Gaining weight when you quit smoking is not unusual, but it is not unavoidable. There is no rule that you must gain weight when you stop smoking.

Keep these tips in mind to avoid gaining weight, but remember that if you put on a few pounds in the first weeks after you stop smoking, the benefits of quitting outweigh a minor weight gain.

• Pay attention to mindless eating. Keep a food diary if it helps you monitor snacks. Don’t eat more food to compensate for smoking.
• Use an alternative mouth filler. Chew on gum, mints, licorice (but watch the calories) celery, baby carrots, toothpicks, or anything else healthy that will keep your mouth busy.
• Get moving. Feel the urge for a smoke? Take a walk instead. Take a cell phone with you and call a friend or family member. Not only can you get some positive reinforcement and exercise, but you will have something to hold in your hand instead of a cigarette.

If you need another reason to quit smoking, do it for the health of your family, friends, and coworkers.

Strong, long-term evidence shows that breathing secondhand smoke from other people’s cigarettes or cigars is as dangerous to your health as smoking yourself.

Secondhand smoke consists of sidestream smoke (the smoke that floats your way from the smoker’s cigarette) and mainstream smoke (the smoke that hits your face when a smoker exhales).

Research into the negative effects of secondhand smoke continues, but consistent exposure to secondhand smoke has been associated with an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and lung disease. In addition, family members of smokers often suffer from less serious but bothersome chronic health problems including chronic coughing, eye and nose irritation, tooth decay, and breathing problems.

Specific studies in children have shown that children who live in a home with a smoker may be more likely to suffer from asthma or ear infections. And women who continue to smoke during pregnancy may be increasing the baby’s risk of low birth weight, which can contribute to a range of growth and development problems in infants.

If you are trying to quit smoking or have recently quit, preserve your health by avoiding others who smoke and by avoiding smoky places. Fortunately, a series of regulations have banned smoking in public places such as office buildings, stadiums and airports, as well as in bars and restaurants.

Some cigar smokers may believe that cigar smoking doesn’t carry the same risk as cigarette smoking. Not true. There is no safe type or level of tobacco that doesn’t harm your health.

If you smoke cigars regularly, you are increasing your risk for mouth and throat cancer. And you put others at risk if you smoke cigars. The secondhand smoke from cigars is as dangerous as the secondhand smoke from cigarettes—any tobacco smoke increases the risk of heart disease and lung cancer in people who are exposed to it regularly.

Smokeless tobacco products (chewing tobacco, snuff, or betel quid) aren’t risk free, either. These products contain nicotine, so they are just as addictive as cigarettes. Although these products don’t carry the same risk for lung disease because they are chewed or sucked rather than smoked, they cause health problems ranging from yellow teeth, cavities, and gum disease to potentially fatal cancers of the mouth and throat.

In addition, using smokeless tobacco products increases your heart rate and blood pressure, which in turn can increase your risk of a heart attack, and smokeless tobacco users are more likely to have unhealthy cholesterol than people who don’t use these products.

If you are trying to stop smoking cigarettes, neither cigars nor smokeless tobacco products are healthier alternatives, so don’t bother to try them. Instead, talk to your doctor about other strategies to help you quit and regain your health.

It’s not easy to quit smoking, even if you want to, but women have some extra incentives to quit. For starters, women who smoke are significantly more likely to develop heart disease compared with nonsmoking women. Some women who smoke don’t want to quit because they are afraid that they will gain weight, but studies have found no significant difference in average weight between women who smoke, women who have never smoked, and women who smoked and then quit.

In addition, consider these top three reasons to quit smoking:

• Save your skin. Smoking accelerates your skin’s aging process, and these changes are permanent. Smoking shrinks the blood vessels in the outer layer of your skin, which deprives the skin of healthy nutrients. Smoking also damages the collagen that gives your skin its firmness. So, if you smoke, you are inviting sagging skin and wrinkles sooner than women who don’t smoke.
• Keep your birth control safe. Women who smoke and also use hormonal oral contraceptives are at increased risk for heart disease and stroke (a rare but worrisome side effect of oral contraceptives). Women who use oral contraceptives but don’t smoke are at much less risk for these rare side effects.
• Protect your pregnancy. Smoking (and exposure to secondhand smoke) has been associated with an increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

If you are a parent of teenagers or you have teenagers in your life, you will contribute to their current and future health by taking advantage of opportunities to reinforce messages about the dangers of smoking-- that includes cigarettes, cigars, or smokeless tobacco products.

Although children and teens get the message in school and through media that smoking is unhealthy, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that thousands of American teens start smoking every day, and many of them continue smoking as adults, which increases their risk of developing cancer and cardiovascular disease later in life. Also, CDC studies have show that teens who smoke are more likely to consume alcohol, use illegal drugs, and engage in risky sex behaviors than teens who don’t smoke.

