“Life is always walking up to us and saying, “Come on in, the living’s fine,” and what do we do?  Back off and take its picture.” ~Russell Baker

I have had a problem with my weight since I became a non-smoker in May of 1999.  Before that, my weight would fluctuate up and down and was relatively easy to control.  I’d get heavier slowly if I stopped exercising and I would lose weight quickly by adding exercise back into my life.  I really didn’t need to pay much attention to what I ate or how much of it.  Once I became a non-smoker, everything changed!

I began to rapidly gain weight and nothing that I did seemed to make a difference.  I exercised, I dieted, I fasted – nothing stopped the weight gain.  Within 12 months, I had gained 95 pounds.  My waist went from a relatively trim 36 inches to a whopping 46 inches.  I competely lost my ability to run or jog; I was just too heavy and it hurt my knees.  It was fairly common for me, when I was a smoker, to go out and run 4 miles in 35 minutes or so, and then light up a cigarette as soon as I finished running.  I played tennis at a good competitive level in the smoking days and I was proud of the fact that I could beat almost everyone that I played while smoking – literally holding a cigarette in my off hand while I was returning serve.

I became desperate to make a change.  I thought many times of becoming a smoker again even though I was committed to being a non-smoker.  Smoking violated almost everything that I believed was true about health and it particularly violated what I was speaking about – success and the ability to change.  In those smoking days, I had to carefully plan all of my seminars so that I had time, every hour, to smoke a cigarette, brush my teeth and get back on stage -all without the audience noticing.  I felt like a liar.  This wasn’t what really kept me from going back to smoking though.  What kept me from going back was a promise that I had made.

A Promise That I Wouldn’t Break

In the last months of my smoking addiction, I was splitting my tiime between San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia.  I was dating a great gal that lived in the Bay Area and we were talking about getting engaged to be married.  She had a cold that wouldn’t go away and after numerous visits with doctors, we got the horrible news that she had advanced agressive breast cancer.  Talk about life changing news, everything changed as we tried to overcome this disease.  I am still humbled and inspired by the courage and efforts of my friend Becki as she lived with this and did her best to recover.

Next Time

Sorry to leave on such a note, but my time is gone for today.  I have coaching and consulting starting in just a few minutes.  Next time I’ll finish the story, talk about what wonders NLP did for my cancer riddled friend, and talk about what is finally working for me in regaining my health and optimal bodyweight.

Till next time faithful reader…Jack

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.” ~John Burroughs