Quitting Smoking And Weight Gain

Quitting Smoking And Weight Gain

How much weight will I gain if I quit smoking?

Any individual is at risk for gaining weight when they quit smoking, but not everyone does. Some people will gain a few pounds, some people will gain nothing, some people will lose a few pounds, and there is a small group of people who will gain a significant amount of weight. There's reasons for those. So, if you looked at men versus women, men gain between five and eight pounds when they quit smoking, as a group; women gain between eight and eleven or fifteen pounds. Women gain more weight when they quit smoking than men do. It's probably hormonal and metabolic in how their body reacts to nicotine withdrawal symptoms and hunger, and the metabolic changes that go on in a woman. Not everyone has to gain weight, but if you have a history of having gained weight before, if you're already overweight and don't want that to be a problem, or if you have a medical condition where gaining weight will really compromise you, such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, pay attention to that and talk to your healthcare provider and look for the ways that you can minimize or avoid weight gain. The other thing you can do is lose weight before you quit smoking and get closer to your ideal body weight so it's not so much of an issue during the time that you're quitting.