[We originally ran this post at the end of 2008. Unfortunately it still rings true in 2010 so we're bringing it back for round 2. Share your own resolution gripes in the comments section below!]

I don’t make resolutions for the new year. Not only do I know I will not keep them, but I also know that anything important enough to give up on December 31st should probably be given up on any other day. I tried to give up cake once – what a disaster. Just knowing the 31st was coming and that I would soon be without my beloved buttercream sent me on a downward spiral that resulted with me, a fork and a missing Costco sheet cake.

The only thing I hate more than making New Years resolutions are the people that do. They are annoying, act all “holier than thou,” and make the first few weeks of every new year miserable for me.

The Gym Goers: Seriously, people, get off of my elliptical. I shouldn’t have to wait to get on my machine (that I have been using 5 days a week for the entirety of 2008 and 2009) just because you finally decided you’ve had enough with your muffin top. And, for those of you who don’t know because this is your first time at the gym, you are supposed to be sweating on that thing, not standing on it and texting your friends about the girl standing behind you giving you the stink eye.

The Smoke Quitters: Congratulations for finally kicking the smoking habit! I am proud of you – really, I am. But I am not there yet. This is not my year to trade in my black lungs for some shiny, healthy ones. So stop judging me and making that disgusted face when you walk by. You’ve given up cigarettes for .5 seconds and suddenly you can preach to me about how disgusting it is? You know you’d much rather be sucking down this sweet cancer stick right now. Don’t deny it.

The Healthy Eaters: Same goes to you, salad people. Sometimes I want a large order of sweet potato fries and I will not let you make me feel guilty. Besides, sweet potatoes are good for me!

The Money Savers: The economy sucks right now, so everyone is trying to save a buck or two. Good for you! Save that money! Earn that interest! But don’t get all cheap on me now and bring out the calculator when the bill comes at dinner, or give me a stack of your used books for my birthday after I got you a sweet new Kindle for yours. And, for real, stop talking about how little money you have. I. Don’t. Care.

And since then, I have been completely 100% smoke free.

No packs. No puffs. No nothing. I went completely cold turkey after NYE and I’ve maintained it for an entire week. It’s very difficult; especially when I had a few glasses of wine this weekend and desperately wanted one, but I had the will power to say NO to myself.

I am a strong willed person and if I set my mind to something, I stick to it. After seeing a series of horrific smoking commercials, I made a serious resolution to myself that, on top of not wanting my teeth to turn yellow and my hair to permanently smell like an ashtray, I don’t want to die from lung cancer (cliché but true).

So, for now, I’ve a week smoke free. I feel cleaner, healthier, and will hopefully continue on this path. Wish me luck!

(Photo courtesy of smokefreezone.org)

Now, I just have to get my brain to agree with the rest of my body.

I have come to hate the smell and, almost equally, hate the taste. When my non-smoker co-workers won’t come near me because I reek of smoke, it makes me feel a little embarrassed, so I have been working on not smoking at all. I’m a human and have a weak moment here or there, but, for the most part I am doing much better.

The thing is, I really want to quit. I know it’s a horrendous and dirty habit, not to mention completely unhealthy. That said, there’s still a small part of me that needs that smoke when I’m stressed or upset, which – granted – is not very often, but still makes me want that smoke when I need it. I need to find another outlet as a way to deal with my stressful situations that arise from time to time.

So far, I am less than pleased with my progress, but hey, it could be worse. This week I am focusing on trying to bite my cravings with gum or something else to stop my smoke craving. This morning I smoked one and was so grossed out I vowed to not smoke anymore the rest of the day. I know for all you non-smokers out there, it may seem odd that I just can’t quit even though I say I want to, but it’s more strenuous than it seems to be. When you’re body is used to something, cutting it out right away is hard to do.

When I woke up Sunday morning hacking a lung, I realized that I had two decisions: A) Give up on my quest to quit smoking, succumb to my urges, and light up whenever I feel like it, or B) Make a serious decision about my health and realize that if I continue down this road I could have cancer in 20 years.

