Foods and Diet Tips To Help You Quit Smoking
Quit smoking is a difficult thing to do, but it’s an important step in controlling your health and reducing your risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. Making some changes in the foods you eat may make the process a little easier.
The Link Between Your Eating Habits and Smoking
Cleaning up an unhealthy diet while you quit smoking can seem like a daunting task, but since smoking, food cravings, and simultaneous habits are fairly common, it might be a good idea to spend some time focusing on the foods you eat.
Smoking affects your sense of taste. During the process of quitting smoking, you may find that the taste of food begins to change. This can be a great time to try new, healthy foods and find something you love.
Essentially, a healthy diet means increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein sources, dairy products, or other sources of calcium, and getting healthy fats from nuts, seeds, and olive oil. This also means eating less foods that are high in fat, sugar, sodium, and calories.
Helpful Foods and Diet Tips
It’s impossible to say that eating any particular food will be like a miracle drug that eliminates your craving for smoke. But, for better or worse, the habits and environments that trigger your desire to smoke are often intertwined with the foods you eat. For example, if you habitually drink a cup of coffee, eat a donut, or smoke a cigarette in the morning, switching to herbal tea and toast may temper the irritation a bit.
Eat This
- Crunchy veggies
- Peanuts
- Popcorn
- Mints
- Gum
- Fresh fruit
Not That
- Cookies
- Candy
- Deep fried foods
- Alcohol
- Excessive caffeine
Here are more ideas that can help you feel better or change your focus when you feel the need to reach for a cigarette.
- Develop a regular eating pattern and avoid skipping meals. The feeling of hunger may make you want to smoke a cigarette, but if you stick to healthy meals with two or three small snacks, you can avoid it. The added benefit is that it can help you control your weight.
- Eat raw carrots or celery. Eating something crunchy will distract your mouth. Plus, since these vegetables are low in calories, they don’t increase your waistline. Don’t like carrots and celery? It’s okay to eat raw broccoli, cauliflower, or thinly sliced chili peppers. If you want extra flavor, add a little light vegetable dip or condiment.
- Prepare mints or gum and pick it up whenever you want to eat it.
- Make popcorn – but don’t add extra butter. Popcorn is fiber-rich, low in calories, and it keeps your hands busy. If popcorn looks dull and unscented, try spraying it with a butter-flavored or olive-oil-flavored spray and adding herbal seasonings, garlic, onion powder, or a little paprika.
- If you like to eat sweets, then fresh fruits such as oranges, pears, apples and bananas are good choices. They are sweet, but they are also rich in vitamins, antioxidants and fiber. This is important because antioxidants and vitamin C are consumed by smoking.
One study found that, according to many smokers, eating meat made cigarettes taste better. Reducing your meat intake may make it easier to stick to your determination to quit smoking.
Smoking Cessation and Weight Gain
As you adjust to living without cigarettes, your body will experience some changes. One of the changes may be an increase in your appetite. When you want to increase your intake of healthy foods, you may need to pay attention to your calorie intake so that excess weight doesn’t build up.
All of the advice presented here is great for weight loss, but beyond that, you may find zero-calorie chewing gum, mints, and sweets in your pocket in case you want to smoke. Starting a light exercise routine can also help.
A Word From GetHealthyPoint
Quitting smoking is hard, but improving your diet at the same time may help you. Remember, it takes some time to turn your old habits into healthy new ones. If you make a mistake, don’t blame yourself. Live every day.
