Quitting smoking while preventing weight gain is MORE effective….

Today's Post: Tuesday, 6-1-2010

Some people smoke or make no effort to quit as a way to avoid weight gain.

Commonly it’s women who do this.

Not only does this trash their health, it’s both unnecessary and has really bad side effects.

1. The side effects include these.

Many desirable men will take a pass; you won’t look as good but older instead; and you won’t be as sexy.

Many nice, educated, smart, and well-to-do men won’t date women who smoke.

Smoking speeds up aging & increases skin wrinkles.

And, since every cigarette smoke begins to close up your blood vessels and cause cardiovascular disease, if you smoke long enough, it will gradually turn off your ability to respond well sexually.

2. It’s unnecessary; and doing the other things to lose weight or prevent weight gain while quitting more than DOUBLES your chances of quitting.

a) Doing interval cardio and strength training regularly burn calories, speed up your metabolism and tend to increase your lean weight while burning off fat. By doing them you can either eat more and not gain fat or you can eat the same or a bit less and lose fat.

b) And, even better, if you begin regular exercise or keep doing it while you quit smoking we now know that your chances of quitting at least double!

Here are several reasons why that’s likely so.

When you exercise, it helps you think of yourself as someone who does things to be healthier. So when you have to work at quitting, you’ll feel like it fits you since you think of yourself as someone who does things to be healthier.

People like getting better at things. And, getting better at such exercises is far easier if you quit smoking or simply don’t do it any more.

Best of all, such regular exercises reduce stress and make you more stress resistant AND tend to make you a good bit less depressed. So, if you were smoking to relieve stress or depression, by exercising, you’ll need cigarettes less for those things.

And, you realize you are already doing something that combats weight gain and can afford to quit because of that.

b) Recently, another study found that for those who already have excess fat to lose, going to a group weight loss program while quitting smoking ALSO made quitting more likely.

(Weight Watchers isn’t perfect; but they do get some key things right. They have a great group program. And, their meetings are available almost everywhere. They even have an online program.)

When you go to such meetings, it helps you think of yourself as someone who does things to be healthier. So when you have to work at quitting, you’ll feel like it fits you since you think of yourself as someone who does things to be healthier.

You hear effective ways to overcome challenges and stories of people that have use those ways with good results. That inspires you to do the same with your efforts to quit smoking.

And, you realize you are already doing something that combats weight gain and can afford to quit because of that.

c) If you are quitting smoking, you likely are well aware that two great reasons to quit is that smoking causes many kinds of cancer and is even more effective (Yikes !!) at causing heart disease.

The really great news is that many of the foods and drinks you should stop or massively reduce to protect your heart and prevent cancer ALSO make it easier to lose excess fat and much easier to keep it off.

Drinking soft drinks and eating such foods as packaged snacks and treats makes you fat and makes the average American about 20 to 40 or more pounds fatter than they should be. Unfortunately, other foods made with oils high in omega 6, partially hydrogenated oils, refined grains, and sugar do too.

These foods also tend to cause type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

So if you stop eating or drinking them or cut WAY back on them, it will help you avoid weight gain when you quit smoking and help protect you from the effects the smoking has had on your heart.

Even better, the foods you should eat instead to protect your heart, such as organic berries, raw cauliflower or broccoli and other raw and cruciferous vegetables, extra virgin olive oil, wild caught fish, and foods from animals that are pasture fed or eat grass only, also fill you up without causing weight gain and help to prevent cancer too.

You can also take supplements such as niacin, inositol hexaniacinate (no flush niacin); sterol supplements; and omega 3 supplements to protect your heart.

And, you can take 2,000 iu a day or more of vitamin D3 and a daily curcumin supplement or eat curried foods containing it since they have it in the turmeric spice that gives them their yellow color.

Again, taking such supplements helps you think of yourself as someone who does things to be healthier. So when you have to work at quitting, you’ll feel like it fits you since you think of yourself as someone who does things to be healthier.

Best of all, you get the double because you are protecting yourself from cancer and heart disease by quitting and taking the supplements that also help to protect you both ways.

d) Last but not least for those who still need a way to turn down their appetite enough to avoid weight gain when they don’t smoke, there are now several proven ways to do that.

1) A supplement called HCA has helped many people who tend to eat too many starches and sugars by decreasing the craving for them and helping your body process them without boosting your appetite or adding fat to your body. This supplement has helped many people lose weight and fat.

There is a supplement that reduces appetite in part by restoring the system that alerts you when you have eaten enough, called Irvingia. This one is new; but the initial research and feedback from people who have taken it is very promising.

Another supplement increases your metabolism and helps burn belly fat when you exercise as well is called fucoxanthin.

For people who need all three, there IS a supplement that has all 3 of these supplements in it. Dr Al Sears makes and sell it. It’s called Primal Lean. And, the people who have taken it have given him some rave reviews.


See, www.primal-lean.com .

2) A totally different approach that has been quite effective for some people is to take a kind of fiber that slows blood sugar surges even when you eat sugars and starches and fills you up so you eat less. It can make you feel bloated and overfull. But it’s been very effective for some people.

Michael Murray who makes and sells it has a book about it called: “Hunger Free Forever: The New Science of Appetite Control.” His fiber product is called, PGx.


So, if you use these strategies, you can not only quit smoking without gaining fat or fat weight, you'll be far more successful in quitting.