Quitting Smoking and Weight Gain

Unfortunately, quitting smoking and weight gain usually go together. You can control weight gain even when you quit smoking, if you combine healthy eating with a physical activity program.

You don't have to gain weight when you stop smoking.

People who quit smoking often gain five to ten pounds. The longer you have smoked and the more you smoked each day, the more weight you may tend to gain. Smoking for over ten years or smoking one or more packs a day may result in a weigh gain over ten pounds.

Nicotine tends to help maintain your body weight. When you quit smoking, nicotine leaves your body and you might experience:

• Water retention – You could gain 3 to 5 pounds during the first week after you stop smoking.
• Weight stabilization – Your body is no longer inhibited by the nicotine and your weight might return to the level it would have been without the nicotine.
• A need for fewer calories – You may use fewer calories than when you were smoking.
• Jittery feeling – You will feel nervous and jittery as the nicotine starts to leave your body.

Avoid an Unhealthy Weight Gain

When you quit smoking you need to become more physically active and change your eating habits. If you don't, you will gain weight.

If you are planning to quit smoking, start challenging yourself to be more active and to improve your nutrition before you quit. Making these lifestyle changes before you stop smoking will give you the opportunity to get comfortable with your new movement and eating habits before you have to get comfortable with the third big lifestyle change – to stop smoking.

Become Physically Active

The more you move your body, the more calories you burn. And, the more you concentrate on keeping your body active and improving your nutrition, the less likely you are to want a cigarette. Another great side effect of exercise is the way it relieves stress – like the stress of quitting smoking!

A good way to get more movement into your life is to stop doing the things that require minimal movement. Television watching, video games and web surfing are all passive movement activities. Try to intersperse 30 minutes of movement a day – even if it is ten minute blocks of time. Pick something you like to do like fast walking around a shopping mall or playing with kids or dancing to your favorite musicians.

Improve Eating Habits

Eating the right foods , in the right proportions, at the right times will let you control the number of calories you eat everyday.

Don't jump right in and make major changes in how you eat – you're body is already going through enough stress as it withdraws from nicotine. Wait until your body is feeling less stress before you start changing your eating habits. Start by making a plan of how you plan to change your eating habits.

• Decide what foods you want to give up and which foods you want to add to your diet.
• Clean out your cupboards and refrigerator and freezer. Remove the foods you want to stop eating.
• Make a list of foods you want to add to your diet.

Concentrate on eating a healthy diet, not on losing weight. Concentrate on eating foots low in fat and sugar and high in nutrients:

• Vegetables and fruits
• Dry beans
• Grains products
• Lean meats, fish and poultry
• Lowfat foods

Tips to Keep the Weight Off

Quitting smoking and weight gain results are usually caused by munching on food when you have a cigarette craving. A craving only lasts for five to ten minutes. You can get past the craving if you act quickly and substitute a health movement or something to chew for the craving. For example:

• Snack on fruits or vegetables. Keep ready-to-eat carrots, jicama, grapes and celery in the refrigerator at home and in a plastic bag when you are on the go.
• Chew sugarless gum
• Suck on sugarless candy
• Sip water with lemon
• Get up and walk around
• Keep your hands busy
• Drink less caffeine
• Consider nicotine replacement. Some former prescription-only nicotine replacements are available now over-the-counter.

6 Tips - For Kicking Bad Habits

Eating all things in your line of sight because you just quit smoking? Drinking more coffee to try and slow down your overeating? Biting off people's heads in the morning because you've quit drinking coffee? When kicking bad habits, sometimes we "bite off more than we can chew." Whether you are trying to quit smoking, drinking, gambling or trying to eat better, kicking bad habits is a difficult and emotional process.

"New Year's Resolutions are a great motivator to shed unwanted weight, quit smoking or start spending more time with your family....But often, we see people take the 'cold turkey' approach to kicking a bad habit, which is not the most effective or healthy way of changing unwanted behaviors. In fact, this can often lead to new unwanted behaviors that take the place of the old ones." says Dr. Jeffrey Wilkins, Director of Addiction Medicine in the Thalians Department of Psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Defining goals and setting realistic time-lines for kicking habits is the key to changing unwanted behaviors like smoking, overeating and caffeine addiction. While cigarette smoking is a habit that many people prefer to stop "cold turkey," for many other habits this approach can be a set-up for failure because our mind and body are not programmed to adjust so quickly to abrupt changes.

Consistent with the results of scientific studies, Dr. Wilkins recommends the following tips to help identify, plan and eventually kick bad habits for a healthier, happier New Year:

1. Define your goals and then commit yourself to achieving them. People who acknowledge that they need to make a change in their life are more likely to achieve that change than those individuals who think that they may, or may not, have a problem. Taking active steps towards making that change (i.e., joining a self-help group) will move you closer to success in kicking the habit. Change is not easy and requires commitment. As a start, by defining your specific behavior goals, you can begin tailoring your activities and attitudes accordingly.



