Air Quality Is Terrible!

I used to think it was just me, but air quality is in the toilet. If I still smoked I don't think I could get enough oxygen to survive from the air outdoors today. It's even worse indoors with our sealed up houses with no ventilation.

I just wrote an article about enhancing the quality of the air we breathe. Check it out.

One of the key issues one must address when dealing with breathing disorders like copd is staying active. By controlling the indoor air quality with an air purifier you have taken a first step in the right direction. Now you must push yourself to exercise not only your body but your pulmonary system and your cardiovascular system. Before copd this was important. With copd this is mandatory.

No exercise, lose control of your weight, even harder to exercise etc. This is the apathy spiral with leads to death. Avoid it. Exercise.

Post some comments. Maybe we can help each other.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

You Need To Do Something

Be proactive.

Breathing Disorders | Upper Respiratory Tract

If external factors are all about the quality of the air we inhale, then the upper respiratory tracts is all about the quantity of air we inhale. What I mean here is that when we get:

• swollen nasal cavities
  
• sinus infections
• allergies
• infected adenoids
• allergic reactions which clog up our nasal cavity with phlegm.
• poor air quality causes inflammation in our nasal cavity.

I mean anything which restricts or constricts our breathing passages, we have reduced our ability to bring oxygen to the alveolus for exchange with the carbon dioxide in our blood. We must strive to enhance any good factors and minimize or eliminate any negative factors in our upper respiratory tract.

• nostrils
• nasal cavity
• pharynx
• larynx

More discussion in this article.

Whether it is quality or quantity, if you want to fight a breathing disorder like copd, then you had better resign yourself to minimizing the negative and enhancing the positive factors.

Breathing Disorders - External Factors

What do I mean by external factors? What defines the air before we inhale it. The condition or age of our body has nothing to do with these external factors yet these external factors definitely affect our ability to delivery oxygen to the blood and eventually to our tissues and organs.

There really are five external factors:

1. Elevation from sea level
2. Air pollution
3. Temperature
4. Humidity
5. Wind

These are discussed in this article.

There will be several posts and articles on breathing disorders as follows:
-external factors
-inhaling
-breathing exercises
-the trade
-distribution
-the second trade
-distribution
-the third trade
-exhale.

My interest here is totally self serving. I have copd which you know if your have read other posts. I am looking for a recovery strategy.

To date, the medical establishment does not believe that there is a cure for copd. Breathing disorders of which copd is a major player, are the fourth leading cause of death in the USA. No cure.

By the way, the main cause of copd is, how did you guess, smoking cigarettes. Once again big Tobacco dodges the responsibility for the human flotsam it's toxic product leaves behind. Perhaps someone should publish the pictures of all the major shareholders in big Tobacco and their families and children. Let all the victims of big Tobacco know which private schools and fancy subdivisions were paid for with their lives.

I have run across an interesting product while attempting to alleviate the symptoms of copd. It delivers oxygen in short blasts when needed. Personal Portable Oxygen

Just Quit Smoking - Hypnosis

By now you should realize that after 40 years of smoking, I am angry at myself for being so gullible. It took me 40 years to realize I was being taken for a sap. Now my reward is Copd and severe emphysema. To temper the severity of that reward, I had to lose weight and start an exercise program. I still have 10-15 pounds to lose and I must increase the exercise up to a least two 10 minute sessions daily. Don't worry about me, I'll do it. The point here is to worry about you.
This post will address hypnosis as a quitting smoking strategy.
We are led to believe by traditional medicine and the pharmaceutical companies that the difficult to break smoking habit is the result of a a chemical dependence: nicotine addiction. Withdrawal from this chemical, physical dependence is the source of the very intense cravings for the next cigarette. Once again we are being mislead.
Using hypnosis as the quitting strategy completes reveals the deception. When 94% of the clients quit smoking without withdrawal after a single session of just one hour, one must conclude that the root dependency is mental habits, not physical dependency.

