Yee Hah Sammi Jo!!!!!! First, congratulations on 100+ days!!!!!!!!!! And second....congratulations on keeping the exercising up despite being discouraged about the actual weight!!!! I am so happy for you in losing six pounds...i bet you can feel the muscles and overall tone in your body. Yes, bike riding is the bomb! I used to love working hard up the hills and then flying down them....lol And what an added benefit....one on one time with your teens!!!!! I've got a bike, but am scared to ride it around my house...afraid I'll get hit by a car. I've been thinking of taking it over to a friend's house and riding from there, where it's a little safer. The jungle is still out there Sammi, but I'm moving towards carving out garden space right around the house. Need to do a bunch of soil conditioning. Have a compost I've been working on, and intend to get a truckload of dirt from the local green waste site. Bought peat moss yesterday. I'm thinking of doing a process called "lasagna gardening", where you layer stuff, cause our clayish soil is not very nutritious for veggies. I hope to have most of that done in the next 10 days. I'm going to wait to plant till I get back from my trip to New Orleans and Tennessee from April 25-May 6. The trip is going to present me with a bunch of triggers I haven't dealt with yet. Being with one of my best friends who is a heavy smoker, going to a music festival, a long car ride, airports between flights. I'm trying to mentally prepare. Anyone have any suggestions? Keep up the good work, SammiJo.....and Keep on Pedaling!!!!...lol....like I have to tell you to keep on having fun!!! Oh! How's the pool? -aloha [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 3/22/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 23 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 953 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $156.4 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 3 [B]Hrs:[/B] 6 [B]Mins:[/B] 46 [B]Seconds:[/B] 18

Sammi, Congratulations on 6 pounds! Fantastic accomplishment! Danielle _____________________ The SSC Support Team

[i]tryagain & alohakeia � thanks for your support and encouragement! And aloha... how's that jungle coming? :) [/i] Okay, here�s a little synopsis of the history of this thread� January 1 � Quit smoking. March 27 � First posted to this thread about 15-pound gain. March 29 � Posted to this thread about a 3-pound gain. April 4 � Posted to this thread about a 4-pound gain. April 5 � Bought a measuring tape and stopped weighing myself every day. April 6-13 � Continued to watch my food intake and ride my bike daily, 2-3 miles at a time. April 14 � Weighed myself and am very happy to report� [size=4][color=green]I lost SIX pounds! Woooohoooo![/size][/color] Granted, the pounds lost were six of the seven that were [i]gained[/i] since starting this thread, but I�m just happy to finally see a LOSS � any kind of loss! Physically I�m feeling great � energized and strong! Some nights when I go to bed I feel SORE but it�s a good-kinda-sore, like I woke up some muscles that have been sleeping for years. I specifically chose bike-riding as my preferred form of exercise because when I was a kid I LOVED riding my bicycle. I loved how it took me places (much faster than walking) and allowed me to see and experience things I�d never noticed from inside my parents� car. Now that my legs are stronger and my daily rides are not so limited (by the hills that surround my house), I�ve been rediscovering that JOY that I experienced as a child! I�ve been exploring my own neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods and it�s been a blast! Plus, my three teenage children have been taking turns �going with mom on her rides,� and it�s become a really cool thing for us to share. [size=4][color=purple]I lost SIX pounds! [/size][/color](Just wanted to type it again!) :p [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 1/1/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 103 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 3,103 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $309 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 10 [B]Hrs:[/B] 15 [B]Mins:[/B] 18 [B]Seconds:[/B] 9

Sammi, How wonderfully epic was that post!!!! I am so proud of you for not smoking with your co-worker. That was a major feat! And congratulations on finishing it...early! I had major cravings while I was gathering stuff for my taxes, and when I was doing my son's. Sounds like another great bike ride too. Keep it up!!! How great that you're seeing results. I'm with ya on the pool.....that would be way too cold for this island girl, too....lol -aloha [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 3/22/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 31 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,253 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $210.8 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 4 [B]Hrs:[/B] 7 [B]Mins:[/B] 33 [B]Seconds:[/B] 40

