Here's another post from Dov. In his last post Dov introduced himself and shared his story about how he lost 130 lbs and has managed to keep it off. Below Dov talks about a behaviour that sabotages your results. He's talking about smoking while you are trying to improve your health. But he isn't someone who stands on the sidelines and hurls insults and comments without foundation or understanding. I say that because when I trained Dov he was a smoker. But he made the decision to quit and hasn't looked back. Whether you are a smoker or not, there may be something in your life that is holding you back from attaining the best results possible. Simply substitute whatever that is for you to get the take home message. Dov, the floor is yours.... On my last post I mentioned I wanted to discuss some hurdles I had to overcome to achieve significant fat loss; thought it may be true that "losing weight isn't hard", you might be doing some things that make it significantly harder on yourself. SMOKING.If you smoke, and you are working out, just stop working out. If you are sure you cannot quit smoking, do yourself a huge favor, and resign yourself to being a flabby, out of breath, unhealthy person for the rest of your life. There is absolutely no point in attempting to do "cardio" or lift weights, if you smoke. You won't have the oxygen you need to push yourself to any meaningful level.When you work out, the point is that you are putting strain on your muscles so they recover stronger than before. If you cannot generate enough power or sustain enough endurance to perform, you are wasting your time in a serious way. Walking on a treadmill because your lungs cannot supply your poor dying body with enough fuel to generate forward momentum, while your hands firmly grip the sides in an attempt to take weight off your oxygen deprived legs is simply self punishment. I understand that you may feel guilty about eating garbage food and smoking cigarettes to fill an abyssal chasm deep inside your mind, I was there once too; but you aren't counteracting the evils of your inner discontent by performing mindless repetitions of easy movements. Ask yourself why you are working out at all! If it is because you want to love yourself more, then start right now by eliminating putting NEW POISON into your body. Don't gradually eliminate cigarettes, just stop right now. Everyone will give you a free pass to be grumpy for a week, its kind of fun. Imagine how it will feel to breathe a deep clean lung of air, and fuel your muscles with all the oxygen then need as you eliminate all the excess carbon from your body. Imagine how nice it will be to stop having to buy packs of smokes, or try to find your lighter. Imagine not being disgusting smelling and feeling like you need to cough all the time. It is amazing how infrequently I feel the need to cough or clear my throat for any reason, now that I am not killing the healthy lining of my throat and lungs that eliminate normal airborne debris. If the tone of this post sounds a bit angry its because that is how I conquered my addiction to smoking. I got angry at myself for my weakness and stupidity. I got angry when I was gasping for thin air through sticky lungs. I got angry that I was trying to improve parts of myself while simultaneously sabotaging the rest of myself in the throws of a chemical addiction. PS: The physio chemical addiction to nicotine is gone from the body in about 3 days, the rest is all behavioral adaptation. Chris here again.... What do you think? Were you a smoker? If so, how did you get past it? Post your answers and comments in the section below. Chris okanaganpeakperformance.com 'always moving forward'