Congrats and a high five to you!!! This is the best thing you have done for your health. Exercise and a healthy diet will be your friend.

Your heart and lungs are happy!

Congrats on your strength and stamina to quit!

WOW, major kudos for coming so far!!! Yes, your heart and lungs are beyond happy. Keep going taking it a day at a time. This is huge, and I hope you’re feeling very proud!👍🏻

A long journey for sure, but you have an accomplishment. A whole year? That’s amazing. That takes a lot of strength—seriously, good for you.

You've had a lot of changes in the last several months. Congratulations on all you've accomplished - you've done us proud 😊 I know your goal wasn't inspiring us but you have - and I hope you realize what important steps you've taken. Those 10#s are nothing to your health compared to the smoking. I hope you've splurged on some great art supplies or something fun with the money not spent on tobacco! Cheering for you!

Has it been a year already?! I do remember you were struggling a few weeks after you quit, and I’m sorry you went through some tough times. Obviously some get through the process more easily than others. The good news is in your last statement that it is finally getting better for you. Even with the weight gain, your body surely is healing and recovering and you will be stronger in the long run. We’re rooting for you! Thanks for checking in.

Congratulations! It's so hard to do, but worth it. And if you pledge to NEVER take a puff again, you will never have to do this again in your life. You've conquered the hardest part; it gets easier and easier as the years go by.

Samkaren, congratulations and tons of respect for quitting and enduring all of the sequelae. I never imagined the effects of quitting and I am greatful for you enlightening us.

You are brave, smart and courageous. I wish you ongoing victory, even if it is slow and arduous. Thank you for sharing this with us and stay in touch. You did the right thing.

Congratulations Karen! I quit smoking 49 years ago and I still remember how difficult it was. I never got my smoking metabolism back but being a little chunky beats having cancer or other lung issues.

My husband quit smoking about 20+ years ago. He had to use a patch to stop but once he stopped, he didn't have the issues that you described. He absolutely hates to even get a whiff of someone's cigarette smoke! He is very offended by it now! HA!

Nicotine, its a hell of drug! So glad for you and all of the others who have stopped doing this.. It leaves such a legacy that permeates everything and everybody nearby.

I am old enough to remember when it was all the rage and considered fashionable to smoke. Horrors!!!

Now, some young ones cant identify an ashtray! And I rarely see anyone smoking anymore, or smell it. This is one nice turn around for all of us but it took a couple of generations to eradicate it from being socially acceptable.

Good on you!!!

Good for you for sticking with it. I hope you're also eating a healthy diet--lots of fruits and veggies, very few sweets/sugar, whole grains. It will help a lot with the symptoms and weight gain.

Congratulations ! For me, I stopped several times but the last time I stopped was somewhere in the mid 90's. I remember appreciating when the then Surgeon General , C Everett Koop said that nicotine was as addictive as heroin, or something to that effect.

I do feel my metablolism changed, plus age, and that is not a pleasing thing but I know smoking is just bad - wrong- never to be done again.

I will also vouch for what Oly wrote that you need to vow to never smoke a cigarette EVER again so you won't have to go through the tough parts again. I finally realized that is a truth for me. Some people are able to smoke sporadically but I am not. If I had a puff now, I'd be buying cartons tomorrow.

It’s been a year! Congratulations!

I am so proud of you!

Congratulations! I get the struggle, but the positives are incredible...your heart and lung health to start, not to mention the benefit to the pocketbook....I can't believe the price of ciggies these days! I remember my brother and his wife, both heavy smokers back in the day, figured they were smoking a mortgage payment every month! Take some of the money you saved and buy something wonderful for yourself!

Karen, I am extremely proud of you! You have given yourself the best gift. My husband quit about 40 years ago. He said it took several years before some of the benefits kicked in. Food tasted SO much better. Keep up the good work.

You are amazing. You have stuck it out. I watched my father quit and cheat and smoke and quit and cheat and smoke so many times. I was militant anti smoking even as a small child because of watching him hack and cough up a lung. He did finally quit after a cancer scare and became himself anti smoking to the point he actually apologized to me for making my child hood a misery. It made me car sick. I am sure he lived longer because he quit.

patriciae

I have always been grateful I didnt start smoking, other than trying it out as a teenager. Would you believe my high school had a smoking area? It must be horribly addictive.

