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Do You Get Fat When You Quit Smoking? | Mind Power Blog - Mind Power: How To Change Reality in Your Favor

Do You Get Fat When You Quit Smoking?

Thu Apr 22 21:52:19 2010

A lot of smokers, when quitting, worry for gaining a lot of weight. Does everyone get fat when they quit or is it just a hoax?

A lot of smokers believe that if they are to quit smoking, they will inevitably gain a lot of weight. This poses a major problem, especially to women, and many find this a good enough reason to continue with their addiction. The question is, do all the smokers actually gain a lot of weight when they quit?

I think the best answer is: “sometimes”. Sometimes you would gain a lot of weight when you quit. However, the governing factor is how ignorant you are about the addiction to nicotine.

Let's back up a bit... After hundreds of attempts, I was nearly convinced that for me, personally, it was impossible to quit smoking. I was a very heavy smoker; 40 cigarettes a day was a norm, and even my smoker friends would think of me as a true chimney.

It was one of my lucky days; I had obtained a book – Easy Way To Stop Smoking – by Allen Carr. Even though, I was extremely skeptical when my friend suggested this book to me, after six hours, the 40-a-day person that I was became a non-smoker without any of the awful cravings I had during my previous attempts to quit.

The book has explained to me a reason why some people get fat when they quit. There are actually two possible reasons... First reason: substitutes.

It's a common misconception that smoking is simply a habit. We create and break hundreds of habits in our lives very often. For example, until I've recently moved, every time I left work I would make a left turn at a certain intersection near my work. Now, I would be needing to make a right turn at that intersection. There's also a shortcut that gets me to my new place of living that bypasses that intersection. During the first few days after the move, I would still go to that intersection instead of using the shortcut. This is a habit. It was absolutely painless for me to break that habit and learn to use the shortcut all the time. Any smoker will confirm that “painless” is not what they experienced last time they tried to quit.

The reality is that smoking is an addiction. Nicotine is an addictive substance. Even though, many smokers will say that this addiction is very powerful, the truth is that the physical nicotine craving manifests itself in very subtle ways. In fact, it's indistinguishable from hunger.

The proof to this is that all smokers will easily sleep 6-10 hours without even waking up, and many will even have their breakfast and make it to work before smoking the first cigarette. Yet, if you prevent them from smoking just for an hour during wake time, they'll go nuts. All of this points to a staggering truth: addiction to smoking is almost entirely mental.

I'll leave it up to Allen Carr and his magnificent book to explain all the details. For the purpose of this article, we'll just assume that the above is true – and it is – without any further proof. What do many smokers who think that smoking is a habit do when they quit? They think that to break a habit they need to find a substitute to stick in their mouth. Sucker candy often takes place of this.

Since mental addiction to cigarettes never gets broken, our poor ex-smoker now sucks on candy all day long, mistakenly believing that this candy is now responsible for them to stay off the smoke. If instead of burning 20-40 poisonous cigarettes, you are now consuming 30-50 candies; where do you think all those calories are going?

The second reason is more subtle. As I've already mentioned, the physical craving to nicotine is indistinguishable from hunger. I must also add that it lasts no more than three weeks, and often disappears even after 4-5 days – so this isn't a life-time burden as many ex-smokers would want you to believe. What this means is that for at most three weeks after you quit you will feel hungry very often. If you submit to all of these urges, you will be overeating by a lot, which would translate to serious weight gain in many individuals.

Quitting smoking is something I am extremely happy about. I live with two people who are smokers and I hear them cough their lungs out almost daily; not to mention the awful smell that fills the rooms when they smoke. We all make mistakes, and starting smoking is the mistake that a lot of people make.

If you're wishing to quit smoking, don't let the weight gain prevent you from this. Just make a simple rule. First, don't resort to substitutes. Smoking is not a habit, you don't need to “replace” it with anything. Just enjoy all the extra time you would've otherwise spent on smoke breaks. You don't need any candy or gum in order to quit.

Second, during the first one to three weeks, be cautions of your hunger pangs. Be aware that nicotine craving is indistinguishable from hunger every time you feel hungry. Most people eat about three times day. Don't eat more than that. Create a schedule. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you're hungry in the middle of those meals, it's likely just a nicotine craving; let it be, and in less than five minutes it will be gone.

Quitting smoking does not make you fatter. It's only a mistaken belief that you must consume a lot of candy in order to quit or a mistaken identity of hunger that the addiction to nicotine brings with it. If you understand the addiction, you'll never gain a single pound from quitting. In fact, quitting smoking will give you much more energy that you can use for exercise to even lose any extra weight, while you quit!

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