8 Key tips to quit smoking without gaining weight

Can you stop smoking and not put on weight?

Most smokers gain weight when they quit because they feel deprived of cigarettes – hence they tend to substitute; they eat or drink instead of smoking.

It is possible to quit smoking without gaining weight – but only if you use a method that makes it easy.

How to avoid weight gain after you stop smoking:

1. Nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and e-cigarettes are substitutes:

   They all indicate to the person quitting that they are sacrificing. You can’t smoke anymore so you use a patch, gum, or e-cigarette. This makes the smoker feel miserable when they attempt to quit and they tend to use other substitutes to compensate; they eat or drink instead of smoking

2. Nicotine-free substitutes make it harder to quit: 

   They still indicate to the smoker who is attempting to quit that they have “given up” something. The feeling of sacrifice is strong and soon the candy bar or chocolate makes the smoker gain weight and become miserable.

3. Even calorie-free substitutes make it harder to quit: 

   You might think that a carrot stick, or celery stick wouldn’t do any harm – but they still perpetuate the myth that the smoker has sacrificed something. Sooner or later the feeling of sacrifice gets worse and the smoker returns to smoking

4. Does smoking cigarettes make you lose weight?: 

   Understand that nicotine isn’t an effective appetite suppressant. A smoker it does feel like your hunger goes when you have a cigarette. But smokers don’t realise that all that happened was that they ignored their hunger for 5 minutes while they smoked. They don’t realise that non-smokers do this all the time; they simply brush off their hunger. When a non-smoker does this they don’t credit cigarettes (they don’t smoke), yet when a smoker does it they believe the cigarette acts as an appetite suppressant.

5. Does nicotine make you skinny?: 

   Nicotine speeds up your metabolism but it doesn’t do so enough to keep you slim. Smoking simply doesn’t increase your metabolic rate enough to burn the required calories to enable weight-loss or weight control.

6. There are lots of overweight smokers: 

   If smoking prevented weight gain then you wouldn’t see so many overweight smokers. In fact, the more people smoke actively or passively – the more likely they are to be overweight.

7. Use a method to quit that avoids eating or drinking instead of smoking: 

   Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop smoking ensures that smokers don’t feel the need to substitute when they quit smoking. If you don’t substitute then you shouldn’t gain weight.

8. Taste Buds Return: 

   Sometimes people enjoy their food more when they quit smoking because their sense of taste returns. If you’re happy not smoking, then it is easy to guard against this. In fact, most people who use a method that makes it easy to quit automatically and look after themselves so much better; they don’t gain weight, in fact they get fitter.

Allen Carr’s Easyway has been described as ‘a real smoker’s way to quit’. You carry on smoking until you’re ready to stub out your final cigarette. Easyway doesn’t focus on the downsides of smoking – smokers know all about those already. Instead the method answers the question ‘What’s so great about being a smoker?’ Understanding that is the key to being set free.

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