I want you to think a little before you start reading:
- Do you think smoking is beneficial for weight control?
- Do you know anyone who smokes and is overweight?
- If smoking controlled weight, all the smokers you know would be thin, right?
- Did you know that 3 out of 4 obese people smoke?
- Do you think there are any calorie-burning substances in cigarettes?
- How do you think weight gain/loss can be related to getting rid of inhaling 4,000 toxic fumes?
- Why do you think people who quit smoking gain weight?
Quitting smoking is a very important step, perhaps the most important step, towards a healthy life. Many people worry that they will gain weight when they are about to take this step. In fact, for many people (especially women) this worry is the biggest obstacle to taking this step.
Where does the idea that “quitting smoking makes you gain weight” come from?
As wrong as this idea is, there are many reasons why we fall for it:
- There are dozens of examples of people who quit smoking and gained weight,
- One’s own past experiences,
- Misinformation that smoking reduces appetite,
- Misconceptions that smoking boosts metabolism and burns extra calories,
- Another misconception that smoking makes the bowels work…
Yes, people who quit smoking through willpower gain weight because they eat and drink all day instead of smoking. They always hope that one day it will pass by itself. What they are doing is not “quitting” smoking! It is a “substitute” for smoking. In other words, they want to remove a very serious problem from their lives and they replace it with another problem. However, when you quit smoking with the right method, you will not gain weight.
Weight gain is related to our diet and activity levels! It is not true that “nothing has changed in my diet and activity level, I just quit smoking and gained weight”. What does it mean to gain weight? It means that my body fat percentage or water percentage or muscle percentage has increased. The body doesn’t suddenly start storing fat or water because we don’t smoke, nor does it build muscle on its own. So please accept the fact that it is not possible to gain weight just by quitting smoking.
There is a situation that smokers know very well. Maybe you have experienced it too many times. You’re hungry, you don’t eat, you smoke a cigarette instead and after a few minutes the hunger disappears, right? And we think that we suppress this feeling of hunger because of smoking, right? Now imagine a non-smoker, he gets hungry and doesn’t eat anything, what do you think happens after a few minutes? Yes, their hunger also disappears… Gosh, they didn’t have to do anything for that, they didn’t think of smoking.
You can control your hunger, even though you smoke, not because of it. The substance called nicotine has no effect on your appetite. If smoking had any benefit in weight control, there would be no one around you who both smoked and was overweight. When we look at the research results, 3/4 of obese people smoke! There could not have been such a research result! And because most smokers cannot afford to exercise, they are also overweight. Many people develop the habit of exercising for the first time in their lives after quitting smoking and also manage to lose weight.
Another situation that enables weight loss is; for years, the thoughts of “I’m poisoning myself, I’m deliberately killing myself” gnawed at our conscience, but after quitting smoking, the thought of “I did it” is magnificent. One renews oneself physically, mentally and emotionally. At the end of this regeneration process, our confidence grows. And we will be able to implement many decisions that we have not been able to implement for years!
Why do we think smoking burns calories?
A smoker’s body is busy excreting the toxic doses it receives hourly for many years. Of course, the immune system needs energy to carry out this vital task. However, this extra energy is not enough to make people gain/lose weight. There are also those who think that extra hand movements burn calories. Yes, every movement burns calories! I don’t have to poison myself to move my hand! The only way to move enough to lose weight: regular exercise!
The only thing nicotine addiction makes people do on a regular basis is to smoke. Something that is done so often and regularly, of course, corresponds to many of the things we do in our daily lives, and it corresponds so often and regularly that it creates conditioning in our brains. All drinkers have their own “inseparable duos”! Coffee – cigarettes, after-dinner – cigarettes, finished work – cigarettes, toilet – cigarettes… These become so inseparable over the years that one comes to believe that one cannot live without the other.
However, the toilet needs of the human being, that is, the functioning of the bowel evacuation system, has a universal history of millions of years. The work of our intestines has been our heritage from the earliest times! It has nothing to do with smoking except its conditioning. With the right method, no one who quits smoking gains or even loses weight! So give up the “I’ll gain weight” excuse as soon as possible and take the right step to get rid of the world’s most powerful addiction!