I stopped smoking 2 weeks ago, I always stop and start but this time I’ve gone to the pub without smoking. I had no real plan to stop but I might as well carry on now.

Anyway I’m rarely ill, but 2 weeks in and I’m coughing up greenies! Is this normal?

Also any appetite suppressants on the market as I’m sick of eating it’s really pissing me of I just can’t stop munching.

The coughing up stuff never stops.

Yeah the greenies is normal. It can take bloody ages to clear em all out though, I worked my way through some serious colours when I quit.

Nice!

4 weeks off it, tbh I never really got too much coughing stuff up at all..

The coughing up greenies I heard about when I quit, but despite smoking near 40 a day I found it never happened to me. Instead, the cough that I had almost permanently stopped within about 3 days. I guess everyone is different.

What I do know is that I wouldn’t be able to ride the way I do now if I still smoked. Keep it up, it’s worth it. Get yourself some polo mints or something for the time being.

27 months off the weekly 150 – 200g of tobacco. I smoked for 30 years. Didn’t really have a problem with phlegm but the constant food craving is a serious problem., but I suppose I’m lucky in not having a desk job ( garden construction ) so am nearly always burning calories. Despite this I’ve probably gained a stone or more. Well don for giving up. How long did you smoke?
Stay comitted.

Im mike, and i’m an ex-smoker .

Fully gave up when i started mountain biking. Coughing and phlegm would disappear in less than a month… But i am with you on the eating stuff, appetite just skyrocketed.. Still munching or grazing all the time till now and it’s been a year

Electronic cigarettes? They seem to really help friends.

To cut a very long story short – I never hardly coughed when smoking 40 fags a day (had been smoking heavily for over 20 years before packing up) gave up and then started coughing which lasted a couple of months! Tried to give up smoking, booze & go on a diet all at the same time – something had to give so started eating pies and gained a few stone! would i have changed anything with hindsight??? YES I WOULD HAVE NEVER STARTED SMOKING IN THE 1ST PLACE, however we all make mistakes and 8 years on and still smoke free it was the best thing i have ever done – my only regret was not to have stopped smoking sooner. Anyone struggling with packing up smoking just take a deep lungful of air a couple of days after packing up and you’ll get more of a buzz from that than you’ll ever get from smoking a cigarette (well a wacky backy free one anyway so i have been told!).

Good luck!!

After a heavy ride over the weekend, heart pounding, gasping for air etc I told myself that this has to stop, now. Patch on today and lozenges in my bag. I’m diabetic too so I’m stupid, I know, but this time I’m stopping and no more bull5hit and lying to myself, you know “this is my last pack”. This time I want to stop. Best wishes to anyone that has stopped, and even better wishes to those thinking about it.

Mark

When stopping. Stop. No need for anything else including extra food. I found the Allan Carr book useful. I’ve been stopped now for 6 ish years and haven’t missed it at all
I put on a small amount of weight to begin with as I began to enjoy food but would rather that than smoke. Just don’t go silly.
Back to the OP, yes I coughed a bit – probably a few months as my lungs began to recover and clear. Coughing isn’t bad – your body is expelling all the shit – embrace it and enjoy your riding more.

Increased sputum is quite normal, usually caused by regeneration of globular cells damaged by smoking, although it’s worth getting it checked if it’s a worry. Most incidences cease within about a month.

Electronic cigarettes? They seem to really help friends.

I’d steer well clear for now.The MHRA are presently scrutinising their use. I’d hang on ’til that’s completed. There’s presently no regulation regarding these products and, therefore, no way of knowing what’s in them and how effective they are. There’s also a rapidly growing number of people who are now addicted to them after trying to quit using them. My mate is a good example as he’s been ‘quitting’ with one for 16 months now.

After 13 years of smoking, I went cold turkey and gave up overnight a couple of years ago.

It is nicotine you’re craving, not food. Keep that in mind and it makes self control easier – that is why there is the danger of eating too much, as you aren’t actually hungry you aren’t satisfied!

My motivation? What I’d save in a year would get me a holiday AND a new bike. A no brainer really.

Good luck!

Just over a year since I stopped, and unfortunately I put over two stone on!! But I reckon I’m still healthier than when I was smoking 😀

I do love a tab with a crisp lager in a beer garden on a sunny day, one of life’s little pleasures. I go months without even thinking of smoking but when the time and the place is right then the occasional one gets smoked. Probably smoke 20 a year tops.

Aren’t greenies a sign of infection.?

5 weeks clean here. I bought myself an e cig thing, after watching friends give up by using them, and its great. I’d recommend one. Its really helped eliminate the cravings.

The main difference its made is noticing how many fewer times a week I get cash out now I’m not buying fags

Good look! I feel miles better for it! 😀

I stopped some years ago now. I can’t comment on the greenies(!) but just want to say that cravings will subside, don’t even consider have an occasional one and that in time the natural feeling of having one in your hand will seem bizarre. On the eating thing – perhaps keep a bottle of water with you?

Gave up January 2012, read the Allan Carr book. Put on a stone, still trying to shift it but I wouldn’t have it any other way really. Giving up smoking is the best thing I’ve ever done.

Well done for stopping, I stopped over 12 years ago… any weight gain can be lost, and it’s certainly worth a kilo or two compared to the damage smoking does.

No coughing for me when I gave up, guess I was lucky. No weight gain either but that was easily attributable to me going out riding all the time because I found I could now point myself up Mount Everest (other large hills are also available) and ride all day without suffering.

Giving up smoking was the best thing I ever did. I thought I would really miss it especially when having a beer or a coffee but after a couple of weeks I hated the smell and would cheerfully garotte anyone who lit up within 20 yards of me.