So, I chose the latter and have decided to go cold turkey. No packs. No one here, one there. No drags. I’m not going to kick this thing if I continue to allow myself to cheat.

It’s Wednesday and I have successfully gone without smoking a cigarette for three whole days. My running feels better and so does my overall body. While the cravings are still strong, my will to want to be rid of this habit has (for now) remained stronger. I just hope that next weekend, when I’m out having drinks at my company’s holiday party or out on the town with my boyfriend and friends, I don’t feel compelled to sneak outside and steal a drag.

Think cold turkey was a good move CC-ers? Give me some strength to get through the very trying days (big holiday dinners with lots of annoying family members) ahead. I can use all the help I can get.

(Photo courtesy of www.nmhypnosis.com)

It just means that I have been really busy/stressed/having a harder time reaching my goal.

I was doing pretty well there for awhile (I even had a few cigarette free days!), but between Thanksgiving (and the ever infamous Night Before Thanksgiving), school stress and that nagging in the back of my head to “just have one,” this whole quitting thing has proven more difficult than I thought.

I have gotten a bit better with the drinking thing, though. I took some of your advice and have forced my friends to police me when I am at the bar. Yes, I may have snuck away for a cigarette or two one night, but that is still a hell of a lot better than the half a pack I used to suck down on a given night.

As I said before, going to the bar is the hardest part of this journey, but I can’t give that up. I need to set a goal that is realistic and saying I am not going to drink is just not true. My goal for this week is twofold:

1. No more smoking unless I am drinking. You may think that is a BS goal, but I need to cut things out one at a time. And let me tell you; not taking a smoke break during exam time is going to be hard.

2. When I am drinking, I am going to limit my cigarettes to one. One and only one. I tend to smoke a lot at the bar because I can, but I don’t necessarily always want or need that many. If I can cut down to one, I can definitely cut down to zero.

We’ll see how that goes.

Well, I’ve been trying to refrain from smoking at all, but – geez – it is tough. Last week wasn’t too bad – I smoked maybe one or two a day and had a day or two where I didn’t smoke a cig at all. Even better, I didn’t even crave one – score!

But, then, I went to a Halloween party last weekend where I buckled and smoked about ten cigarettes in one night. I know, bad girl, Kelly; but honestly, with all the liquor, I just let myself go with the smoking…again. There’s something about needing a smoke with my vodka soda, or my glass of red wine that I just can’t seem to shake. Am I the only one?

After my lovely smoking binge of Friday, I tried to calm down the rest of the weekend. And I did. I smoked only one or two cigarettes a day for the rest of the weekend.

On my way to work on Monday, though, I almost put my car in park and asked the guy in traffic behind me, who was smoking a cig, if I could bum one. Then I realized how crazy and pathetic I would have looked, so I stopped myself. I didn’t have a cigarette that morning, and I didn’t have one for the rest of the day. I made a conscious decision to either go big – and do it as close to cold turkey as I can until I can finally withdraw myself from the cravings – or not do it at all. And not doing it at all is not an option.

I know what all of you non-smokers must be thinking: it’s such a disgusting habit and can give you cancer, so why do people smoke in the first place? I know you’re right, but it’s more than just a bad habit to me. When I’m stressed, a smoke calms be down; when I’m out for cocktails with my girlfriends, a smoke feels great with that dirty martini; and so on.

But, I will prevail. I will keep trying and keep you informed. If you have any tips on how to kick this habit and go cold turkey, fill me in. I want to be done with cigarettes by Christmas – sort of, like, a present to myself. Think I can do it?

Well, we all – even the smokers like myself – know smoking is a bad habit. I have been smoking on and off since I was 14 and, not to date myself, with almost 10 years of smoking under my belt, I have decided it is time to try and kick the bad ‘ole habit once and for all.

Because quitting is really effing hard, I am going to share my journey with and you, CollegeCandies. I hope this inspires you to join me…and inspires me to stick with it. Smoking kills thousands and thousands of people each year and I don’t want to be part of the statistics.