Click here to find out more about hypnosis as a quit smoking strategy.

With the cost of cigarettes today at about $3.00 per pack, the monthly out of pocket expense is about $100. That doesn't count dry cleaning costs and car washes. Quit smoking by using a hypnosis strategy and remove all your interest in smoking. For less than half your monthly cost of cigarettes you will be free of cigarettes. It's a no brainer at ten times the price.

Quit Smoking - 26 months and counting

That's right I just passed the 26 month mark.
Weight 185.

General diet is low but not zero carbs.
Breakfasts
-2 scrambled eggs with 3 pieces of bacon, hot chocolate, 4 ounces of diet splash (ambrotose mixed in) and a multivitamin pill.
-2 scrambled eggs with 3 pieces of bacon, hot chocolate, 4 ounces of diet splash (ambrotose mixed in), a multivitamin, 1 piece of whole wheat toast buttered.

Lunches
-lettuce salad with 1 can of tuna, mayonaise, ranch dressing, 2 dozen raisins and 2 ounces of very strong cheddar cheese.
-8 ounces of shrimp with hot sauce
-50 chips and 4 ounces of mexican dipping cheese

Dinners
-lo carb wrap with fried hamburger and onions
-two 4 ounce hamburgers with gravy and fried onions
-2 pork chops breaded with shake'n bake with applesauce
-2 broiled italian sausages with angel hair and chunky tomato sauce
-6 ounces of salmon with mayonaise
-8 ounces of grilled sirloin steak with fried onions and sweet green bell peppers
-10 breaded chicken fingers with ranch dressing
-10 ounces of roast chicken with applesauce
-8 ounces of pot roast with 1 potato, carrots, onions and gravy
-8 ounces of roast pork with applesauce
-8 ounces of roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, ear of boiled corn
7 minutes a day on the exercise bike with a resistance of 4.
Some trouble breathing with the high humidity today but overall I feel better but as usual the improvement is not fast enough.
Trying to be consistent now.
Taking Foradil twice per day and Spriva once per day.
Taking 1 teaspoon of mannatech ambrotose classic daily.
Taking 2 ounces of essiac tea before bed at night.

I promise you that you do not want to work this hard. Quit now before you develop copd or emphysema.

Quit Smoking - Case Study

Just a short post today. Passed the 22 month mark since my last cigarette. Weight on October 1 2006 was 212 buck n*ked. Could not do yard work. Could barely make it up a set of stairs without resting to catch my breath. After 3 minutes on the exercise bike at minimum resistance, I was totally out of breath and it took 10 minutes or more to regain normal breathing and heart rate.

June 24, 2007.
Weight 187
10 minutes on the exercise bike at level 4 resistance.
2 minutes recovery time.

I apologize for those supporting me. I slipped a little bit and enjoyed too many carbs and too little exercise during June. July will be spent in Canada, fishing and getting in better shape. It will be a real challenge to my diplomacy as I visit friends and relatives and attempt to maintain some resemblance of a low carb diet.

Next post planned for early July.

PS. A good friend of mine Don Schmidt, did not have a smoking challenge, but was significantly overweight. He is around my age, about 60 and about my height at 5 foot 10 inches. His weight last fall was 235. He set out a 1.3 mile walking course last fall walked it once per day. When he started he had to stop about every 100 feet and rest, sit down and rest. People would stop their cars and ask him if he needed medical assistance. He did not care. He finished the walking course every day. He went on several diets and a cleanse and detox regimen. We chatted this month and he reports his weight at 180. He can complete the walking course easily now and often does several circuits per day. He has totally turned his life around. He did not smoke. That is the factor he did not need to defeat. Through will power he has got his weight under control and gets regular exercise. Without the extra burden of recovering from smoking he is seeing results of his exceptional effort sooner and more dramatically. Just another reason to not smoke or quit smoking. Life is hard enough as it is, do not complicate it further by added a very negative component to your quality of life. Enough preaching, see you next month.