed yet but you know you’ve got to have one sooner or later… you need a cigarette!
So you get up and remind yourself that this is stupid and you need at least a cup of coffee first and maybe something to eat, after all we are Athletes.
So you make your way into the kitchen and prepare yourself a coffee and a protein shake, but the desire is still there… 5 minutes later you sit on the table, that cigarette in one hand and the coffee in the other.
There is a name, however, for what you are going through, and it’s called an addiction.
Now I know that sounds like a dirty word, but until you accept you have an addiction and are an addict you will NOT stop smoking, and the whole point of this article is to stop smoking. You want to stop smoking or you would NOT read this.
Believe me, I have been there a long time myself, for over 40 years to be precise, and I have never stopped smoking for more than a couple of days. And the days were agony and felt like weeks! It felt impossible to stop smoking.
I went through ridiculous moments just to have a cigarette, I’d stand outside in the snow because no one else here smoked. Just freezing my ass off forcing the cigarette into my mouth. I remember one day I woke up and had no lighter (a smoker’s biggest nightmare. Cigs but no light), the oven was out of the question since my girlfriend would have murdered me without hesitation if she would have found out, so what did I do?
I tried to light up the cigarette on the bulb in the sitting room… I mean how pathetic is that?
When I look back now I see I was no different from an alcoholic or a heroin addict. I needed my fix. I needed my cigarette and there was no way I’d stop smoking.
The best thing I can remember since I stopped smoking is the desperate feeling when you run out of cash and you know you only have a couple of cigarettes left, this uneasy feeling that creeps up on you when you have another smoke and you see that you only have 5 cigarette left and you promise yourself your going to go easy on them to make them last… 3 hours later you are out of cigarettes and you can feel the “cold turkey” creeping up on you.
Then again, being out of breath when I’d run has completely gone now and that was always terrible. It didn’t matter if I lifted weights. I certainly couldn’t do a weight lifting circuit or MMA, or boxing, I’d of had an asthma attack! I mean it, my cardio was atrocious!
You can stop all this madness and it is easier than you think once you find out the tips and tricks involved. Don’t believe me? Think you are too addicted to stop? Enjoy smoking too much? Continue reading.
To stop smoking is NEVER easy, there is no easy way! However, there is a “tolerable way”
You are mistaken If you think I will tell you another bull**** easy way how to stop smoking in 14 days, nothing about giving up an addiction is easy, and keep in mind that psychology cigarettes can get as much addicted to heroin, so let that sink in for a second, would you?
My comparison between heroin and cigarettes was a good one, in fact, they are now claiming they may be MORE addictive, so again, let that sink in.
The following text is only my personal view on how I believe how to stop smoking is done best, so let’s get cracking, shall we?
The following list is a bunch of things that have never worked for me nor have they worked for anybody I know of.
A “bad list” per say of idiotic ideas
1) I will never touch a cigarette in my life again.
2) What I do is I leave one cigarette in the box and write NO on the box, to remind me that I HAVE to stop smoking now.
3) This is my last one…I swear.
4) I only have one.
5) My Birthday present to you, honey, is… I will stop smoking.
5) My New Year’s resolution is to stop smoking.
The list could obviously be much bigger than this, probably endless however I felt the need to put some of the most common ones down.
So what is the best way to stop smoking?
Baby Steps!!!
And with this I mean, take it easy, don’t go too hard on yourself, so do it step by step, baby steps, small steps.
All you need to do is to stop smoking for ONE day
All you need to do is to stop smoking FOR ONE DAY, that’s all you need to do, and not because you are on a camping trip and you are distracted by many other things, nah that’s too easy, you need to stop smoking on a NORMAL working day.
And if you are too desperate to continue and you want a cigarette so bad that you think you are going mad, then tell yourself this…
Tonight when I’m ready to go to sleep, the last thing I want to remember is this:
YES, I DID IT I DID NOT SMOKE A CIGARARRETE TODAY…
I can beat addiction. There are millions of people out there who CAN NOT stop for one day. By doing this you will be doing what millions of others can’t. Look at it as an achievement and an award.
One day becomes two, two days become a week, and before you know it you surprise yourself by NOT thinking of cigarettes anymore.
Obviously, I want you all to be able to enjoy life without the need for cigarettes. You will live longer, healthier, There are so many benefits to this I cannot stress them enough.
