Up in Smoke...

I have stated in previous posts that I am no longer a regular on the bar scene. I feel as though this has had a positive influence on my wallet as well as my overall reputation. Also, I have much more time to practice my two favorite pastimes; sleeping and eating. That being said, from time to time I still do enjoy hitting the town with friends for a few drinks, some laughs, and a good dance party. However one trend that I have noticed on those nights when I do show up on the scene, is that there are always a few times during the night where I am left sitting alone at the bar. “But Haley,” you are thinking.”You have so many friends! And Health Gone Wild is turning you into blogging sensation, why would you ever be alone at the bar?” Trust me, I wonder this all the time. The answer is simple. WHY is an up-and-coming celebrity such as myself sitting at a bar with not one friend in sight? Because it is time to go smoke a butt....duh!

Yep. I am talking about all the times when my friends take off to go smoke cigarettes, and I am left alone, staring at old text messages trying to pretend like this is the only time I could carve out of my busy schedule to catch up on my correspondence. This is the main reason that I hate cigarettes. I don't like being left alone. I like to talk, and when there is nobody to talk to I experience the dreaded “awkward silence” with myself. I panic. Where do I look? What do I do? Where do my hands go? ITS TOO MUCH! But, while I do often become distraught when my friends leave me to go indulge in their Marb Lites, my grasp on reality is strong enough to know that it takes a lot more than a few sad glances and a “ you are REALLY going outside AGAIN?” to stop people from smoking. In fact, I think that people who smoke take so much crap for it that they have become immune to all the warnings of lung cancer,emphysema and gross wrinkly faces. So, even though nobody asked me for it, I feel like it is necessary to share my opinion on why smoking SUCKS without all those repetitive health statistics and cancer warnings. If you are a smoker, please don't take personal offense to this, however you should also know that this is basically how every non-smoker feels about you (sorry!)

I think I made it pretty clear that I hate it when my friends leave me sitting there, as vulnerable as Bambi's mother in the meadow, while they stand outside the bar and smoke butts. However, bars are not the only place where I dislike it when people smoke. I also don't enjoy it when people smoke at work. Being a smoker does not give you a secret pass to take 42 breaks a day. If I told everyone I was an “eater” and went into the kitchen every fifteen minutes to have a snack, I would get fired. I could have ONE snack break a day, so maybe there should be a limit on ONE smoke break a day. This would probably save those people who smoke five thousand cigarettes during the workday a lot of money. And conveniently, money is the next thing I want to talk about.

I don't know how much cigarettes cost, but I would guess around six dollars. For six dollars I can buy a rotisserie chicken. Even if you only buy one pack of cigarettes a week, that's still twenty four dollars a month. For twenty four dollars I can buy SIX rotisserie chickens. I don't even know if I can think of a better situation than that! I am not going to sit here and tell everyone to calculate how much they spend annually on cigarettes, because in reality we all waste money on frivolous crap and that's what keeps our economy (kind of) functioning. But in my opinion, if you would rather spend your hard earned dollars to ingest poisonous smoke instead of delicious poultry that SOMEONE ELSE cooked for you on a rotating stick...you are out of your mother effing tree.

Finally, while I could go on and on about the reasons why smoking is the worst, this blog IS called Health Gone Wild, thus, lets discuss why smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. Everyone knows smoking is bad for you, so I am not going to sit here and list off diseases and make everyone want to rip their hair out. Rather, I am going to wonder aloud (or in writing) as to why people who want to benefit from their exercise routine would ever smoke. I know a lot of people who are both smokers and exercisers and I am really confused by this. You exercise to, at the VERY least, make yourself healthier. But if you workout to achieve personal goals and increase your level of physical fitness, why would you engage in a behavior such as smoking that will undoubtedly hinder your progress?

I want to stress the fact that I understand that a lot of smokers WANT to quit but cant. Trust me, I know how it feels. I have viciously battled an addiction to CVS nasal spray for over fifteen years, and I have NEVER been able to go a day without at least one satisfying spray up each nostril. I am not trying to patronize anyone with a nicotine addiction. I am also not encouraging smokers to give up on exercise. I am just trying to make the point, that smoking and exercising are not activities that come to mind when I think of things that go together (peanut butter and jelly, ketchup and mustard, beer and fire, etc). In fact, smoking is probably the main reason that your results in the gym suck. I know how winded I feel during a tough workout, and I cant imagine why anyone would want to do anything to make breathing even MORE difficult. Sometimes I feel like I am breathing so hard I might get kicked out of the gym, and I have never even smoked one complete cigarette in my life!

If its true that smoking relieves stress, the good news is that exercise does this too...and better! So next time you want to smoke a cigarette, go for a walk instead (and not while smoking!) It might be easier said than done, but so is every single fricken CrossFit workout that's ever been posted, and I do those everyday! The moral of the story is, smoking sucks. You waste your money, leave your friends alone in the bar to get murdered, miss out on all those rotisserie chickens, and run out of breath faster than a fat kid chasing the ice cream truck. Stupid.

I hope that none of my fifteen followers found this smoking post to be repetitive, as I am aware that the dangers of smoking are already very public. But, like most other topics, I have a lot of thoughts about smoking. Besides,this is MY blog so if I want to talk about why I hate cigarettes, I will. If you want, you can start a blog about why you love cigarettes and then we can meet up in a parking lot and fight. And it will be great for me, because when you surrender after ten seconds because your smoker's lungs can't handle my jungle cat reflexes, I can go chase the ice cream truck with the fat kids.