So, week one, here is the progress to date:

After smoking a pack every two days, a few weeks ago I decided not to buy packs anymore. Translation: I’d only mooch my cigarettes, which I hate doing. I figured this would cut my daily intake drastically. And it did, for a few days. Then, one weekend after having a few too many cocktails (my prime time to smoke), I caved and bought a pack… and proceeded to smoke the entire pack in one evening.

Not so good for me considering I’m an avid runner who huffs and puffs on my daily run like I’m a 400 lb. man.

Then, I tried another option: limiting myself to two – four cigarettes a day. Some days, if I didn’t need them, I wouldn’t have them, and others, I’d reach my limit and learn to hold off.

As of today, October 30, 2008, I have smoked three cigarettes total. Not too shabby. When I want more cigarettes than I allow, I drink a glass of water, chew gum, or listen to music to take my mind off of it. So far, so good (kind of).

Tomorrow, I hope to smoke two, and will continue to allow myself two for each day, for the rest of this week.

The weekends are when I cave, especially if I’m out with my smoker friends…and cocktails. Any fellow smoker will know how natural it feels to have a drink in one hand and a smoke in another.

Wish me luck on my week journey to smoke free livin’! I’ll report back next week and give you the 411 on my progress. Any tips on how to kick this habit are greatly welcome, ladies.

But I know you guys have seen the recent Truth commercials. Sure, they’re still sort of living up to their name. Still, it seems like they’re more interesting in getting the shocked “WTF?” reaction out of people instead of educating them.

Most people in my family don’t smoke. I happen to be allergic to cigarette smoke, and I have asthma, so taking a puff for me would kind of be like committing suicide. One of my aunts smoked until the day she died about seven or eight years ago. My other aunt stopped smoking shortly after. I have a bunch of friends who smoke, though. And no matter how much lecturing they get, I know that most of them are not going to stop smoking. Hell, I remember asking a friend of mine at school if he thought he would ever quit smoking. He laughed. Then coughed.

Yes, smoking sucks. Yes, over time, it screws up pretty much every system in your body. Thanks to the effort of organizations like Truth (and all the ones that came before it), we all know that. Where I’m from – good ol’ NY – the average in 1998 was about seven cartons a day. In 2003, it was around 3, and I’m sure it’s dropped to about 2.5 or something like that by now. Truth and organizations like it must be doing something right. Right?

I’d like to make a bit of a hypothesis. I get the distinct feeling that yes, even though tobacco sales have dropped dramatically since it’s gotten more expensive to smoke and even harder to find places to smoke, there are still those last stubborn few. There are people who are NEVER going to stop smoking. Maybe their kids will see the effect it had on their parents and decide never to pick up the habit or drop it if they’ve already got it. But I think we’ve hit the point where we’re not going to influence the thoughts of anymore smokers or prevent it, and especially not through stuff like Truth.

What’s really going to be the boot that squishes the tobacco industry is when smoking stops being economical and just starts being useless. When you’ll have to order your cigarettes online cuz they won’t sell them in stores anymore.

But, really, all Truth is doing at this point is putting out silly commercials that make you think more about how you wish the commerical break was over than about how much smoking sucks.

Oh, and make songs that get stuck in my head that are SO inappropriate to sing in public.

When I Googled “things that are bad for me” and Chicken Pot Pie came up, I was surprised I didn’t eat more of it. I happen to specialize in loving all things bad. I am a bad things virtuoso. I cuss, I eat candy bars for breakfast and I drink more wine than water.

If I thought of Chicken Pot Pie as something harmful, would I crave it every evening? Probably. I look at it as comfort food to eat on winter nights while wearing thick wool socks, something that just fills me up and doesn’t take any serious toll on my health and in turn, I haven’t eaten a Chicken Pot Pie since I was about eight.

When we want what we shouldn’t have, is our want purely psychological because our cravings are forbidden? Just as rules are made to be broken, “bad things” are made to be desired.

