One of the biggest obstacles that stands in between smokers and quitting is the fear of weight gain.
Past research highlights an average weight gain of 11 pounds for each person who decides to quit smoking. This level of weight gain has its own health implications, including increased risk for obesity, which can then lead to onset of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.
But what if there was a way to stop smoking without the risk of weight gain?
How Nicotine Impacts Weight Gain
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), nicotine’s precise effects on body weight is still not fully understood. Studies show that use of nicotine may have the ability to act as a type of appetite suppressant, reducing cravings and increasing the person’s metabolism.
However, what is known is that nicotine acts on the human brain and central nervous system to control how certain receptors work. This lowers resting metabolic rate and reduces the body’s expectation for additional calories through food. In essence, more energy is burned, but the body does not increase its hunger sensations correspondingly. This causes weight loss. This would make nicotine a valuable weight loss tool if it weren’t for its dangerous side effects.
Vaping Versus Smoking: What is the Real Difference?
While vaping has become increasingly popular stateside and internationally, both for current and former smokers and for non-smokers, many enthusiasts still don’t fully understand the benefits of vaping versus smoking.
Smoking is known to release thousands of toxic chemicals in addition to nicotine as the lit cigarette burns. With vaping, however, the “smoke” actually comes from vaporized liquid, and that liquid typically includes just four (not thousands of) components.
A recent study published by the journal of Nicotine and Tobacco Research highlights the potential for vaping to help current and former smokers control their weight.
One of the most helpful innovations vaping offers that smoking traditional cigarettes cannot is the use of vape mods. A vape mod allows you to control how much of the liquid gets vaporized during a vaping session.
Even more helpful is that vaping offers both nicotine-based and non-nicotine-based liquids to further control the amount of nicotine taken in during any vaping session.
How Vaping Can Help Smokers Stop Without Gaining Weight
When you put these two helpful changes together, it is clearer how vaping can be a lifeline for smokers who want to quit smoking traditional cigarettes. The smoker can switch to vaping and begin reducing their nicotine dose by changing how much nicotine is in the e-liquid they use.
For some sessions, the smoker can use nicotine liquid, and for some sessions they can vape flavored liquid that has no nicotine, which still gives them the sensation of smoking without all the dangerous side effects.
In time, the smoker can even transition away from using nicotine entirely during vaping sessions. Then all they are inhaling is food-grade e-liquid that is pleasant but has no caloric impact.
In this way, two essential health goals can be accomplished. The former smoker can transition away from the use of traditional cigarettes entirely. Also, the former smoker can quit smoking without gaining any of the traditional post-smoking weight.
By understanding how vaping works, the different vaping options and what makes it different from smoking traditional cigarettes, you can find new hope to quit smoking forever.