How can I avoid gaining weight when I quit smoking?
If you have never tried to quit before but you're afraid you might gain weight, I would encourage you to do 4 things. One is get some material to read about the process of avoiding weight gain. Look at your diet, what kind of nutritional practices do you have that could put you at risk for gaining weight. Are you going to start snacking instead of smoking and adding extra calories to your diet? Well, snack on low calorie items. Number 4, pick a habit that helps you burn up energies such as the habit of walking or increasing your exercise levels so that even if you do snack a little bit more, have bigger portions sizes because you're feeling hungry, you're going to burn that up when you exercise. Now, if you have gain weight before and you've gained large amounts of weight, talk to your doctor before you attempt to quit smoking. You might want to select certain medication such as the nicotine gum and the nicotine patch and bupropion those medications have been shown to limit and suppress weight gain in people compared to those who quit on their own without any treatments. The new medication verenacline, the oral tablet, does not have any benefit in helping you avoid weight gain. So one consideration is which medication you use and stay on it for long period of time so that you will avoid that early weight gain after quitting smoking which is primarily a result of your metabolism change and your appetite that increases when you quit smoking. If you have gain only small amount of weight before and you want to avoid that, the best thing is that a healthy diet, drink lots of water, don't drink any calories and get an exercise program before you quit smoking so your metabolic rate gets wrapped up by that. Not everyone has to gain weight when you quit smoking.
