I tried to stop a couple of times, documented on this thread and then finally manged to quit in August of last year.

Going oN 8 months now and feeling great.

The reason I wanted to quit was that I found myself increasingly becoming out of breath. At 42 years of age with 3 daughters, one a mere baby, I had to ensure that I would be around a lot longer.

I've always been a big muscular guy and feeling out of breath is an absolute horrid feeling. After I quit I picked up about 22lbs, mostly over the last December. I suddenly woke up to the fact that I was becoming seriously overweight.

After December I decided that I needed to lose weight, as I was at 290 lbs and 240 lbs is a good weight for me. So I started jogging. It was disheartening to see that I could only go for about 200m, before getting out of breath, which would then force me to walk, before jogging for a little bit again.

I have now lost 40lbs and am getting the definition back that I had when I was still doing weight lifting. I recently had to stop jogging, as I developed achilles tendonitis due to all the hills in the area where I live. Just before I stopped I was doing 3.6 km in the hills without stopping.

I found this recovery quite unexpected as I knew that damage to the lungs was permanent. Is there anyone else that also experienced this?????????

My achilles tendons are better, but not 100%. My pathetic tendons have now forced me to do high intensity training, which I should have started to do in the first place, rather than slogging for miles.

10 Minutes of 100% balls to the walls sprints with walks in between. Gives better fitness, makes you quicker, builds muscle instead of destroying them, lots more calories burnt etc.

I AM VERY GRATEFUL THAT I HAVE MANGEDED TO QUIT SMOKING, AS I KNOW I WOULD HAVE DIED A HORRIBLE DEATH WITHIN THE NEXT 5 YEARS HAD I NOT.

So yes, many thanks to Desert Fox for this thread and the other contributers to this thread.

By the way Hawk, you were my inspiration, as you were a couple of months ahead of me.