5 months smoke free and counting

Through the emotional ups and downs, trials and tribulations, temptation and blah blah blah........, its been 5 months since the last cigarette.

Just went for the blood sample, lung cap, X ray and ECG today. Based on what we understand, there should be some improvement in the related areas but I can't expect miracles after being 5 months smober, eating oats, regulating the diet (no chow kuay teow but an occassional curry mee) and exercising regularly compared to 20 years of a pack a day.

Come 2 weeks from now, hopefully there's some improvement. But physically, after these few months;
1. The energy levels higher than it's ever been in 20 years
2. The eyesight's has even gotten better
3. Heart rate is about 65-70 from 75-85 when resting
4. Stamina is much better
5. The hacking cough is gone (Surprise! Surprise!)
6. And I've rarely had a cold since.
7. The pain in the neck (literally speaking) which appeared before I stopped has gradually disappeared.
8. The swallowing issue is much less apparent now.
9. I seem to have more time now for other things, surprisingly. 5 mins/cig x 20 = 100 minutes out of 1,080 minutes of time awake is about 10% more. I'm using the free time at home to jog (3x/wk), do night walks whenever I can with my wife.
10. My family is much happier. A plus bonus is that I can always use the threat of picking the dreaded habit up again on my children when they misbehave...ho! ho! ho!

Only thing is off and on, some of the funny things before I stopped smoking comes back intermittently. IE my heart rate is down but it's seems to be beating stronger than normal. Anyway, it used to be fast and hard.

Anyway, to anybody who WANTS to stop... my advise is;

1. MAKE UP YOUR MIND! It can't be done unless YOU (not anybody else) wants to do it.
2. SET YOUR GOALS...ie don't want to die younger than necessary, stop being treated like a pariah, want to improve your self image.
3. BE CREATIVE, do what appeals to you best (self hypnosis, scare the hell out of yourself by surfing all the stop smoking sites, nicotine replacement, chewing gum, make a pledge to God, your family, yourself....use your imagination)
4. ANNOUNCE YOUR INTENTION TO THE WORLD. You will be surprised by how many people around you will be happy to hear that you plan to give up smoking. Share with them as you go through the "process". You will get the moral support from almost everybody, even strangers!
5. BAND TOGETHER! Surprisingly, there's this statistic which shows that the likelihood of actually stop smoking permanently is much higher when you do it with your smoker friends.
6. WHEN THE TIME COMES, EXECUTE! Average plans with average execution is much better than great plans with bad execution.
7. TAKE 1 MINUTE AT A TIME, THEN AN HOUR, THAN A DAY...progressively, it does get easier, especially if you put all the extra time you've gained into exercise and eating right.
8. YOU ONLY FAIL WHEN YOU GIVE UP TRYING. Its been shown in some smoking cessation websites that it may take several or more tries before some succeed.

Anyway, that my 2 cents on this so far. Let's see how it goes after this.

Regards,
Edmund