Keep these points in mind when talking to teens about not smoking:

• Don’t judge. If the teen has tried a cigarette once or twice, don’t condemn his or her behavior, but emphasize the importance of not smoking, and ask about how it made them feel and listen to what they say about why they would or would not be tempted to smoke again. Remind them that they don’t have to smoke because their friends do.
• Don’t smoke. Be a role model. If you smoke, try to quit, or at least cut back, and let the teens in your life know that you are trying to quit for your health and theirs.
• Reinforce reasons not to smoke. Remind teens that smoking will have a negative impact on sports performance, and that smoking is bad for their skin and hair, not to mention the unappealing smell. If your teen does smoke, encourage and support him or her in efforts to quit. Check out keepkidsfromsmoking.com for more information about how to talk to children and teens about not smoking.

Many people who are trying to quit smoking find nicotine replacement therapy helpful. Nicotine is the substance in cigarettes and other forms of tobacco that makes these products addictive. Using a nicotine replacement product can help you quit smoking by gradually reducing the nicotine you put into your body so that you no longer crave it.

Nicotine replacement products include the following:

• Nicotine patch. The patch works by delivering a steady amount of nicotine into your body through a patch that you stick onto your skin (the location is up to you).
• Nicotine gum. When you chew nicotine gum, you absorb nicotine into your bloodstream through the lining of your mouth, so it is not a good choice if you wear dentures or have some sort of dental bridge or other dental complications.
• Nicotine spray. Nicotine sprays are only available via prescription from your doctor. The spray comes in a pump bottle that you inhale when you feel the urge for a cigarette. The inhalers are not recommended for anyone with sinus problems, asthma, or allergies.
• Nicotine inhaler. As is the case with the spray, a nicotine inhaler is a prescription-only item that must be used according to your doctor’s instructions. The inhaler delivers vaporized nicotine into your mouth, but the nicotine doesn’t enter the lungs the way it does when you smoke a cigarette.

According to the National Cancer Institute, nearly 30 percent of all cancer-related deaths in the U.S. each year are directly linked to cigarette smoking. But even if you have been a smoker for decades, you can quit immediately and you will still reduce your risk for developing cancer compared with someone who continues to smoke. Studies have shown that if a smoker quits before age 50, his or her risk of dying will be roughly equivalent to a non-smoker by the time he or she is 64 years old.

Quitting smoking has health benefits no matter how old you are. Of course you will reduce your risk of developing cancer by even more if you can quit smoking as soon as possible, but even older adults can improve their health because the benefits of quitting smoking start immediately. Your circulation will improve as soon as you stop smoking and the level of carbon monoxide in your blood will start to decline.

Also, your pulse and blood pressure will improve, and you will likely notice a more sensitive sense of taste and smell within days after you stop smoking.

Your risk of developing cancer and your risk of early death as a result of smoking depend to a great extent on how many years you have been smoking and how much you smoke. But if you quit now, you will reduce your risk of lung cancer by 30 percent to 50 percent after 10 years, compared with someone who has continued to smoke. If you have been a heavy smoker (multiple packs of cigarettes per day) for decades, you are at greater risk than someone who smokes only at social gatherings, for example. But remember that no amount of smoking is healthy, and even occasional “social smoking” puts your health at risk.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 160,000 men and women die in the U.S. each year from cardiovascular disease that was associated with smoking. Smoking remains a leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. If you are middle aged and have no other risk factors for heart disease, the simple fact that you smoke nearly triples your risk of dying from heart disease.

Smoking causes heart problems in several ways including:

• Decreasing HDL cholesterol (that’s the good kind)
• Increasing blood pressure
• Increasing atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the blood vessels.

Consider the following:

• Your lung function can improve by as much as 30 percent within 2 to 3 months of quitting smoking.
• By one year after quitting smoking, your risk of developing coronary heart disease will be down by 50 percent.
• By 15 years after quitting smoking, your additional risk of heart disease will be the same as someone who has never smoked.
• If you are a smoker and you have had a heart attack, you can reduce your risk of a second heart attack by as much as 50 percent if you quit smoking.

When you are trying to quit smoking, look to your family, friends, and health care providers for support. If your family and friends are smokers and are not supportive of your attempts to quit, don’t give up; quit for your own health, and try to inspire others to join you in quitting, too.

A smoking cessation support group can a big difference in your success. Ask your doctor or another health care professional about local support groups, or search online for resources, including websites and blogs where you can post your frustrations, successes, and tips and draw support from the experiences of others who are going through the same process.

Need a place to start?

Try the federal government’s website, smokefree.gov, which includes links to state-based telephone quitlines. Information specialists who staff telephone quitlines can provide support and direct you to additional resources.

In addition, talk to your doctor or to friends and family members about what triggers your smoking. Do you smoke when you are bored, stressed, happy, angry, or frustrated? Think about alternative ways to cope with these situations and feelings.

Also, discuss what to expect as you try to quit. People who are trying to quit smoking may become especially angry or irritable, so it helps to prepare your family and friends in advance and ask for their patience and help.