Cessation and Weight Gain

It is very common among people to gain weight very quickly after their cessation program. This is quite often a barrier in quitting, especially among women. Weight gain is very likely after the cessation period and the patients’ concerns regarding it should be addressed or they will get discouraged. Weight gain after cessation is usually 4.5 kg, which is quite moderate. Major weight gain is very uncommon. Just about 10% of the men and 13.5% of the women gain weight more than 13 kg after the cessation period. However, regardless of the weight gain after cessation, there is hardly any relation between relapse and weight gain. In fact, smoking cessation relapse risk is increased by calorific restriction.

The patients should be advised to focus more on making efforts to quit smoking and not on weight control measures. Smoking keeps the weight artificially low and it will come back to normal once the cessation is over. Exercising on a regular basis delays gain in weight and is likely to facilitate short term as well as long term cessation. Some smokers feel that they need some behavioral weight control programs to regulate their weight gain. However, such programs are not known to show any improved cessation rates. Nicotine Replacement Therapy is shown to delay the weight gain once a smoker quits smoking. The limitation of using NRT in this case is that once its usage has ended, the patient will gain the same amount of weight that he would have gained if NRT was never used.

Although it is hard to quit smoking, it is very easy to start smoking again. People who have quit smoking through cessation programs can easily succumb to smoking again, especially in the first few weeks after quitting. If the person wants to quit smoking forever, he needs to be persistent with his efforts. People who stop smoking completely for 3 months or more will definitely live a cigarette free life.

For smokers who think that using light cigarettes will help their health, they are very much mistaken. Light cigarettes will do them no more good than the regular cigarettes. Light cigarettes are normal cigarettes having lower tar and nicotine levels with tiny pinholes on the filters. These holes in the filter tend to dilute the cigarette smoke with air and cause the smoking machines to record artificially lower nicotine and tar levels.