2. Don't do it alone. Get help. If you choose to discuss your goals with others, choose people who want you to succeed. Quitting bad habits is hard enough without having to watch the people near you enjoying what you have now deprived yourself of. If you want to quit smoking and your spouse is still smoking, your goal will be significantly more challenging. Find someone with the same goals, who wants to kick the same habit. Find support from friends, family, colleagues, or professional support groups.



3. Establish clear and realistic sub-goals and timelines. Rome was not built in a day - if it was that easy to kick a bad habit, we simply wouldn't have bad habits. Chart your progress in a diary or calendar that outlines a realistic amount of time to eliminate the bad habit. If you are drinking 5 cups of coffee in the morning and have a goal of cutting down to one, give yourself a few weeks to achieve this (i.e., one cup less a week). The first big hurdle is to achieve 90-days of the target behavior.



4. Add, don't just subtract. Add competing desirable behaviors to compensate for the elimination of bad habits. We often need something to take the place of a habit to help us maintain focus to successfully kick a habit. By replacing bad habits with positive ones, like exercise, meditation, time with family, healthier foods and activities, you are less likely to replace old bad habits with new bad habits.



5. Allow for some slippage - but not constant slippage. If you have decided to give up sweets to lose a few pounds or protect against cavities, but decide to have a bit of your aunt's famous cheesecake, this is not an excuse to give up your goals and keep going. Plan ahead and set limits for yourself.



6. Reward yourself! Continue to acknowledge and reward yourself for the "baby-steps" you take in kicking a bad habit. Let the people around you reward your success and cheer you on the next step. This can be accomplished by setting up a "success amount" that continues to reward you as you continue to succeed. For example, you can treat yourself to a desired CD for every week of success and a DVD player for achieving 90-days of maintaining a target behavior. If you are going to buy these things anyway, you might as well do it in a way that helps you with your life goals.

Want success? Quit those annoying habits

Author and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith says one flaw could easily hold back your career

What Got You Here Won't Get You There

Turns out I'm even more annoying than I thought.

If you were to come to me with a really cool idea, here's how I would react. "That's a really cool idea," I would say. "But what if you also did this? Have you thought about doing that?"

And then, in a stream of consciousness that would impress even Virginia Wolfe, I would tell you about some people you should really get together with.

I would go into great detail about a similar project that I did years ago. A website that's well worth checking out.

An article you should read that ran a few months back in Atlantic Monthly. Or was it The New Yorker?

For all these years, I assumed this was actually helpful and appreciated. That I was being useful and adding real value.

But no. Turns out I have one of the 20 most common workplace habits in need of breaking before it breaks my career.

While I think I'm doing you a real favour by splashing and rooting around in my fountain of knowledge, you're thinking what a jerk.

Your idea is now our idea. And all your passion and enthusiasm has just been sucked out of the room.

My suggestions may have improved your work by all of 5 per cent.

Your commitment to executing your idea has fallen 50 per cent or crashed and burned altogether.

"That's the fallacy of added value," says executive coach and author Marshall Goldsmith.

"Whatever we gain in the form of a better idea is lost many times over in our employees' diminished commitment to the concept."

So what should I do?

Goldsmith has a simple suggestion. When someone presents a really cool idea, I should say, "Hey, that's a really cool idea". And then I should just shut up.

Now how about those other 19 annoying habits of highly successful people? There's the need to win all the time. Passing judgment. Making destructive comments. Leading off every conversation with a no, but or however. Telling the world how smart you are. Speaking when angry.

Being negative and explaining why pretty much everything you haven't thought of won't work.

Withholding information. Failing to give proper recognition. Claiming credit that's undeserved. Making excuses. Clinging to the past. Playing favourites. Refusing to express regret.

Not listening. Failing to express gratitude. Punishing the messenger.

Passing the buck. Having an excessive need to be all about me. And an unhealthy obsession with goals, where we get so wrapped up in achieving our goal that we lose sight of a larger mission and forget our manners.

Why do otherwise bright people do such dumb things?

Goldsmith says it's easy to get deluded and blinded by success. We overestimate our strengths, believe we'll always be successful no matter how we behave and completely resist the idea of shoring up our weaknesses and eliminating our annoying habits.

But one flaw could easily prevent your career from being all upwards and onwards.

"All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack of them) become more pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when all things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in how high you go."

The good news is there's an easy way to break these bad habits if you have the will. Just stop doing whatever is driving folks around you nuts.

"Given the choice between becoming a nicer person and ceasing to be a jerk, which do you think is easier to do? The former requires a concerted series of positive acts of commission. The latter is nothing more than an act of omission."

So instead of drawing up the usual self-improvement to-do list, start a to-stop list. With Goldsmith's help, you'll know exactly what behaviours to look for.