Smoking, drinking, and dieting

Hi everyone,
I am wondering if smoking and drinking have a place in dieting...I mean I know their unhealthy for you, but as unhealthy as fast food...I do both in extreme moderation and when I smoke I feel I don't have to eat as much and when I drink, I can control my food consumption better.

Your thoughts?

I used to smoke and was much thinner. You substitute a smoke for a snack. I don't think smoking can ever be considered good though. I quit for good 7 years ago and will never go back. My Dad is dying of cancer and although he only smoked for a few years as a teenager over 55 years ago, his doctors told him that could be part of the cause! I wish I had never started! Don't smoke if you can possibly help it!

Smoking also severely restricts your blood vessels, which is very bad. Thus, it will probably make exercising harder for you. Thin is not healthy if it's accomplished by nicotine. Much, MUCH better to be slightly heavier with a healthy heart, lungs, blood pressure, and well-functioning organs than to be thin with diseased organs.

Oh, about drinking. Alcohol *slows* down your metabolism, which is like fooling your body into thinking it's eating more than it really is! Thus, it's very, very easy to gain weight with alcohol. Plus, alcohol is extremely caloric. A 4oz glass of wine can be 200 calories!

Of course, you don't have to be a tee-totaler to lose weight, but for best results, alcohol should be consumed very seldom for weight loss because of the calories and its effect on metabolism.

It may be true that smoking decreases some people's appetites. But, at what price? I lost my mom, a sweet, beautiful woman, 7 years ago from smoking-related lung cancer. She was 51 years old and had a bright future cut short.

Smoking can help make you thin and dead. Not to mention, wrinkled and stinky. And broke. No good can come from it.

Elissa
quit cold turkey
October 31st, 1989

Re: alcohol and dieting

Over the last year, I have had wine with dinner or at parties occasionally, anywhere from one to three glasses and it didn't affect my diet at all. I also had the occasional mixed drink. I factored the extra calories into the day's calories. I think that in moderation, it's fine if you can handle it. For me, not depriving myself of this small pleasure helped me to stay on my diet in the long run. Only you know if this works for you.

Elissa

Elissa, I am so, so sorry to hear about your mother. That is so tragic.

I've never smoked in my life so I have no idea how difficult it is to quit, but with all the information and education we have today, I simply do not understand why anyone would ever start in the first place. It's completely stupid. Like you said, who wants to be stinky and wrinkly?

Thanks, Jennifer. It was indeed a terrible tragedy.

Incidentally, quitting cold turkey was one of the hardest things I've ever accomplished (I was a 10-year pack and a half a day smoker). I will do anything I can to support friends (or strangers, for that matter) who need help or advice on quitting. No family should go through what we had to.

Elissa

my mom went back to smoking after 3 months of quiting. she said she has to much stress and is gaining to much weight. i wish she would stop again

I am sorry to hear that. Don't give up on her, Monica.

Monica, does your mom exercise? That can make a huge difference, not only in her weight, but how she feels about herself.

[QUOTE=Jennifer] Monica, does your mom exercise? That can make a huge difference, not only in her weight, but how she feels about herself.
[/QUOTE]
she used to. she just can't get motavative to exercise again. for awhile we didn't have a car so she was walking a lot. she still wants to try to keep walking but with the heat starting it gets to hot to walk around.
i feel i'm he one that got her started smoking again. she quit when she found out i was pregnant but then i had a miscarrige my mom still stop for alittle bit. i feel if i didn't have a miscarriage she wouldn't of started smoking at all.

Monica, she's an adult and you are not responsible for her smoking. It's normal to feel badly that her smoking appears to have started again after that event, but each of us alone is responsible for what we put into our bodies.

I long ago accepted that my mother died at 51 because she chose to smoke. It was her life and her choice. I am not angry at her for it (most of the time!) because it was her life to do with as she pleased, not mine.

So please don't feel like it's your fault, because it isn't. You're not being fair to yourself.

Elissa

Smoking is a weird and insidious habit. It is all tied up with emotions as well as physical addiction. It is easy to tell yourself that you can have just one and when that one isn't enough, you can con yourself into believing that cigarettes aren't hurting you. Afterall, lots of skinny stars smoke. Remember though, you are making the choice to do it. You can also choose not to.

I could quit for years and then something awful would happen in my life and I would just HAVE to smoke. Often, that HAVE to would turn into several years of smoking every day.

I work in healthcare so I know exactly what a horrible toll cigarettes take on the human body. On my 40th birthday, I decided to quit for good and I have done just that. It really wasn't that hard since my husband wouldn't let me smoke in the house or car and at the office they had thrown all the smokers outside (in the cold) so there weren't many places left to smoke in comfort. I have gained 20 pounds but that could also be attributed to middle age too. That is what my doctor told me.

My 17 year old daughter smokes. I throw her cigarettes away whenever I find them but she always manages to get more. I have tried to get her to quit but with a kid that age, the more you nag, the more they want to do it. I am hoping that she will want to quit on her own soon.

Smoking is just one of the worst things you can do!

Demodoll,

Congratulations on quitting and your firm resolve to stay quit. You are right, smoking is an insidious and deadly addiction. You are a winner!

I agree on not pushing your daughter. From what I remember, only one out of ten who smoked as teenagers actually became long term smokers (from my high school group.) Unfortunately, that one was me! Fortunately, next October will be fourteen years since I quit.

Congratulations again!

