Well, this weekend was definitely an “Adventure”!
I went out of town to Des Moines on Friday morning until this afternoon and spent the better part of Saturday at Adventure Land Amusement Park! Prior to leaving Omaha for this trip, I had read through most of Adventure Land’s website to see what kind of rides they had and so on. In the process of reading through the material on the website, I came across the park’s rules and guidelines, one of which was that there was no smoking permitted anywhere in the park. Since I had known this ahead of time, I intentionally did not smoke before entering the park, and forced myself to wait until we left the park at the end of the day, which was at about 5:00. With that being said, I did not have my first cigarette on Saturday until about 5:00 pm, and smoked much less than my “norm” throughout the entire weekend.
I personally believe that gradually cutting back will be more effective for me, as opposed to quitting “cold turkey”. I have been doing very well with setting small goals for myself, such as, not allowing myself to smoke more than one cigarette within in a certain time period, and limiting myself to certain amount of cigarettes in a day.
I am scheduled to meet with a member of Alegent’s Tobacco Treatment Program this Thursday, and I cannot wait to learn all of the new tools and techniques she is going to teach me! I am hopeful that after I meet with the Tobacco Treatment Specialist I will be able to “step up” or re-enforce my smoking status to become closer to quitting completely!
I have also kept in contact with Stacey, an Exercise Pathologist with Alegent and she is working to put together an exercise plan for me so I can start increasing my physical activity on a weekly basis. I am also hoping to be able to make it to Toni’s nutrition class on August 4th, where she will be teaching her participants how to plan and prepare healthy meals. I love to cook, but I could definitely use some new tips on how to make my meals healthier. This past week I worked on drinking more water and less juice, coffee and pop, as well as consuming more whole grain breads as opposed to white bread and I also tried to incorporate a small lunch into my day.
I hope everyone was able to maintain the goals they set for themselves last week and wish everyone the best with their goals for this week!