Quit Smoking Easily (or Shake, Rattle and Roll)

Photo: dadadreams

It’s been a good three or four weeks since I stopped smoking. It’s been amazingly easy, actually. So easy that I’m feeling a teensy bit foolish for not quitting smoking a long, long time ago.

I’ve had no cravings, no mood swings (even J agrees) and I have even managed to get drunk in the company of smoking friends without being tempted to have a drag. A laudable achievement.

Smug. Moi?

It’s not all down to willpower though. Oh no. It’s thanks to nutritional Guru, Patrick Holford. His new book, How to Quit without feeling S**t combines dietary advice and a supplement regime to help you quit anything from sugar through to heroin with the minimum of cravings.

I feel great. I’ve never had such strong nails and my skin is positively luminescent. I feel full of verve and vigour, despite the traditionally depressing onset of Winter.

Thanks to Patrick, I am popping pills like a hardcore raver. I carry baggies emblazoned with dinosaurs and bears in my handbag. They were originally intended to hold El’s sandwiches for school. They are now labelled ‘Morning’, ‘Lunch’, ‘Mid-afternoon’ and ‘Evening’ and are choc-full with vitamins and amino acids.

Here’s what I’m taking:

On Waking
2 x ‘Drive’ stimulant formula pills
1 x 5mg NADH tablet
1x200mcg chromium

With Breakfast
3 pills from the Advanced supplement pack
1 x brain nutrient formula (phospholipids and B vitamins)
1 x 1,000mg Omega 3

With Lunch
1x200mcg chromium
1 x 1,000mg Omega 3
1 x 1,000mg Vit C

Mid Afternoon
2 x ‘Drive’ stimulant formula pills
1 x 5mg NADH tablet
1x200mcg chromium

With Dinner
3 pills from the Advanced supplement pack
1 x brain nutrient formula (phospholipids and B vitamins)
1 x 1,000mg Omega 3

I got them all from the excellent Higher Nature. Apart from the NADH which they don’t stock – you can get that from Biovea.

I’m now thinking of going temporarily teetotal, using Patrick’s nutritional supplement recommendations for giving up alcohol. The reasons for this have more to do with vanity than health. The last time I stopped drinking for a few months I became a svelte and sexy 8 stone 4. I’m currently a curvy mama 9 stone 9.

I think I’d better get the holiday season out of the way first though. I can’t imagine Christmas without Cava (my all time favourite tipple).

Nits just not fair

I discovered lice in Ella’s hair othe other morning. I kept her out of school for the day, took her to the pharmacist and made a few calls to my clients to reschedule my work commitments. 

No problem. As a freelancer, I can de-nit without dropping a stitch.

A friend of mine recently had to take a day off from work with her son so she could treat him for headlice. Her line manager admonished her with ‘when I have children I won’t do a job like this’. 

Really? Does she plan to provide for her future children on a Tesco’s wage then? I know some mothers manage this, but it’s some kind of alchemy that I can’t fathom. Most working mums in professional jobs are there because they need a professional wage.

The morning after her impromptu day off, my friend realised - in the middle of a presentation to a new client - that she had wildlife crawling on her scalp. Poor love. Too worried about what her line manager would say, she dared not cancel her next meeting to go home and delouse. Oh no. She spent the rest of the working day trying desperately not to scratch. 

It sounds like the cruel premise for a challenge on the Japanese game show, Endurance. Surely this is above and beyond the call of duty?

But I know how she feels. We working parents are expected to be grateful for every damned UNPAID day’s leave we take due to child-related complications. The absent mum usually feels so guilty that she’ll do her damndest to ‘make up the time’ by working late or bringing work home...I know. I’ve been there.

However, I must confess that I’m a recent convert to this point of view. In my pre-child days, I scowled at my colleagues-cum-mothers who left work on-the-dot at 5pm, shamelessly eschewing the unspoken rule that any nine-to-fiver worth their salt really should be working from eight to seven.

At the time, being a fun-loving girl in my twenties, I never once thought about my own lack of productivity from coming into work still a bit drunk from the previous night. Oh, and of course the unauthorised ‘duvet days’ to nurse a hangover. Childless people go for After Work Drinks. Even on Mondays.

I also had weeks off at a time with flu and colds worsened by my twenty-a-day smoking habit. Most mums I know stop smoking in pregnancy. And there was the regular morning brain fog due to regular evening spliffs.

At least working parents usually know how to act like grown-ups. If only our childless colleagues could treat us like ones.

Not only do working parents have a better work ethic, we are more efficient. We have to be. How else could we look after our children and our partners, earn money, do all the shopping and cooking AND maintain close friendships and fun hobbies? We alone know how to warp space and time. 

Tell that to your lousy line manager.