You may have heard that people gain weight when they quit smoking. While this can happen—the average weight gain post cessation is 5 to 10 pounds—not everyone gains weight from quitting. In fact, changes in weight often depend on many factors you can influence.
Cigarette smoking increases a person's metabolism—the rate at which food is converted into energy—by forcing the heart to beat faster. In addition, tobacco use can diminish the ability to taste and smell food. Within the first 48 hours of quitting, nerve endings begin to regrow and senses of taste and smell are enhanced. Better tasting food, slower metabolism, and oral craving substitutes can all lead to overeating and weight gain.
This is why it is so important to include these goals in your quit plan:
Coping with Stress While Quitting
When people who are quitting replace the time they once spent smoking with new healthier activities, they can offset a calorie surplus with calorie balancing. And remember, healthy movement doesn’t just benefit your weight. Exercise triggers a release of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, the same chemical released during nicotine use. So exercise also benefits your mood and helps to keep stress under control in a more healthful way. Balancing your energy and your stress levels can help you to prevent replacing smoking with mindless munching.
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📌 Weight Gain = Calories In > Calories Out
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Nicotine is an appetite suppressant, so many people notice more hunger while quitting. Your recovery may require more energy too. Using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) also helps to minimize or delay weight gain by helping you to cut down your nicotine levels slowly over time. A less sudden drop in nicotine buys you some time to adapt your daily eating and movement routines to those of a nonsmoker.
There are a variety of ways to achieve healthy weight loss in your new smoke-free life...
You can begin with paying more attention to what and how you eat. Your appetite might be shifting, but try your best to include more protein, healthy fat, fruits, and vegetables (5 servings daily, if possible) to your eating routine. Reducing sugar and salt intake can make a big difference, too. Whenever possible, choose foods with sufficient protein but not too much fat, like lean meat and legumes. Drink more water and avoid alcohol, soda, and processed foods. Try to incorporate more vitamin D into your diet by consuming more salmon, eggs, orange juice, milk, and fortified whole grain cereals. Getting more sunlight exposure can also help to increase vitamin D levels, but check with your health provider first, as some medications may cause sensitivity to sunlight. Food and beverage tracking (with a mobile app or paper tracker) can help to adopt healthier habits, along with paying more attention to when, where, and how you eat. If you find yourself eating while distracted — like while watching TV — you could end up eating more calories than you need. Distracted eating can get in the way of noticing your body’s natural fullness signals. Mindful eating reminds you to eat more slowly, to feel grateful for the nourishment of the food, tune into taste and textures, and enjoy the eating experience more than the typical rushing through a meal. The practice of Mindful Eating invites you to deeply relax into your eating space and engage all the senses when taking a meal. It allows us the opportunity to savor flavors, textures and gratitude for having healthy food to nourish our bodies. Slowing down your eating can help you to eat less, and engage greater awareness of your hunger and fullness cues.
Most people who quit smoking feel a pull toward more snacking. Given someone with a pack a day habit has a cigarette in their mouth twenty times, the urge to put something else in the mouth is understandable. If you find you’ve got a case of the munchies, try keeping a straw, coffee stirrer, or water bottle with a popup spout or straw handy. You can be proactive by keeping a stash of healthy snacks on hand, like carrot or celery sticks, apples, popcorn, berries, or nuts.