Does Smoking Help Weight Loss?

Evidence seems to suggest that smoking cigarettes causes an increase in metabolic rate. Smoking may also suppress appetite.

However, the catastrophic health effects of smoking are far greater than the effects of obesity.

In addition, some health and weight studies show that weight loss among dieters who smoke cigarettes is less than among non-smokers.

Bottom line: if you're tempted to smoke in order to lose weight, DON'T!!

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The above note is a result of a conversation I had recently with a friend of mine about my smoking habits. I have been (with due respect to my self esteem) been big-boned since I was, say born....naah, just kidding, well at least for the past ten years. Now smoking has become a habit only over the last couple of years. My reasons, while obscured in ambiguties, cannot be listed. I do get the feeling however, that smoking does help reduce your food intake. It might be helping me, or maybe not. Self-realization in such matters is awfully dim. I would however repeat that, smoking to lose weight is definitely not worth it, but if you are losing weight because you smoke, maybe its all right.

By the way, you have to really that bored to google for 'weight loss smoking'.

Attendance

Aah well! This is just a post to put on record that I have survived through the last 3 months. After those rather depressing messages, I would not be surprised if anybody thought I had killed myself. Well, let me stop pretending that people actually find out about my existence through this blog and get back to work. Hope to make an appearance in a month time .... till then, adios amigos!

For heavens sake...

I have thought of this space as being sacrosanct, and to find it spammed .... I cannot do much but kick and scream. &*%$@#$##$$!!!!!

The me I lost

I have been trying to write myself a statement of purpose. There is a lot of free advice on the net, some helpful, some incomprehensible and few downright outrageous. One of the former stated '...do not try the what I did with my life approach...'. I was annoyed in a way cause it blew off my last 15 attempts. But it did hit me hard 'cause looking back at the last 6-7 years I had realised a terrible truth, all I could see was a flurry of confused decisions and an existence in monotonous academics. I cannot really place a finger on the reason, but I can blame a number of things in utter disgust. Mostly, my single-minded approach to success. I was brought up to believe that life is not easy, life does not deal easy hands and more succintly, you make your own life.

When I got into engineering I thought that I had it sorted. It was time to put up my legs and take a break. I enjoyed this time I had over the past 3 years the best I could, trying to settle into this new mould, one which gave me a lot more room for myself. Living alone was perhaps the best part of it all. If anybody ever asks me the importance of hostel life I would say it puts people in the world. We step out of our secure shells and become part of a common existence. It can take many forms from a realisation of independence and the concomitant duties to the realisation of the lives that simply put, are not your own. It is in these experiences that I saw the things I had missed.

I met many people, some like me and some vastly different. All of us were at the same point in life. I had no other option but to believe that I picked the shorter straw. If people can have fun, adopt a nonchalant attitude to life and its so called struggles and still come out on top, have I been foolish in looking past all the enjoyment in living? It could just be dumb luck but whatever the case I cannot ignore the truth, I chose to grow up faster. It was my choice and now I feel like I have lost time, like those chaps who go to stars faraway.

But the quintessential question is, has my approach worked? Have I brought myself to succeed? And the answer unfortunately is that there is no success. All we have are short term goals and solutions ending in compromise. The fact is life is not about the carrot on the stick, it is about the neverending struggle to reach it.

The clouds of consciousness

During my stay in London probably the biggest luxury was the easy access to branded smokes. On one of my last cigarette I decided to write down my thought process.

A deep breath and I opened my eyes. The pungent fumes from my last Davidoff blew back with the cold moist air. The same that floats close to ground during the wet English summer. And I pull the laptop closer and begin.

For me, nicotine has been the ultimate stimulant. My mind races, breaches frontiers and commends ideas that are shot down the moment I hit reality. Throughout these trips I have had several useful insights, like the need felt by every beautiful person to dress up and conversely for every self-depracating individual to mock oneself in disgust. But all this while there has been one persistent thought. And it is time that I record these minutes of unrestrained deliberation.

A time comes in every no-fun idiot's life when he realises the need for company. In India for a majority, that of the opposite sex. This has also been a part of the last three years. A never ending debate on the need for a partner. But at this point my mature conscience steps in and questions the need for such an arrangement. The practical opinion being that now is too early to be looking for company, what purpose will it serve? These are questions that I cannot answer. These are matters that I might not really comprehend without experiencing them at least once. But as my brother once put it "Every man wants to be a casanova". That is perhaps the truth. It is only this yearning to make an impression on the opposite sex that makes the mind think in this direction. Maybe it is just the monotony of the past years that crashes down and the heart fights for its own time, time without the preoccupation with success. Time when the heart lives and the mind watches, just exist. Maybe....

I find myself slowing down....

Time has passed and it has been a week since this account. The place has changed and I find myself in the sweltering heat of Delhi. I think as I decided to put up this blog I wanted to put out the misery that I have borne for a larger part of my college life.

The reason I write this is far from the search for company. It is because the search has ended. My perception of her priorities mirrors my approach to life over the years. I want to shout out the futility of such a life. I want to shout out the importance of now . It is the now that I live in. It is the now that I want her to see, the now that has me in it.

The reason I write this is also because this cannot be explained over a conversation and also because I do not have the guts to do that. It is my frustration that speaks and only the written word can do justice to its angst. So the moral of the story, it is better to give the heart the wheel cause only then would life be complete.

Ohh! These 'Indians'

When I was making this trip across the two continents I was repeatedly told of the overwhelming number of Indians in the UK. When I got here I can say I was overwhelmed. They are everywhere. I mean in the movies Indians are generally the cleaners at the airport or accented taxi drivers. But no, this was a whole different scenario. First neither are they taxi drivers nor do they have accents. What came to my mind was an old conspiracy theory, one in which the Indian government packs off its people to burrow their way into UK and when the time comes we take control (I can almost hear "Mogambo Khushua"). Very well planned... and I must agree, a marvellous foresight. However I am afraid they might not succeed (not that I really care).

This was a rather disturbing perspective and so I went on a bit of history hunt. If you find time do check "British Asians".It turns out that these Indians I see here today are probably third or fourth generation. In fact they are just namesake Indians, growing up in a British society and most of them going to public schools are probably as British as any Pole or Greek here. They are called cocas (short for coconuts) being brown outside and white inside. Not to blame the schooling system in Britain, I probably cannot accuse anybody of being unindian.

What I am disgusted with is the recognition that is given for their work by the Indians back home. When an 'Indian' kid wins the high school spelling bee competition it makes news in Indian papers. When there are study reports claiming indian kids to be smarter than their classmates it makes news. What we do not realise back home is that these guys are hardly Indian. They are Indian during specific days in the years when they act in the Ramleela at the local community center in english. With dialogs like " Oh Hanuman! Will you bring your monkey friends to help save Seeta? " in a wonderfully perfect english accent, I'd say it would have made the most entertaining show on the westend. At least I was all splits.

My point being if the conspirators (or Mogambo) were to execute their plan they wouldn't really have an army waiting here for them.

And a new blog is born.....

So much for all my scepticism regarding blogs, as I hereby put up one for myself. Despite all my reservations regarding the concept, I find that the time has come for me to make my attempt at the Booker. Yes it has been a long borne dream of mine to climb up the stage (don't even know if there is one) and make my acceptance speech thanking all the literary genius assembled there for their faith in my words and ......

Not that my book will be a open publication, but this is my method of collecting stories for that elusive booker. Thus armed with a high held opinion of my capabilities and a flimsy dream, I declare this blog open.