Tips To Avoid Putting On Pounds After Your Quit Smoking

Why Do You Gain Weight When You Stop Smoking?

It's a commonly held myth that you instantly gain weight after you quit smoking - almost like magic! This puts the fear of quitting smoking into both men and women. Why on earth would anyone want to quit their favourite recreational pursuit and put on 10 pounds at the same time?

Folks, magical weight gain doesn't exist. There's no cellulite fairy that visits you when you're asleep and adds pounds. The waistline elf doesn't sneak into your house and trim all your clothing to one size smaller.

Whether you quit smoking or not you gain weight by not exercising and eating too much. It's really that simple.

So why do you put on weight when you quit smoking? The answer is very straightforward.

1. Smoking surpresses your appetite.

2. Smoking keeps your mind and hands occupied.

So when you quit smoking you'll experience an almost instant increase in appetite and find that you're picking at snacks more outside of normal meal times. You'll find yourself eating larger meals and more often than when you were smoking. You'll also have the strong desire to keep your mouth busy 10 - 20 times per day (for each cigarette you smoked). This will mean buying and eating more snacks like candy, chocolate and fast foods like fries and burgers. Some ex-smokers are amazed at just how hungry they can feel even after eating a full meal.

When you were a smoker your breakfast consisted of coffee and a cigarette right? Lunch was small and rushed because you wanted to get back to smoking. This will all change as you quit smoking.

So here's the reality - you'll be eating more. You'll snack more and you'll also eat more junk and junk food. This is why you put on weight when you quit smoking. It's not some magical reaction or weird side effect - you'll simply be eating far more than you did when you were a smoker.

How To Not Gain Weight When Smoking

Be prepared for this to happen. Make sure that when you're hungry you're not just packing away junk food. You'll find that you're naturally more hungry at breakfast time so make sure your breakfast is healthy. Cereal, fruit, scrambled eggs and juice are all a good start to any day. Just make sure you don't sit down to a big plate of greasy bacon, eggs and toast each morning. This will fill you but also fatten you.

When eating main meals eat slowly. Chew each mouthful of food 20 times before swallowing. This will make the meal last longer and also allow you to feel full on less food. Try this - it does work.

Snacking is a huge problem for quitters. Do not buy candy to gobble while you're watching tv. Baby carrots and celery sticks are ideal replacements. Or a bowl of fruit salad is also very tasty, very good for you and will fill you up. If you have a sweet tooth then look for low fat cereal bars and treats in your local market. Jelly babies, wine gums and fruit pastilles are also good alternatives to chocolate and candy as they contain very little fat. Obviously do not buy a gigantic bag of jellybabies and stuff yourself with them - they're to be used as a treat. The same goes for low fat icecream and other sweet treats.

Exercise is important of course. Any exercise at all is better than none so even if you just walk once around the block that beats sitting in your chair watching tv. Every minute of exercise you take adds to your life expectancy. Every cigarette you smoked took away from it.

Even if worse comes to worse and you put on 14 pounds after you quit smoking this is simply weight you need to lose. Once you lose that extra weight you'll be smoke free and in great shape - hardly a bad thing now is it? I'm obviously not encouraging people to actively put on weight when quitting but what I am saying is that once you quit smoking for good losing 14 pounds isn't that big a deal.