I want to be healthier, so I started smoking.
You’ll have to hear me out on this one, because trust me, I know.
It’s been 11 years since this little sailor got a sizable dose of brain damage. I won’t bother going into details (because I don’t want to), but my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has profoundly impacted my life. I’ve got the usual symptoms — bad memory, poor impulse control, and a constant simmering rage that’s always one twitch away from taking over my world.
The weird one I wasn’t expecting, though: I’m hungry ALL THE TIME.
Pictured: an average day
I wake up hungry. I go to bed hungry. Even after a large meal, I’m hungry. Combine that with a terrible memory, and there have been days where 4 or 5 meals seemed normal.
An additional blessing on top of my TBI is a metabolism that rivals a sloth. Breathing too deep in a bakery can result in an extra 5lbs. So at my worst, I was packing on weight faster than an Olympic wrestler. The final straw was noticing a spiderweb of stretch marks spreading across my increasingly abundant ass, coupled with not being able to see my lap belt on airplanes. It was time to take action.
I tried a number of techniques, from specialized diets to intense exercise every day. Nothing seemed to work. I would either forget that I’d eaten, or my hunger would lead me to snack. The weight stayed on, and my clothes kept shrinking.
One tactic that showed promise was Intermittent Fasting (I.F.), or only eating during certain times of the day. Since I can’t remember if I’ve eaten, I can at least look at my watch. A small problem, though. I became RAVENOUS. Mind-bending levels of hunger that made it difficult to function. Also not helping? Increases in testosterone, the stwong angwy man hormone.
My saintly partner put up with this for a few months before telling me something needed to change. I had to get my hunger under control.
If I lived anywhere other than the Greatest Nation On Earth™, I could seek medical advice and maybe get a prescription to solve everything. Unfortunately, I have an abundance of Freedom™ and not much else, so medications would cost me a minimum of $300 per month. Some meds even top $1300 per month, also known as more than my mortgage payment. So I did what any brain-damaged combat veteran with an eating disorder would do. I started smoking.
I want to be clear here. Smoking is terrible for you. Given enough time and consumption, it WILL kill you. But I needed to perform a cost/benefit analysis quickly, because my path to obesity was going to kill me far sooner.
I started by looking at the safest methods (based on cancer rates over time) to get the active ingredient nicotine. Cigarettes were out of the question, because tongue-washing a loaded revolver is statistically safer. I didn’t consider chewing tobacco, because ew. Here’s how my decision process broke down.
Patches and gum were the front-runner, but were too expensive to consider long-term. Second place went to cigars, but these were also too pricey. So I settled on a pipe. Added benefit; Combined with my pronounced nose/mustache situation, I now look exactly like Nigel Thornberry. I guess if I can’t be attractive, I can at least be cartoonish.
Now I start my day with black coffee (zero calories) since the act of drinking shuts my brain up for a few moments. Then a liter of sparkling water, because my stomach is stupid and thinks bubbles = food. At this point it’s 10:00, I have a bursting bladder, and two hours to go. If I’m doing well I’ll limp my way to noon, and immediately Scrooge McDuck into the fridge. Otherwise, it’s pipe o’clock. The nicotine shuts down my cravings, I function like a normal human, and 12:00 casually rolls by. Sometimes I even make it to 12:30 before inhaling the entire pantry.
As a final note, Smokers are Jokers. Smoking Kills. Just Say No. But if you’re fast-tracking your way to a piano box burial, it might be worth considering.