Gave up a few years back. Got sick of being a slave to them, and waking up in the middle of the night scared about my health. Cliche I know, but it is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I feel much better, fitter, and healthier…and free frankly.

Don’t stress about the food, you’re better off being a little portly than ruining your health with the fags. Get over the hump and then ride the bike like mad to get the weight off.

What helped for me is not having snacking food at home..if it isn’t there, you can’t eat it.

Keep it up, and tell yourself every morning that you’re not going to smoke today

I smoked for 30 years. Didn’t really have a problem with phlegm but the constant food craving is a serious problem

same 😐

I also quit using the Alan Carr book after 15 pretty dedicated years and lots of previous attempts.
I coughed up some major stuff within a few days and it lasted a few weeks.
I found the experience very cathartic.

i had a smokers cough for aboput 6 months 5 years after I quit 😯 reality is we are all different and whatever is happening is th eroad to recovery/normal helath

Well Done you

Stopped a while back now 3 years after watching my mother-in-law die of lung cancer you will cough your guts up for a month or two always worse after a shower (steam must loosen it up) but I’d never go back now it would interfere with the biking too much and those images of the last two days of her life will stay with me forever. 🙁

Fact you will put on weight but you’ll just have to do more ridding to keep it off 🙂

I gave up smoking 3 years ago and never really coughed up much in the way of phlegm after I stopped.

I put on half a stone in weight, but I was okay about that (I read that smoking is equivalent to carrying a good few extra stones in terms of stress on your body).

In the last 6 months the half stone has come off slowly and my desire for food is back to what it was like when I smoked, so I am quite happy about things.

Good luck staying stopped OP!

I tried those electronic cigarettes as I always fancied myself as “Sam Slade Robohunter” then one day forgot to smoke my proper cigarettes, to add to the disappointment I had none of the aforementioned sputum. I’d have loved that, then I’d have donned a hoodie and had hours of fun “out-flobbing” the local yoof down at the bus stop.

Life is unfair.

I stopped about 5 years ago, the coughing up crap has stopped but I still get food cravings!

Right, to greggs………..

I’ve given up countless times over the last 10 years.

Managed to give up for a month in January, then various personal and work pressures told me that a smoke would help things and then i was back to 15 per day

However, i’ve not smoked since the 3rd of April and haven’t had any strong urges to have one since.

I was using lozenges, but not any more as i’m trying to get the nicotine out of the system. (No more spliff – it’s been canned 🙁 )

I’ve also trained my little heart out this month, doing over 400 miles of off-road biking in April

Be strong – i’m trying my hardest and loving it!

Fact you will put on weight but you’ll just have to do more ridding to keep it off

Not a fact, like samuri I lost weight when I gave up. It helped that I had started to go running – any extra calories were offset by the increase in exercise. (Running was one of the reasons I quit, there’s really no hiding just how bad your lungs are when you go out for a run).

Impressed with you guys. Binners (seriously) – if your still not smoking when we next meet I’ll buy you THREE pints in a row (no rounds/buying me back either). Thats how impressed I am.

O!! M!! G!! 😀

gave up beginiing of November 2012 so about 5 months ago, havent had one since. Used skycig for first couple of months, nothing now.

No phlegm, just a cracking headache for the first two days of giving up, so bad that I was tempted not to give up….apparently this is quite normal?

Downside….food tastes better so eating more, I reckon I’ve put on a stone in 5 months, feel healthier fitter than I did 5 months ago mind.

Pat on the back to all you quitters!

Seriously.

Well done you ! Keep it up, it’s worth it.

I gave up finally when I was 30, I’d had a couple of goes at it, but I knew I could ride faster if I quit and that was a really powerful motivator.

I didn’t use nicotine patches – not sure if they had been invented then – but I did read Alan Carr’s book, and I had acupuncture which involved a tiny drawing-pin being put in my ear, not my actual ear canal but the cartiledge bit. Every time I fancied a fag I was to wiggle this pin and take a deep breath. Weird? Yup, but it bloody well worked.

I did put on a bit of weight, but that soon went, and I coughed for a bit, but that stopped too. Apparently we have hundreds of villii (tiny tentacles) in our windpipe/lungs which filter out crap. Smoking, I was told, paralyses them thus when you stop smoking they come back to life and desperately (in sort of reverse peristalsis I guess) push all the rubbish out.

The phlegm thing is because nicotine deadens nerve endings in your sinuses and presuambly lungs. When you quit they start to recover and then do the job they are intended to do which is expel crap out of your body. You’ve accumulated a lot, so you’re going to get a lot for a while…. think of it as your weakness leaving your body. Its also why the sense of taste and smell improves fairly quickly too.

Quit February 28th 2005 after 34 years. Never looked back, but still occasionaly spitting out green globules from time to time.

I’ve got a nicorette inhaler but I don’t really use it as it’s too strong. I only really get the urge when the boys at work pull out the bright shiny fag packets but when they return smelling like shit I know I’m doing good.

Oddly when I left the gym this morning I saw all the school kids still smoking, similar number to when I left in 2002 yet they really really know its’ bad for them, felt like saying stop now before you spend thousands and have the trouble of giving up but I know they’d laugh.

In regards to my eating more, guess I’ll have to run further shame as I already exercise a lot.

Our local Asda now has the shiny cigarette packets all covered up in the kiosk with Asda green plastic doors.

Makes a big difference visually.

I have not seen anything like it in the newsagents around here.

Brown phlegm here. Although probably due to coffee. Well done all. I quit February 2009 but struggled when drunk. Would smoke a few rollies but then regret it as soon as I woke the next day. Seeing my father in law drown in his own lungs in January this year, the look of terror in his eyes has convinced me I never want to go out like that. I don’t even crave now. Keep it going.