Dont Let Weight Gain Deter You From Quitting Smoking
One thing that often keeps a smoker from taking the final plunge to quitting is their concern about gaining weight once they have stopped smoking. For many people this is no little issue. The tradeoff between smoking cigarettes, which many will believe keeps them thin, and quitting, which increases the appetite, is one that many will not want to make. This is especially true of women who fight to keep their slim figures to be and feel attractive. Society’s picture of the slim woman, and man, keep consumers looking for ways to be slim. This explains the reluctance of so many people to lose something, even when it is a health risk, which helps them stay this way.
When a heavy smoker, someone who smokes more than twenty cigarettes daily, stops smoking they can expect to put on between five and ten pounds during the first three months of quitting. This happens for a few reasons. One cause is that the act of smoking burns approximately two hundred calories daily. But the main reason is that nicotine is an appetite suppressant. Without the nicotine the smoker’s natural appetite returns. The appetite is also affected by the fact that food starts to taste better when they are no longer smoking.
One way to eliminate the weight gain is to be careful what is eaten. Instead of snacking on pastry or candy eat celery stalks, carrots, or fruit. They are healthy and have very few calories. Try not to snack too much between meals unless what you pick up is a healthy treat. Smokers are used to having something in their mouths and that is another pull for them to snack. If you want to keep the pounds off watch the snacking.
Physicians do not recommend dieting when you first quit smoking. The added stress of a diet can make it impossible to concentrate on quitting the cigarettes. Many smokers will have a cigarette at the end of a meal. With no cigarette they tend to fill that place with a second helping. This is one of the places where weight gain can happen. Try to make your first helping smaller and then the second one will fill you not stuff you. This will help to keep the weight gain down.
Gaining weight is not inevitable when you quit smoking. A slight shift in the foods eaten, and remembering to do a little exercise can keep the gain down to almost nothing. Make your diet a little healthier and you will find that you feel better and do not gain. This includes eating meats that are not fatty, changing to whole grain breads, cutting down or cutting out alcohol and staying away from soft drinks, sauces and gravies. The most important consideration with quitting smoking and weight gain is that a few extra pounds will not damage your health. You cannot die from gaining ten pounds even if it frustrates you. You can die from the many medical conditions that being a smoker can cause.