Stop Smoking Info: Quit Smoking Weight Gain
A major factor considered by current smokers trying to make the decision to quit tobacco cigarettes is how much weight gain they will experience when kicking the habit. For many, this factor can be enough to preclude them from making the attempt to stop smoking. If you do manage to stop smoking and start to see significant weight gain, it can also be enough to make you relapse to smoking. Weight gain can be overcome, however, if you take the appropriate steps to mitigate any potential gain you may see when stopping smoking.
Why Do You Gain Weight When You Quit Smoking?
When you smoke, your metabolism is increased slightly over what it normally should be. If you smoke a pack or more a day, the act of smoking will burn 200 ore more calories a day. Smoking will also dampen your appetite, so when you stop smoking you may find yourself eating more food than you did previously. It is normal to see a weight gain of 5 to 10 pounds during the first 3 months of being off of cigarettes if you maintain the same diet that you had when you were smoking. A common way to combat this weight gain is to incorporate a basic walk into your daily routine as Dr. Oz recommends in order to burn additional calories as well as replace the act of smoking with physical activity.
Why Does Your Appetite Increase When You Stop Smoking?
When you initially quit smoking, many people experience an increased appetite. This is normally due to two reasons: 1 – Cigarettes have suppressed your appetite, or 2 – You are using food to replace smoking. Many smokers have avoided eating a large number of snacks by smoking when the normal urge to snack has arisen. When they kick the habit, this urge is then replaced by eating. Other people use eating as a way to take the place of the cigarette void when they initially quit smoking. Women have also been found to be more likely to return to smoking due to weight gain than men.
How Can You Avoid Weight Gain when Quitting Smoking?
If you are concerned with quit smoking weight gain, then there are a couple of things that you can do in order to mitigate the potential gain. First, is since we know that your metabolism will likely slow down a bit after you kick the habit, taking up regular exercise can help you reduce the effects of the weight gain. To be effective, you will need to exercise at least 5 days a week. Many people have simply turned to regular 30 minute or longer daily walks in order to help with the weight gain. If you already work out regularly and smoke, then you will want to consider increasing the number of calories that you burn daily.
Another action that you can do to mitigate weight gain concerns is to eat healthier. For many people, this can be simply preparing a “Healthy Snack Kit” so that you are not tempted to eat candy bars or chips for snacks at work or school. Some examples of healthy snacks used by others include baby carrots, celery, fat free popcorn, sunflower seeds, water, fresh fruit, and even hard candies if you have a sweet tooth. You can also make an attempt to remove high fat foods from your diet at home to help reduce the weight gain.
When you are making the effort to stop smoking, however, be careful to not make too drastic of a change in your diet. Many smokers are still smoking today because they tried to combine too many “life events” with their stop smoking efforts which ultimately resulted in failure. At the end of the day, it will be a lot easier for you to lose weight than to overcome lung cancer.
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