My ex smoked and Inremember how the inside of the windshield of his car was coated with yellow goo. Ugh.

Congrats on your major accomplishment!

Congratulations, and I am grateful to you for adding to the non-smokers of the world. Happy to hear that you have hung in there and are not giving up.

I wonder if many quitters suffer like you have? I remember quitting being hard for a couple of months, but it was nothing like what you describe. You are ONE STRONG LADY! I'm sorry it's been so hard.

One thing quitting did for me was to discourage me from ever trying 'recreational drugs'. I will not be a slave again.

I bet today's children are not missing days of school because they are home sick with respiratory illnesses. How many of my generation wouldn't have had their tonsils removed if Mom and Dad weren't filling the house with tobacco smoke?

Good for you. It is not easy and you certainly had a time of it, but you made it through.

Congratulations!

I've always believed that a person will know when they want to quit. I was rolling smokes and it just kinda hit me. I'm surprised that it was easy to just stop and not crave one considering i smoked 46 years. And being around people smoking doesn't bother me. I'm happy I quit even though I sometimes have to ask for help getting up from my chair lol.

WOW that drug really had a hold of you!! Good for you beating the addiction. My dad quit many times in my life time. When it finally "stuck" he was known to say years later he could begin today, 2 packs a day w/o blinking. Nicotine is a tough fight.

Don't you feel like you could conquer anything now? Congrats!

Skipping down to say I'm glad to see this, even tho I'm a bit late.

It's been a little over decade for me now, and I do not miss it at all. The amount of money I spent on polluting my lungs over the years is kind of mind boggling - and cigs are so much more expensive now, I really appreciate the money I've saved.

I can really smell the smoke on other people now too - not pretty.

P.S. After reading comments, I think that the more heavily one smokes, the more tough the backlash symptoms might be. I was down to one smoke per day for a year or so when I finally gave it up, and it wasn't very hard at all.

Good for you, carolb! And, again, Karen, I am so happy for you.

I’ve been wondering how you were doing with that! As I recall, you were a heavy smoker. Find something you enjoy doing and the weight will take care of itself. I walk, swim, or pull weeds. Well weeds aren’t fun but the flower beds look nice when I’m done.

Well- deserved congratulations to you!

Congratulations. It must be tough and you did it. I remember going to a sleepover when I was 16 and all my friends were smoking. I took a puff and thought....yuck and never touched a cigarette again even though my friend said boys like girls who smoke. They think they're cool. My mother never smoked, but my dad smoked a pack of unfiltered Camels for all his whole life and died of lung cancer at 71. My husband smoked when I met him and when our daughter was three or four, she said stop smoking and he did, cold turkey.I remember when there was smoking everywhere and you had to ask for the non-smoking section in a restaurant. I also remember when I had my baby and was holding her and my roommate who had her baby there too was entertaining her family and they were all smoking with two newborns breathing the smoke!.!!!!

Well I was creeping up to 3 packs a day and finally realized I was bad. It's going to be a long road getting my metabolism back and lose the pounds and tone up. One day at a time.

Ah, smoking sections, like you could keep the smoke in a section. When I flew on a plane I always asked for a seat far from smoking as possible and they would put you just behind first class smoking like your problem was only second class smoke. Tell them you are going to vomit and they will find you a new place. I was in non smoking in a restuarant once and the person in the next booth would hold her cigarette behind her so SHE didnt have to smoke her old smoke. That did not go well. As I have said I was millitant. I dont see any reason for me to be sick because smokers wanted to smoke. The casual attitude of smokers towards people who had serious problems with smoke is something I have problems with to this. day. You smoke and I am sick to my stomach and I cant breath. This goes well beyond your health and yet I was always interested in the smokers health. I know stopping is hard but dying of emphysema or cancer has to be harder.

Patriciae

I remember a very classy restaurant where we often went had a very large dining room and a little alcove with three tables, which was the "non-smoking" section. That was insane because it was all one room with no door.