For Instance:

Frappucinos– I blame this one on Britney Spears, because anytime she waddled out of a Starbucks her best accessory was her Venti sized Mocha Frappucino (whipped cream included) Why is it bad? 500 calories in a beverage is just too many.

JUNK FOOD– The term junk came around for a reason. Case in point: I spent twenty minutes staring at cookie dough in the grocery store today, simply because I knew I shouldn’t buy a BUCKET of cookie dough because I may have an instant heart attack after I finish the whole thing, uncooked. Or I may get a serious case of salmonella. I’ve never spent 20 minutes staring at grapefruit or kale, because who desires ‘effing KALE?

*Founders Favorite Coldstone Creamery- love it size, 1,290 calories.

*Chiptole Chicken Burrito- 1,270 calories (sour cream included, sorry folks I love my cream)

*Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie- 127 per serving, who eats one cookie? Come on. Who?

*Marie Calendars CHICKEN POT PIE- 550 calories, 34 grams of fat.

*Margarita- 740 calories!!!!! This is enough to send me into a deep, deep, depression.

THATS JUST ON THE FOOD SIDE.

How about all of the bad ex-boyfriends we’ve gone back to? The men we’ve dated and shouldn’t have? The crushes on boys wearing leather and tattooing their arms with pictures of naked women?

[Oh, maybe that's just me.]

The cigarettes we’ve puffed (not to mention the other outlawed greenery to smoke), the crushes on best friend’s boyfriends and the people who bring out your inner crazy girl.

MEN, FOOD, TOO MUCH SEX, TOO MUCH OF…well anything is (apparently) generally bad. If we did a week long experiment, judgement aside, and indulged in all of the bad DELICIOUSNESS, would our cravings for it simmer down? Would we find feeding a “hunger” is actually healthy or would all of it be less coveted?

What bad things do you crave, and why do you think you crave them???

P.S. I forgot to mention how much I ADORE bacon. Thank you and the end.

It was the social thing to do in college, one of my friends said, lighting up while we were driving one afternoon. It was hard for me to meet people. But at parties, these huge groups of people would be outside smoking. I’d go out there, bum a smoke, and talk to everyone. She exhaled, trying to blow it out the window, but only succeeding in covering me with poison. I tried not to breathe, and nodded.

Another time, a different friend and I were backpacking through Europe. Our hostel had a small back porch, and a lot of people sat outside at night and smoked. Whenever we would go out there, she’d light up, and start talking to everyone. I knew she wasn’t a big smoker, and it felt strange to watch her light cigarette after cigarette, laughing and joking and going through a half a pack in only a few hours.

You know, I said as we were going to sleep that night (in a room that consisted of us, and 7 Argentinean boys…so I guess when I say sleep, I mean, “as we were attempting to try to sleep, something that never happened the whole time we were there”) you could just go out and talk to people and not smoke. Just because other people are smoking, you don’t have to.

This little piece of advice got me the silent treatment for a few hours. She said I was being rude, I thought I was just pointing out the obvious.

Social smoking is a phenomenon that seems to happen most readily during college and the early Twenty-Something years. The smoking groups, standing outside a party, huddled together on the back steps in winter, killing time before class, are popular places for people to meet. How can you not strike up a conversation? Persecuted by purists, shuttled out of doors in all types of weather, smokers share a common bond. There is an instant connection merely by association.

But is the experience really worth it? Is meeting a few possible new friends worth picking up a habit that’s proven to harm your organs and even kill you? Why would you ignore all the ads and instruction of your childhood, which told you time and time again how horrible smoking is for your body, in an attempt feel more popular? And, like I asked my friend, couldn’t you just go out there and not smoke?

A new study has even found preliminary data that second hand smoke from all those crowds outside of bars and restaurants may actually be harming those of us inside. With this new information in my back pocket, and a lifelong confusion as to why anyone would want inhale something that tastes like the shit that comes out of your car’s tailpipe, I can’t help but ask—if you’re not addicted already, why start?