Hi! :) I quit smoking 11 days ago....need support, please.

Hello.
The issue with smoking cessation and weight gain is that it's not normally directly caused by the avoidance of tobacco products. In fact, it's people eating more to compensate or eating more because they've read somewhere that stopping smoking causes weight gain and therefore is used as an excuse (subconsciously or not) to eat unhealthy foods and make bad dietary decisions - the 'Ah, what the heck? I'm going to gain weight anyway' mentality.

Instead of eating more, you need to find something else to fill the void left by quitting smoking. Occupy yourself by reading, taking walks or doing some medium-high intensity exercise at home. Look for new ways to enjoy yourself. As you've made the (superb) decision to quit smoking, you'll find your breathing begins to improve quite radically over the next year. The timescale for improvement in lung performance is typically up to the 9 months mark but I've found it takes a year to get the full benefit.

Due to the improved cardiac performance you'll find you will eventually be able to do more and more cardio based exercise without feeling exhausted. Start off with waking and slowly increase the intensity (pace and inclination) and amount of time. The endorphins and chemicals released when exercising can leave you feel a lot better than a smelly, pointless cigarette. Most of the pleasurable effects of smoking are actually psychological. The pleasurable effects of exercise are both chemical/physical and psychological.

Remember that by now, the Nicotine will be completely out of your system. This means that any withdrawal will be almost entirely psychological - in your mind. Therefore you need to focus on distracting yourself to relieve the psychological cravings. Although the worst of the physical withdrawal is now over, the modified receptors in your Brain may need up to 8 weeks to "calm down". Following the 8 week mark, you're over the worst.

You may know all this. You may not care. The point I'm trying to make is that it's pretty much all psychological at this stage. Now you've quit one of the most unhealthy vices to have, you can focus on getting that whole lot fitter as well as fighting off the cravings by exercising at eating wholesome, healthy foods.

There are several apps that are great for this, too! Eleven days is awesome, too, yay you
The apps I've seen will tell you all the good ways your body has changed in just these 11 days, plus all the money you've saved, etc... Good luck to you! And I second (and third) all those that say take advantage of your improving lung function by moving more. Walk off cravings?

I quit smoking 7 years ago and gum and hard candies (especially jolly ranchers) got me through. I know there's sugar in the candies but it still beats mindlessly eating a bag of funyuns or a tub of ice cream!!! Good luck, it's tough but you can do it!!!!

Lori, I think you're amazing with the changes you've already made. I hope you're successful in staying away from cigarettes.

As posted above, your lung function will slowly improve over the next year or so. I'd suggest some type of cardio excercise, something that places at least a moderate demand on your heart and lungs. That way, as you continue to heal, your capacity, power, speed, and/or endurance will improve and it can help motivate you to stick with it. (It worked for me, anyway.) I like bicycling, but walking, running, swimming, or any number of other exercises will do.

I smoked for about 45 years before I finally quit for good. Over the last twenty years I tried cold turkey, patches, gums, Zyban, and a nicotine inhaler. None of them seemed to work for me until I tried using e-cigarettes fourteen months ago. I haven't had a cigarette since, and I've had less than a handful of urges to deal with. I'm not suggesting that you should switch to e-cigarettes, but if you're unable to make this work, there are other methods.

One more thought: This might be different for you, but I used to use smoking as a means to curb my appetite. When I got hungry I'd light up a cigarette. So it's kind of a double whammy when you quit smoking. Not only do you want to put food in your mouth to fill the cigarette void, but you also want to put food in your mouth because you're hungry and you're no longer using cigarettes to deal with the food urges.

I'm not trying to make excuses for you to eat more. I'm just saying that you have a lot on your plate, and again, I think you're doing an amazing job of dealing with it.

Get an e-cig!! All problems solved:drinker:

Quit a pack a day smoking habit 12 years ago and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Things that helped me were drinking a lot of water, chewing on straws (needed something to replace the tactile feel of holding a cigarette), chewing lots of gum, reading a lot more, and going for walks. Finding something to fill your time in the "cig void" is critical, for me it was going online and doing a lot of reading. Feel free to add me as a friend.

Just wanted to add one more thing I remember from my early days of quitting. There was a woman on my quit-smoking board who talked about how she had used cigarettes as a coping mechanism and, without them, had to learn entirely new ways of managing the stresses and strains of life. That really hit home. I started smoking at 19 and smoked for 19 years. When I quit (cold turkey except for the blueberries), I was shocked to discover how angry I got about the littlest thing. It felt like there had been rage bubbling underneath the surface for all those years, and now it was coming out. I didn't really understand until I quit that I was addicted to a drug, and I didn't know how to handle things very well without the drug. So the thing about needing to develop new coping strategies really resonated with me. OP, since you have struggled with other addictions too, this may be even more so in your case. As others have said, it takes a lot of courage to do what you're doing. Stay strong.

+1 on the anger. I made a joke out of it - I called it the "crab fest". Even long after the anger subsided, any time I would get irritated with my husband, I would use the "I just quit smoking" excuse - he would just laugh at me.