5 Steps To Managing Weight-Gain For The Ex Smoker

What if you have just recently quit smoking, still crave cigarettes, and to top it off, find that you are gaining weight? If you have just recently quit and are still fighting the urge to resume smoking, it's best to move gradually into a weight-management program. Trying to change your dietary habits too quickly can add to the stress you may still be experiencing in your efforts to remain a non-smoker and only increase your craving for cigarettes. Your highest priority at this time should be to remain a non-smoker.

Aim first to stop gaining weight, and once you've accomplished that, think about what additional steps it will take to lose weight. The best way to do this without impairing your ability to remain a non-smoker is to use the following strategy:

1. Increase your physical activity. This is more important in the total picture right now than changing your diet because the more active you become, the easier it will be to remain a non-smoker as well as to manage your weight.

2. Then begin to cut the fat in your diet. Start by making low-fat substitutions for high-fat foods. Keep track of your daily fat-gram intake. If you are able, in time, to reach your target level for weight loss comfortably, without endangering your ability to remain a non-smoker, you should begin to lose weight.

3. If increasing your activity and cutting the fat as recommend do not prevent further weight gain and start you on the road to losing weight, as it will in almost all cases, you may be consuming too much carbohydrate. Monitor your carbohydrate intake to determine if you are overdoing sweets independently of fat, that is, eating more than one piece of hard candy or any other sugar candy in place of a cigarette, or more than one serving of a complex carbohydrate at snack times.

4. Discuss with your doctor the use of nicotine replacement, with the patch or gum, or the use of one of a pharmacological aid that helps with smoking cessation and weight control. These aids serve a dual purpose since, like increasing physical activity, they work simultaneously to ensure your success in remaining a non-smoker and in managing your weight.

5. Continue to use whatever strategies are helping you to deal with your desire to smoke until you are safely through the transition to becoming a fully successful non-smoker. Then begin a weight-management program that best suits your needs and goals.