Maintaining weight loss and quitting smoking

  • As you can see from my stats I have lost quite a bit of weight. I have been maintaining it easily for around 6 mths while shaving off the odd pound here and there.

    I want to quit smoking but of course I am scared of gaining weight. I am not concerned that I will replace smoking with food, I am far too obsessed with my weight to let myself do that. I also quit for a year and half before and never used food to replace cigarettes and I was heavier then.

    I know quitting smoking is healthier than gaining a few pounds, but it still worries me. I have worked so hard to get where I am and I love my new body. Like I said, I'm really disciplined with food, I still log every thing I eat so I will easily know if I am going over calories. I also exercise 5 times a week.

    I know that quitting smoking can slow down your metabolism but if I just exercise a bit more or cut my calories a bit I should be fine, right? I am hoping most people gain weight while quitting because they eat so much more and it isn't just the slowing of metabolism.

    I kinda hate that I'm so vain to care more about weight than smoking but I have never felt so good about myself as I do now and I'm scared to lose that.
  • Smoking increases metabolism only marginally. When people quit and then gain weight, it's not so much because of the drop in metabolism as because they're replacing the oral satisfaction of smoking with the oral satisfaction of eating. And it sounds like you're on top of that problem. Approach the challenge with confidence that quitting will not "cause" you to gain weight. You're in control, as always!

    Freelance
  • Thank you. I have read from a few people online that they ate normally while quitting and still gained weight, but I wonder how many of them counted calories and weighed food. It's easy to under estimate how much you're eating as anyone here knows.

    I weigh myself daily so I will notice any gain straight away.

    It just worried me that the slowing down of metabolism could mess with my weight loss and I'd have very little control over it.
  • I don't know how much you exercise, but I would consider upping my cardio for a few weeks after quitting.