Elissa

thank you. i know deep down it's her choice. when i first met my husband he smoked. he could smoke 2 packs a day. then he would smoke just a little. finally one day he quit altogether.

I've never had to diet, I've never been overweight.

I used to smoke alot, drink alot, marijuana -(and worse than that!!!)-.

Now I don't have hardly any vices to speak of, other than an occasional drink and maybe too much coffee sometimes.



I'm glad I am clean living now but it was SO MUCH FUN being decadent!!!


I still like sex though, I will NEVER give that up!!! Tee hee!!!!

Elissa I'm sorry your mom died in middle age but there really are no guarantees for any of us.
I lost my dad when he was 48 so I know it hurts to have a parent die prematurely, even though I wasn't that close with my Dad, he didn't live with us. You never know though, there are so many ways to die. You never know when or how you will die,-( even though we all want to live healthy and long of course).
My Dad died violently in a shootout that was basically his fault, he was intelligent and charismatic but he was unfortunately also a criminal, he got shot robbing a store..
....but that is in the past, on to other things!

I am so sorry about your Dad, Tina.

Elissa

Thanks Elissa.
My Dad choose to live the way he did.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
He could have lived and died differently.
He had a rough live, was raised poor and so forth , but that's no excuse for some of the things he did.
He wanted to be an outlaw.

...but as I said, that's past now. On to other things.

Perhaps this is just a wild coincidence, but people that I know who are lesbians, who used illicit drugs, or who sold their bodies (all things which have happened to you, as you claim) all had absent fathers in their lives.

Tina, I'm very sorry that your father was a criminal, but perhaps we could all work on uniting families so that tragedies like this will become less common.



>>>>>I wasn't that close with my Dad, he didn't live with us. You never know though, there are so many ways to die. You never know when or how you will die,-( even though we all want to live healthy and long of course).
My Dad died violently in a shootout that was basically his fault, he was intelligent and charismatic but he was unfortunately also a criminal, he got shot robbing a store..
....but that is in the past, on to other things!

It could have been worse, my Dad could have been living with us and beat his kids often, like some men do.
My father's death WAS tragic, and his life wasn't all good,-( although he did usually work and he had his good points, and he was interesting to talk with)- by any stretch, but his life was at least interesting and he did live fully. Same with me.

Is a life that doesn't always go smoothly but a life that is interesting better or worse than a mundane boring life?
Hard to say isn't it.
It takes all kinds to make a world. I have no regrets.

>>>Is a life that doesn't always go smoothly but a life that is interesting better or worse than a mundane boring life?

It's better to lead a boring life than to threaten other people's life with violence. I'm all for excitement in life but never at someone else's expense.

*Lay off Tina a little Jennifer, Tina's been through plenty because of her family and the way she was raised. You don't know the half of it.
*And you don't know everything about Tina's father either; how he served our country in the military, how he saved a man's life who was in a serious car wreck, other things about him which I don't have time to go into here. He was a very complex person and he had an extraordinarily difficult life, much more than most.
Some of his problems he brought on himself but not all of them. Tina and I have discussed her father alot. He had a profound influence on Tina, both in positive and negative ways. Even his frequent absence and certainly his death affected her.
It took her years to work through it.


*** I am not the world's most patient person I admit, and I am even less patient with ignorance, especially when it concerns lesbians or gays.
I really do need to lay out a few facts because of what was stated here.

Study after study after study shows that;

myth 1 - Lesbians are more likely to come from broken homes or single parent homes than hetrosexual women.
Fact 1- Wrong. There is no real difference between lesbian and hetro women in this regard. Lesbians are just as likely to come from two parent homes with a father present in the home as a hetrosexual woman.

myth 2 - Lesbians are more inclined to abuse drugs or liqour than hetrosexual women.
Fact 2 - Wrong again, no evidence indicates this.

myth 3 - Lesbians are socialized to be that way by their environment as a child. (family, neighborhood, etc.)
fact 3 - Wrong again. A lesbian is just as likely to be raised in a conservative lower middle class Catholic family in a conservative neighborhood( as I was raised), as being raised in an upper class liberal family in a liberal New York neighborhood.

myth 4 - Lesbians are more inclined to be Caucasion.
fact 4 - Once again wrong. Lesbians come from all races.

myth 5 - A child raised by a lesbian couple is more inclined to be a gay or lesbian than a child raised by a hetrosexual couple.
fact 5 - This is probably the biggest myth.
Most people, genetically, are hetrosexual by nature. Gays and Lesbians will always be a small minority of people. A child is just as likely to be hetrosexual raised by a lesbian couple as by a hetrosexual couple.

I have known since I was a girl that I was a lesbian. Tina has told me she has known since she was a girl that she is bisexual. Certainly it is mostly genetics that determines a person's sexual preference.

I hope I have dispelled a few myths here that are often used against gays and lesbians to deny us our rights, even to attempt to take away our biological children.

I am willing to tolerate alot but not ignorance and mythology concerning race, ethnicity, or sexual preference.

Thank you for reading this.

Kathy, I agree about combating ignorance. I gave my opinion, as did you.

You assumed that I was referring to all lesbians. Please read what I wrote, not what you THINK I wrote.

It's also ignorant to give opinions as facts. Until you give a basis for your "facts," they are merely opinions. I can say that the moon is blue and tell you it's a fact, but until I give you proof, it's only an opinion.

Facts can be proven. Opinions cannot. Ignorance wears many masks.