The fear of weight gain is one of the most common cited barriers of smoking cessation (1). Smokers who are weight conscious are less successful when trying to quit smoking, and may be even less likely to attempt to stop smoking in the first place. Gaining weight is a real fear particularly in women, and this fact has been shamelessly exploited in the past by Tobacco companies like Lucky Strike. Unfortunately it is a fact that smokers are 3-5kg lighter than non-smokers and gain roughly this amount of weight when they quit smoking (Williamson 1991).

The link between smoking and weight gain has been put down to two causes. Firstly it is due to the increased amount of food consumption, and secondly it is the removal of the metabolic effects of nicotine. Nicotine acts to increase your metabolic rate and makes the body burn up more energy. Removing nicotine from the body will result in less energy being burnt.

However, big weight gains are uncommon, and the US Department of Health and Human Services have reported in 2001 that in the long term, the weight of ex-smokers are similar to those who have never smoked. Most smokers worry more about gaining weight than the long term adverse effects of smoking, and as many as 75% of women and 35% of men reported that if they quit smoking, they would not tolerate more than 5 pounds (2.3 kg) of gain in weight. This means that in order to help you quit smoking, we also need to show you how to maintain your weight. In the following articles, you will learn how you can stop smoking and not gain pounds using proven techniques

Before we begin, let me tell you a secret…. dieting itself is ineffective. You heard it right. It is not beneficial to go on a diet while you are trying to stop smoking. 2 studies (Hall 1992 and Pirie 1992) have shown that dieting is actually counter-productive! It is too much for somebody to control food intake while stopping smoking at the same time. It simply doesn’t work for most people. Now click on the next page to read about proven methods.

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