From Bob

Vaping And Reversing What Smoking Has Done To Me

I am a 59 year old male. I smoked for well over 40 years and was a 3 pack a day smoker. I have been vaping for quite a few years and fell of the wagon twice, but got back on and have not smoked for close to a year now.

A few years ago I was obese and at an extremely poor fitness level. My blood work was always a mess, I developed blood clotting issues, and was diagnosed with diverticulitis. I was hospitalized probably half a dozen times with an abscess in my colon, and twice I had sepsis from the infections.

They said I had to have surgery to remove an 8 inch section of my colon, and I had to get my heart and lungs checked before they could do the surgery. My lung test showed that I had COPD, and my stress test did not come back good so they had to do a catheterization of my heart. It showed no blockage, but it did show that a small part of the bottom of my heart was slightly enlarged, and they told me I could have had a mini heart attack at some point.

I contribute all of this to 40+ years of heavy smoking.

They still did the surgery, but they told me I had to exercise and lose weight or I wouldn’t be around too much longer. They recommended walking for exercise.

This scared me enough to start walking every day. I walked sometimes 2, 3, 4 times a day. At first I could only walk a mile at a slow pace (about 3 mph), and then I had to lay down because I thought I was dying. I bought an activity tracker and started logging my food intake and walking faster and further every day. I started losing a lb. a week, and in the first year I lost over 50 lbs., and was able to power walk for 10 miles at a 4.5+ mph pace. I could keep my heart rate in zone 4/5 for over an hour, and probably increased my lung capacity by at least 30 percent.

About 8 months ago I started having trouble keeping my heart rate up high enough from just walking so I started adding run intervals into my power walks. I started with 30 second intervals, then 1 minute, then 2 minutes. Now I can run 5 miles non stop.

My blood work comes back completely normal now, and I just recently had an echocardiogram and another stress test done which came back 100 percent normal. My resting heart rate that used to be in the high 80’s is now in the high 50’s to low 60’s. My doctor is in AWE of me and uses me as an example for his other patients.

So. If you have damaged yourself from smoking as I did. you CAN reverse many of the damage through exercise. Diet alone will not do it. You have to put the work in to get to a good fitness level, and that will in turn enable you to maintain a healthy body weight, and your body will fix itself as mine seems to be doing.

I still want to lose another 10 to 15 lbs. and increase my fitness level to be able to run 10 miles, but I’m almost there.

So… don’t just quit smoking and start vaping… get up off your butts and fix dat sh*t…:)