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How Smoking Affects Metabolism

Dear Women Over 40,

Chances are you know someone who quit smoking and then gained a ton of weight. This is not uncommon and, in fact, smoking itself actually increases your metabolism so when you stop smoking your metabolic rate is decreased. However, blaming the weight gain on quitting smoking may just be a convenient excuse.

One of the things that smoking does is increase your heart rate which enforces your metabolic rate to go up. All this may sound appealing when you're focused on losing weight but it is extremely bad for your heart as well as the rest of your body. Another thing that smoking does is curb your hunger. When you smoke, you're less apt to eat as much. Plus the food doesn't really taste as good so you're less apt to want to eat in the first place.

Smoking, of course, can send you to an early grave and is not a recommended way of raising your metabolism. If you already smoke however, quitting, while essential to your health, may cause you to gain extra pounds. But, unlike a lot of former smokers may claim, the slowdown of your metabolism from quitting smoking really isn't that significant in that we gain is probably more from the additional food you are eating to placate yourself instead of reaching for that cigarette.

Smoking is an addiction and when many people kick the habit they tend to replace lighting up with something else. In many cases this is food. So instead of reaching for that morning cigarette, you're now eating a doughnut. You can imagine, if you do this every time the urge for a cigarette came upon you, how many extra calories you would eat.

The other bad thing about smoking is that it is a habit. You become accustomed to having a cigarette after you eat, having cigarette with your coffee, having a cigarette after your boss reprimands you, having a cigarette on the way home. Now when you take that away, you feel deprived and what do you do to make yourself feel better? You eat.

But you shouldn't use the fear of gaining weight to stop you from quitting smoking. What you need to do, instead, is have a good plan for replacing your bad habit with some good ones.

One thing you might want to consider is beefing up your exercise program. Just adding a little bit of exercise each day will more than offset the slowdown of your metabolism and, since you will probably be able to actually breathe better without cigarettes, it could actually be quite enjoyable. Not only that, but adding exercise to your daily regimen will help offset any extra calories you eat in place of that cigarette.

Speaking of which, you also want to have some low-calorie, nutritious food set aside as a cigarette substitute. Think about carrot sticks, apples even gum as a way to satisfy that urge. Additionally, you could consider nonfood things such as meditation, going for a walk, having a massage or treating yourself to that new outfit at the mall. Anything you can do to stop smoking a cigarette without resorting to eating unhealthy food!

While smoking does speed up your metabolism, quitting doesn't have to be a sentence for weight gain. Smoking is probably one of the worst things you can do for your health, so quitting should be done at all costs even if you do gain a few pounds. But, if you're smart about it you have nothing to gain but improved health!

Women Over 40 Health

SBI!