Like I said before the purpose of this blog is to “make something of myself”. I am such a looser, I cannot believe what I’ve just done today.

Let me clear up this post. The title could have been just as well “Living a healthy beautiful life : 1″. What am I talking about? Simple

Smoking.

I am desperately wanting to quit smoking. I’ll tell you all about it, in hope that, if I succeed, other smokers might learn from my experience and throw away the damn things (love ‘em and hate ‘em at the same time).

But let me get back to what I’ve done today. Woke up with a horrible headache (like usual since I started the damn things) and decided this is it. Today is the day I change my life. Smoked 3 smokes (a.k.a. cigarettes) and was happy that from that moment I was a non-smoker. It took me about 12 hours until I put another one in my mouth!

I cannot believe me! So weak… Spartans would have definitely thrown me off the hill. All day the only thing on my mind were cigarettes. I couldn’t focus on anything! Had a lot to do today and didn’t complete one single task! How screwed up is this? Am I that addicted? Can’t I exist and operate without a smoke? Besides the fact that I couldn’t concentrate I felt extremely nervous, irritated and with no mood for anything! Basically I just lost a whole day, tortured my boyfriend and disappointed myself.

Of course I have a perfectly logical explanation for all this drama: This is not the good time to quit smoking. I have 2 more weeks of exams and therefore stress. I should do this right: pass the exams and THEN stop smoking.

Using this brilliant logic I decided to quit smoking FOREVER AND EVER starting on Monday, July 02 2007. Can I do it? I think I can. Forever? Foreverever.

Every diet, magazine advice or doctor will say you have to drink 1.5-2 l (0.4-0.52 gallons) of water a day. Moreover, it was believed tea dishydrates although many health benefits of tea drinking have been certified. I always believed you can live a better life if you drank tea on a regular basis and maybe even eliminate water. And know I got my confirmation.

A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition confirms that tea is healthier than water and you can actually make the replacement between the two:

• it does not dehydrate as coffee does!
• reduces risk of cancer
• reduces risk of heart disease (especially heart attack)
• it prevents cellular degradation (like a regular fountain of youth)
• it protects you TEETH, believe it or not, against scald and possibly decay too
• combined with a sensible diet and sport it helps you loose weight faster and healthier

According to the study, the only possible negative effect of tea drinking is on those with anemic problems. It may affect the capacity of the organism to absorb iron! Therefore persons with anemic risk should avoid drinking tea around meal(breakfast, lunch, dinner) hours.

Source.

My personal experience with tea drinking:

If you decide to change your life and start from tea, be sure you DO NOT drink it with sugar or honey! Trust me, you will get used to the taste and pretty soon you won’t be able to drink it with sugar! It totally ruins the flavor and is most definitely not healthy.

I actually knew a girl who had replaced water with tea. I thought she was a little bit off “de la cabesa”. She drank about 8-10 cups of tea a day and her silhouette was very nice despite the fact that she eat all sorts of fatty food. So I decided to try it.

It was very nasty at first, without the sugar and all, but in a day or two the taste improved a little. I felt much more energetic, wasn’t so sleepy in the afternoons and really felt good overall (I like green tea and its basic characteristic is that it is energizing). Since I am a very lazy person and tend to do only what is bad for me and my health I pretty soon gave up on making tea and got back to Cola. I regret it to this day and I promised myself I will make tea drinking a habit pretty soon.

Tips:

1. you cannot get bored of tea because there are so many varieties and possible ways of making it that you can discover something new every day;
2. (to whom it may concern) If you decide to live a healthy life tea is the way to go, but while you’re at it, why don’t you quit smoking too?