Quit Smoking, Gain Weight?

The myth is true. one of the side effects when you stop smoking, is you usually gain weight. Day 6 of my quit has me at plus 3 pounds. Not terrible, all things considered. Remember that last time I tried to quit smoking, I gained a few pounds, but lost it all within three weeks, only to gain more weight shortly thereafter. Sigh.

Where does this weight come from? It's an unfortunate combination of a few things. Firstly, smoking increases your metabolism. When you stop, your metabolic rate may slow by as much as 20%, causing you to burn less calories. The average weight gain for a quitter is said to be somewhere in the 5-20 lb. range. That's 2-9 Kgs or so for my international readers. What's that, you say? You're not into statistics? Okay, here's the simple version: you have to do something or you're going to start getting to be quite the fattie!

Did you know? more than one third of readers to this blog are from outside the U.S.A.?

The logical (not to be confused with easy!) choices to counteract this weight gain would be to either raise the metabolism via exercise, or eat less. Maybe up to 20% less. Yeah, right.

The thing is, when you stop smoking your senses of taste and smell start improving pretty quickly, and you'll probably enjoy some foods more. Especially stuff that's full of sugar and carbs. Yeah, the stuff that will pack on the pounds most quickly.

My recommendations are to increase your activity level by starting a new workout routine, or at least adding whatever activity you can. Maybe walk down to the end of the driveway to pick up the mail instead of driving, stop sending the intern down to pick up lunch everyday, and make yourself something healthy in the morning instead, or at least take the walk yourself.

Combine this with a little extra willpower and common sense regarding your eating habits, and you should be able to minimize the weight gain commonly attached to quitting smoking. No more midnight snacks, fattie!

Much of this info I remember from past studying, and cannot cite the sources. There are however, a couple of excellent articles listed on the topic over at Maggie's Mind, along with 30 or 40 other "linky loos" (don't looky-loo at me, I didn't make it up) to all sorts of quitting resources.

As for me, I think I'm going to try to finish my super awesome surprise post, which won't get published until at least Monday, because nobody ever reads my stuff on the weekends. Good for you guys, get out there and do something fun this weekend!

Hey, I made it through this whole thing without mentioning that it's Friday the 13th, how cool is that?

Crap. I just blew it, didn't I?

Calming Down On The Junk Food

I'm trying to avoid filling up on garbage food throughout the day (and night) now. Twenty days of eating crap is quite enough, thank you. I'm not going to go vegan or anything, but I have been leaning toward some of the more widely accepted common sense practices today.

A big one is to eat smaller amounts, more often. I also went ahead and traded my usual snacks (which have been ranging from halloween candy to cookies to donuts) in for some Triscuits and an empire apple. I forgot how good the empires are, we usually have granny smiths in the fridge.

I want to do a little more research on nutrition. Not to go crazy with it, but a better idea of how much of what kinds of substances are especially important and a few pointers on things to avoid, besides the obvious, will probably go a long way.

I have a dentist appointment next week, too. First one in around ten years. I never said I've been taking wonderful care of myself. So the dentist is not likely to be thrilled with the amount of cleaning to be done, but I'm hoping to soften the blow with the news that I've recently quit smoking. That should get me at least a slightly more mild lecture.

Mmmmm... Lasagna in a Can

I haven't been sleeping for any lengthy periods of time throughout this whole quitting smoking thing, but I did manage to get in another hour and a half before the phone woke me up. It's not as bad as it sounds, as I plan on sleeping away Wednesday to a large extent.

By the time I got the boys home, we were all starving. For myself, this was for not having eaten anything for most of the day. The empty lunchboxes they brought home would seem to indicate a different situation for the youngsters, but you wouldn't know it by their appetites. Some days they just might eat more than me. Damn, they're getting big far too quickly.

Oh yeah, back on topic... which is listed as lasagna. We had some, and it tasted like it's supposed to, and full bellies were had by all. My seltzer and sunflower seeds have been restored to their former tasty selves as well.

All this yumminess brought on the reflexive thought of an after-meal smoke, the first significant one of the day. This I was able to dismiss without much difficulty by reminding myself that I don't smoke. What a stupid reflex to have, huh?

Three quarters of the way through day three, and things are going better than expected. This is the longest I've gone without smoking in fifteen years, and I'm feeling okay.

Yesterday sucked, but today is fine so far.