subject: Dealing With Weight Gain After Quitting Smoking [print this page] Dealing With Weight Gain After Quitting Smoking
Nicotine is the number one culprit why it's so hard to quit smoking. Nicotine is highly addictive. It is also a stimulant that boosts the body's metabolism and accelerates fat loss. Another thing about nicotine is it curbs your appetite. With all these properties of nicotine, it's no surprise why most smokers are a bit on the skinny side. (There are always exceptions of course.)
Now imagine what will happen when all of a sudden the smoker quits nicotine. The opposite will start to happen. You'll become moody in the absence of the stimulating effect of nicotine, your metabolism will decrease and your body will start storing fat, and your appetite will increase causing you to overeat.
Women especially are very prone to relapse during the early stage of quitting because of the rapid weight gain. Surely one cannot allow a temporary setback such as this to stop you from stopping smoking for good.
Popular Stop Smoking Programs incorporate weight loss methods into their program to help quitters cope with their weight problems. The first advice they would give usually is exercise regularly. Adding physical activities into your daily routine can really help you with your weight loss problems. Instead of taking the elevator, make it a habit to take the stairs instead. It's not only great for fat loss but also good for the heart.
Park your car a few blocks away from your office and walk. It takes a bit of imagination and creativity to add movement into your routines.
When you exercise, focus on form and intensity. Adding intensity to your workout is the fastest way to turn your body into an efficient fat burning machine. Instead of doing long boring cardio, you can intersperse these movements with short burst high intensity movements.
Add lean muscle mass to your body. Health experts know that big muscles are expensive to maintain in the sense that they have very high calorie demands just to keep them alive. Even when at rest, developing muscles are always calorie hungry so that you continue to burn fat even when you are sleeping. You can say that this is the lazy man's way of losing fat, but it's a very effective fat loss strategy.
Another thing you need to consider is changing your diet. No matter how hard you exercise, if you have poor eating habits, you will not lose weight or worse, continue to gain weight. Only a healthy nutrient rich natural diet can help curb your appetite. Not only that, natural foods contain metabolism boosters to help you shed those unwanted body fat even faster. So start eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts and whole grains.
Natural Lung Detoxification is another benefit you get from natural foods. Their vitamins and nutrients help flush out the tar and toxins in your lungs.
Quitting nicotine requires a lifestyle change to be successful. You are not only changing one aspect of your life but several in order to enjoy a healthier and fuller life.
