Do you smoke? And how much?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Should read :-now I also smoke a lot of the “good” weed :wink: but have no intention of giving that up.

42

Pack a day, two if I’m drinking/partying.

43

I smoke about 6-10 cigarettes on an average day. Throw drinking or stress in the mix, and I’m up to about a pack. I try to avoid that though. Terrible habit, I want to quit!

44

2 packs a day, unless beer is involved, then 3 and even possibly 4. That was until 360 days ago.

I still crave em too.

45

It does you know - but in your instance it would be doing so in a subtle kinda way.

What happens is that smoking (of any kind) introduces a certain amount of carbon-monoxide into the blood stream - which in turn reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of your blood by a direct proportion too. Obviously, the more you smoke the greater amount of carbon-monoxide is being carried by your haemoglobin in your red blood cells - and basically, once your haemoglobin attaches itself to carbon-monoxide, it won’t let go - unlike oxygen or carbon-dioxide. In turn, the red blood cell stays alive in your blood stream for at least 3 days I’m told - sometimes up to 5 days and then it eventually dies.

And as another bit of trivia, apparently at least 25% of human faeces is dead blood cells! That’s how quickly we change them over and keep growing new ones all our lives!

So, in short, if you’re smoking every day - even if it’s just 5 or 7 cigarettes - you can safely assume that at least 3% of your oxygen carrying capacity is inert due to those red blood cells carrying carbon-monoxide instead. I’m told that if you don’t smoke for a week that most of your red blood cells are replaced with new and healthy ones.

And of course, the more one smokes, the greater the percentage of carbon-monoxide carrying red blood cells are existing at any given point in time. The net result is that you puff more during exercise or hard effort. It’s just a fact. You have to puff more to service the oxygen requirements of your body due to the reduced oxygen carrying capacity.

I’d say that one carton of smokes per 3 weeks would be hovering at about a 7% carbon monoxide inertion rate in your red blood cells based on my knowledge.