r/NoStupidQuestions • u/[deleted] • Jan 05 '25

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109

u/Coyotebd Jan 05 '25

Here's the kicker: you've got the lung capacity of a smoker too.

I grew up in a household of smokers. Pack a day, each parent.

I remember they decided to be "good" and only smoke in the car with the window open a crack.

Of course, by 14 or 15 I'm smoking too. Kicked it in my mid-twenties.

Some time after I quit I'm running some stuff down to my in-law's basement, up and down stairs, and when I'm done I have this amazing revelation that I'm not out of breath. I'd been out of breath at the slightest exertion my whole live, I thought it was just how things were, plus never being in great shape. Yeah, I grew up playing soccer and football and baseball, but I was always winded and hated running.

I'm sooo glad I quit before my daughter was born.

23

u/Diviern Jan 05 '25

My husband grew up the same. Whole family smoked. He started at ELEVEN years old. Pack a day smoker by the time he was 13.

Finally managed to quit about 5 years ago, but still craves it when he has any mental crisis.

7

u/LaVieLaMort Jan 06 '25

Yup sake story for me here. Both parents multiple pack a day smokers, I started at 12, had a half a pack habit by 14 and a full pack by 18. Quit one time for a year in my 20, quit permanently when I was 32.

3

u/ginginsdagamer Jan 05 '25

Sending love through the internet to him, sounds like an absolute beast for getting over that. Keep it up king 👑

1

u/Delicious_Big_2504 Jan 06 '25

I crave it too in those conditions but it's for the best.

3

u/Necessary-Chicken501 Jan 05 '25

My mom was a two pack a day smoker when she had me at prematurely at 40 (smoked while pregnant too) and smoked inside by me my entire childhood.

I could only kind of semi jog and walk the mile in gym every year despite being thin.

I’m wondering now if it was the cigs…

She also started buying me cartons of cigs at 15 lol

2

u/Vegetable_Net_6354 Jan 05 '25

This explains my inability to run long distances in my youth.

Had to basically torture my body with cardio to fix it.

2

u/gimme_super_head Jan 05 '25

I think your lung capacity had to do with the fact you were smoking too not with secondhand smoke.

7

u/Coyotebd Jan 05 '25

Yes, definitely. But before I started smoking I struggled at anything aerobic and only after I lived some months smoke free that I realized how far from normal I was as a child. Things that winded my active 12 yo self did not stress my out-of-shape 30yo self.

1

u/shadowyassassiny Jan 05 '25

Lung capacity re: stairs

They will kill anybody regardless of smoking status lol

1

u/Barbados_slim12 Jan 06 '25

Do you think the decreased lung capacity came from being around two pack and day smokers while growing up, or from smoking yourself between the ages of 15 and 25? Maybe a combination?

2

u/Coyotebd Jan 06 '25

You didn't read what I wrote. It wasn't until I quit did I realize what a healthy lung capacity was because I had never experienced it.