Hi all
Just joined me a change up lol 19st 12lbs smoke 30 a day and high blood pressure. See collecting points.
Was surfing the web this morning looking at different ways to change and came across C25k.
Just completed the 1st session and completed all but 1 min run about half way through.
Felt great afterwards though look forward to see how far we can push this.
Any tips more than welcome smoking may be a problem
Thanks Nigel
Follow the podcast or apps carefully . give up the fags now! Chuck em! If you are a smoker you won't help yourself on your quest for better health
If you are serious about really improving your health then be prepared to make the changes necessary to bring it about. There are no short cuts or half measures. Well worth doing though. Glad you have made a start👍
Wow!!! Well done YOU. Lol. I started vaping and quit 2 years ago. It all helps. Failing that... Alan Carr's Easy way to stop smoking.
The course does work. I've just graduated and ten weeks ago I couldn't run the length of myself. As for smoking I gave it up about 12 years ago. I used the chewing gum but it tasted rank. The hardest for me was my after dinner fag. I got up and washed dishes straight away to take my mind of it. Take it one step at a time just like running. That's me an hour stopped. That's me a half day, a day 2 days. When you reach a week it would be a shame to start again and ruin your hard work. Same with the running. Keep on keeping on. Just keep it up and make sure you take rest days.
I wish I had really thought about quitting before my heart attack and double by-pass. However, there are no withdrawals while you are on a vent for a day or two 😞 I was lucky and got a second chance. Good for you for starting! Ditch the smokes and follow the program. You will feel so much better. The foks on here are all wonderful support. Good luck!
Congratulations on looking to change your health prospects. This is a good place to start.
I stopped smoking 30 years ago.......cold turkey......tough, but whatever you do is going to come down to your own will power in the end. If you buy them, you'll smoke them........if you don't have them, you can't smoke them. There are very few habits that have such a detrimental effect on your health as smoking.......but you know that.
This programme really works and has transformed many, many lives. We can advise, support and cajole as necessary, but the effort and motivation is your department.
If you don't complete a run then just repeat it, getting stronger each time. There is no short cut. It might be really tough at times, but we will help you through to running for thirty minutes.
Always take the rest days...... they are crucial.
Good luck.
Ditch the cigarettes... they make us cough 
Welcome to the best thing.... follow the programme, take those rest days, keep posting for great support and encouragement and..... enjoy!!!
"I may not be easy.... but it will be worth it :)"
Fantastic, well done Nigel, that is so funny as what you have done is exactly the same as how I started.... and I'm still here running 4 years later, it's very addictive and life changing too ... keep us posted on your progress 😎
Well done Nigel , first step to decide to change is the hardest one to do, so now just keep on track, follow the programme, go slow and enjoy 😊
Quitting smoking is hard - but there is a way that eases the worries about just how 'hard' it can be. After almost forty years - and trying everything else out there - I did it. If I had combined my way with this programme it would have been even handier to quit
Get a small digital kitchen timer and a box that you can cut a slot in. Set the kitchen timer to count down four minutes. Anytime you get the craving to smoke, hit the start button. The physical craving only lasts three minutes or so - after four, its all mental. You are not going to quit smoking 'forever' - you are going to quit for four minutes. when the timer goes off, if you still want to smoke go ahead. If not - try for another four minutes and then see.
I guarantee you, if you are truly serious about quitting - that timer will be going off constantly for the first few days
The box is to take care of the 'mental' side of the addiction.
Cut a very narrow slit in the top of it. Tape the living crap out of it with the strongest tape you can find. Use a whole roll of it. You want to make it as difficult as possible to get into it. Obviously you will leave the slot accessible.
Write the date one year from the day you quit smoking on it.
Now - every evening, put whatever money you reckon you would have spent on cigs into the box. Also - put whatever loose or spare change you have in it also. Over here the dollar bills made it easy - no coins in mine - but over there make it a bigger sturdier box because of the pound coins etc.
Anyway - you don't open that box until you either start smoking again or the year is up. After a while if you are like me you will have no idea of how much is in the box and it gets to be fun to speculate on how much will be in it when he year is up - a much better focus of your mind than 'I wanna smoke'
Basically - its that easy. You are replacing 'hard' with 'busy'.
Instead of lighting up and then feeling like 'you know what' because you did, you hit that timer. Instead of worrying about 'I will go back on the smokes' you can fantasize about the windfall you will have when you open the box.
I smoked a minimum of 140 cigarettes a week for almost forty years - in a couple of months I will be off them three years and have absolutely no desire to ever smoke again. I also had a great holiday on what came out of the box after that first year.
Running will also help you enormously - the 'high' you get is far better than any nicotine 'hit'.
Hoping you stay and run with us here - we may run on our own but 'round this way we never run alone.
Wishing you many happy and nicotine free miles in your future
1st post
1st Run
1st run as a graduate
First go at Session One!
1st HALF MARATHON Done 
