How to Lose Weight When You Stop Smoking

It's inevitable that when you stop smoking, you put on the extra pounds. Some people are lucky and only gain a few pounds but most people aren't so lucky and may be looking at a substantial weight gain. The key to taking the weight off and keeping it off without going back to smoking is to understand how and why it happened in the first place. Smoking is a habit and when you stop a habit you must replace it with another habit. So without even thinking about it, you'll replace the cigarette you used to put in your mouth with the next logical thing, which is food. Follow the steps below and you will begin to drop those extra pounds and find healthier habits to replace the bad ones.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• A blank journal
• Healthy snacks

1. The first step to weight loss is to learn to read nutrition labels on foods. By reading these labels, you can compare products and choose lower carb and calorie foods to eat. For example regular white bread has about 110 calories and 23 carbs per slice. A slice of pumpernickel rye has only about 80 calories and 13 carbs.
2. Determine how many calories you should be eating a day to maintain a healthy weight. For a person who does average activities daily, multiply 12 by your ideal weight. For example, if you should weigh 120 pounds multiply 120 x 12. That would give you about 1440 calories per day. Remember that this equation is just a very rough estimate but if you are overweight and you limit yourself to this amount of calories you will lose weight.
3. Keep a food journal and write down everything that you put in your mouth. Even a piece of gum or a tiny jelly bean has calories. Write down the food, quantity, calories, and carbs. Be honest. The only person you can't fool is yourself.
4. Walk. When you feel cravings for smoking or food, force yourself to take a walk around the block. Exercise often suppresses appetite and burns calories.
5. Keep healthy snacks for those times when you need something in your mouth. Carrots are a great choice not only because they are good for you, but because they are crunchy and take a long time to chew. They can be your new habit food. Remember you're trying to replace a habit with a habit.

Tips & Warnings

• Gum can be a good new habit, but take care with most sugarless gums as the type of sugar they contain can cause diarrhea if you overindulge.