I�m still around, though I haven�t had time in the past week or so to post here. I work for a nonprofit organization that is funded with federal money and we had a �performance� report due � it was due yesterday. If you have ever filled out any kind of government form (like a tax return?) then just imagine a 39-page report that requires about 20 pages of single-spaced narrative. Yikes, what an undertaking! To get the bulk of the narrative done, my assistant director and I holed up in a hotel room suite with two computers and an LCD projector. I projected what I was working on up onto the wall of the suite�s livingroom and we worked together to write the required narrative. Why would we do that? Two reasons. 1.) No interruptions and we can work well into the night all comfortable in our jammies if we want; and 2.) She smokes, and she�s a helluva lot more productive if she can smoke while she works instead of taking a fifteen-minute break every hour. We have worked together for years, and this is how we�ve always approached big projects with important deadlines. The only difference now is that I�m not smoking with her. It was tempting though, holed up in that hotel room with her while she chain-smoked all day. I�m around smokers all the time and it doesn�t tempt me to smoke, but that�s usually outside, not inside in an enclosed space. I felt like I was smoking myself, it was so overpowering. Besides, this was a REALLY important report, so I was a little stressed while we were working on it. More than once I had junkie thoughts of picking up one of hers and taking a deep long drag. But I didn�t. We checked out of the hotel yesterday morning and returned to our office to put the final touches on our long and involved report. It was due to be submitted online at 4:30 our time � and we pressed �send� at 1:45. Whew! We�d been working on it almost around the clock for three days and finally it was done and we both agreed it looked great! I went home and took a long NAP! Today my husband and my son and I went for a bike ride together. When we got back home, my son said to me, �Mom, that was epic!� I�m like, what do you mean? He said, �It was like an adventure! It was fun!� He�s right, it was epic! We rode to a nearby park and e

Sammi, Good thoughts from around the world headed your way! Hang in there and remember to take deep breaths. This will all sort itself out. Keep us posted! Danielle _______________________ The SSC Support Team

I haven't posted to this thread in a while and there's been lots of stuff going on... I went to Texas for 10 days on a business trip. While I was there I started feeling sick, didn't know why. I have continued to feel bad since we got back and today I finally went to the doctor. She ordered a mess of tests and I will hear back about them in a few days. Bottom line is: I'm scared. I'm scared that I waited too long to quit smoking. It would just fit "the story of my life" if I quit smoking and THEN ended up with emphysema or cancer or something. The tests the doctor ordered included: An EKG, a set of chest xrays, a "cardiac workup" (not sure what all that entails), and a whole mess of blood tests including a test for hemochromatosis (runs in my family) and tests for hormone levels (I'm at menopause age). In the meantime, I've lost a total of 15 pounds now, which is so very cool. Before the Texas trip I did 10+ miles (bicycling) two days in a row. I wasn't sore a bit after the first day but I will admit that I was a bit stiff after day two! I still haven't gone in the pool because the temp dropped again and the water has been chilly. My husband and I went out for a bike ride this past Saturday and I got short of breath and had to stop after only one mile. I was so upset! I have so celebrated my newfound ability to breathe, so it scares me that suddenly I feel like I can't breathe again. We did continue (did a total of just under five miles) but I had to regulate my breathing so I wouldn't hyperventilate again. Hubby thinks it was the smoke in the air (from the forest fires in North Florida, we did have some smoke here last week), I hope he's right. In the meantime, the doctor said to wait on any further exertion until we get the results back on all these tests. I'll be doing some aerobic praying, though. [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 1/1/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 134 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 4,045 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $402 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 13 [B]Hrs:[/B] 20 [B]Mins:[/B] 52 [B]Seconds:[/B] 6