One Victory, Several Defeats

Six years. I didn't smoke a single cigarette for six years.

The first cigarette I smoked after those six years wasn't prompted by a bad day or a sudden crisis. When it was offered, I lit it up with a single thought: "I don't smoke anyway, one time won't hurt." A few days later, when the same person offered again: "Come on, let's have just one today too." Then: "Oh, what's the harm, let me just smoke three today, it's not like I actually smoke." And finally, the sentence that sealed the deal: "Man, I keep bumming off Gökhan, it's embarrassing. I might as well just buy a pack."

That was all it took. Not a collapse. Just a chain of logic. Six years, gone in an instant, dissolved by sentences that sounded perfectly reasonable.

Around the same time—almost without noticing—I quit working out. The two crossed paths at the door: cigarettes walked in, working out walked out. I didn't even register it as a decision.

I lived as that version of myself for about a year. Cigarettes, no exercise, slowly getting heavier. At the time, it didn't feel like a bad life. It just felt like life.

My nine-year-old son's sadness, his attempts to get me to quit using all sorts of methods, and my brushing him off with excuses like "okay, I'll quit in two weeks," or "I've planned it, I'll quit soon," and delaying it for a long time... But in the end, I made the call and quit again two months ago. I won another victory. Am I proud, though? No. My son is happy that I quit, but I haven't reached the happy ending yet.

The price of quitting came fast. I gained more than ten kilograms in two months. Heavy. Bloated. Moving slower inside my own body. And there is no way to sugarcoat this: I couldn't control my appetite. Telling myself, "Come on, the stress of quitting is enough, I might as well get some dopamine from sugar," I devoured junk food, sweets, and pastries day after day.

When I saw the weight I had gained at the end of the two months, I thought, "Well, I can't start working out, so I might as well start walking." But unfortunately, I haven't been able to sustain it. Forget regular workouts and cardio—I couldn't even turn a simple half-hour daily walk into a routine.

On top of this broken routine, there's another habit that fell apart. I haven't touched the violin—which I practiced consistently for seven or eight months—in the last month. Something I love has grown cold in my hands.

I hadn't experienced anything like this the last time I quit smoking, but this time, it feels like I didn't just put down the cigarettes—I put my life aside.

On the other hand, during these exact months, I launched ProductLog—a project that had been sitting on the shelf for months. I rebuilt the entire site. I updated the blog and returned to writing. I suppose that as I drifted away from the person I wanted to be, I threw myself into work just so the oxygen I consumed would have some meaning.

That is how my last two months have gone, and this is exactly where I stand right now. If I can maintain ProductLog and the blog while bringing healthy eating and exercise back into my life, everything will be fine. This extra weight is not just a physical burden; it also brings a moral weight, a voice asking, "Why did I let myself go like this?" I don't have a solution yet, but when I find it—or when I regain that consistency—I will write about it here...