Sick

The restraint needed to curb my post-smoking diet of peanut butter and beer ...

The awkward early stages of acclimating to the gym locker room, mastering sweat towel etiquette and learning how to run on a treadmill ...

The aches and pains following exercise my body hasn't felt the likes of since high school gym class ...

The embarrassment and sense of mortality after pulling a muscle leg-lifting 20 pounds ...

All that I have been through since quitting smoking in early 2008, the weight gain and struggle for physical reclamation, and it turns out none of it can hold a flame to a bad cold.

I have not been to the gym since first feeling the snotty symptoms more than three weeks ago, and I am now down to my smoker's weight of 168 pounds.

Never mind that this cold is sapping energy and appetite and shedding pounds, probably most of them muscle. I look great, if I don't say so my own damn self.

It's a persistent bug - the longest cold I can recall sniffling through.

There's a rattle when I breathe deep, frequent nose picking and waking with an incredibly dry and sore throat, which is probably due to a stopped-up nose and heavy mouth-breathing while asleep.

I stopped taking any over-the-counter meds because they correlated with a weird bitter taste on my lips and fingertips. I tried to find out what this could mean and only found unbridled hysteria in online chatrooms as people around the world with similar symptoms all but convinced each other they carried a new strain of plague.

Meanwhile, I have taken to the couch and watched every episode of 30 Rock that I could find at my neighbourhood video store.

The gym seems as remote as a sunny beach. The longer I stay away, the more difficult it is to return. I am not in the habit.

But the sickness will pass, my appetite will return and I will be forced to choose: Sit on the couch and grow another chin; or get to the gym. I suspect vanity will win out.