Be Smoke Free

There are many people who have managed to stop smoking successfully and then gained some weight after doing so. When asked why they think they put on the weight there are two answers that always surface. One is that they can actually taste the food now and cannot get enough and the other is an uncontrollable urge to eat which results in weight gain and possibly obesity. Many people are under the misconception that they have put on weight because they gave up smoking.

Smoking is a Habit

There are 3 reasons why it is so difficult to give up smoking; these are addiction, association and habit. It is impossible to give up smoking without understanding what these mean. We will look at habit. What does it mean? A habit is defined as something that you do so often that it just becomes an automatic thing to do whether this is consciously or subconsciously. Of course a habit is incredibly hard to break and it has been found that the easiest way is to replace the habit.

The issue here is that a person who has quit smoking is still brainwashed into a habit, therefore when they replace it with something else, whether it be gum, candy or food they form a habit with that thing, which is why so many people then gain weight. In saying this of course, a habit in regards to food and gaining weight is so much easier to correct than a smoking habit.

Find a Good Replacement

There are so many things that you can replace smoking with that are a much healthier choice. When a craving hits, you could try water. Every time you feel like a cigarette, pick up a glass of water instead. There are many alternatives, I have heard of people having books to read when a craving hits or they do breathing exercises or even some gym exercise. Whatever works for you to distract yourself from that craving but in a healthy way.

What to Do When You’re Overweight

Obviously, food tastes much better once you give up smoking but you cannot blame everything on giving up smoking. It does not matter whether you have never smoked in your life or if you have just given up you need to live a healthy life. At the end of the day, if you have found that you have put on weight, this can be fixed a lot easier than the habit of smoking. There are so many programs out there these days that will help you lose some of that weight you gained.

So when you finally make the decision to be smoke free permanently you need to choose a healthy habit to replace it with. Now there are many people out there who just can’t do it without gum or candy or other unhealthy choices, my personal opinion is that giving up smoking is the goal, so you just have to do whatever you need to do to get over the smoking habit, and then work with the new habit of eating unhealthy food.