Will I Gain Weight When I Stop Smoking?

 

Smoking is difficult enough without having to worry about extra pounds appearing around the midsection.

Stopping smoking and weight gain often do follow one another because you tend to consume more food once you give up the habit. It is common for recent non-smokers to gain anywhere from 5 to 10 pounds within the first couple of months after they quit smoking.

This is nothing compared to what would happen if you continued to smoke and ruined your lungs for the long-term.

Once you realize that you could gain a few pounds once you quit smoking you can prepare yourself ahead of time by developing healthy eating habits and exercising regularly. As long as you do not go overboard and start eating everything in sight, you should be able to lose the post-smoking pounds within a short period of time by going for a 30 minute walk every day.

Bear in mind too that if your weight gain is 10 pounds or more then most likely you have changed your eating habits drastically since you embarked on your new non-smoking lifestyle. Perhaps you did not eat right when you smoked and now you are making up for that. It is important to eat healthy but you do not want to trade a smoking habit for a weight problem.

Why Smoking and Weight Gain are Connected

Smoking and weight gain share a connection for a variety of reasons. Nicotine suppresses appetite. When you were a smoker and felt hungry you probably reached for a cigarette. The cigarette would have provided you with the burst of energy you were looking for and would have put an end to hunger pangs. Suddenly thoughts of food were gone from your head. When you don’t smoke anymore hunger pangs cause you to eat.

Feeling hungrier once smoking has ceased is often par for the course because food tastes better. This is because the sense of taste and smell are much more acute in those who do not smoke. Once you give up the habit the senses start to work properly again and everything about food becomes more appetizing.

Food can become a substitute for hands that are fidgety because they are not holding a cigarette. This may sound like a silly reason but it is a common reason why many former smokers put on pounds – there were addicted to the process of smoking. This is where adopting healthy eating and exercise habits come into play!

As a smoker were you accustomed to smoking between meals to avoid snacking? Did you sometimes smoke a cigarette so you would eat as little food as possible? If yes then you are not alone. Many smokers do this.

Nicotine is a stimulant that excites the body into action in much the same way that caffeine does. It does something else as well – it alters the way that the hormone insulin works. Insulin controls blood sugar (also known as glucose). If the insulin cannot do what it is meant to do then this can lead to a mild case of hyperglycemia. This causes a reaction to be triggered not just throughout the body but in the brain as well. The insulin is then produced in smaller amounts and can affect the level of hunger.

Gaining weight after you quit smoking does not have to be inevitable if you prepare yourself mentally for the change in your lifestyle and you make a promise to yourself to eat healthy and get your body in gear.

I cover the concerns of weight gain in my stop smoking hypnosis programs and provide resources and techniques to help smoker’s combat any concerns.

 

Erika Slater, CH
Director
Free At Last Hypnosis