What is Less-healthy? being obese or being a "fit" smoker?

I would figure out what is keeping you from getting back on track with your calorie and fitness goals and address that.

You don't have to choose between two unhealthy conditions. There are lots of former smokers here (including me) demonstrating that you can be at your goal weight and also be tobacco-free. It might be "normal" to gain weight when you quit smoking, but that doesn't mean you have to make it your permanent reality.

Smoking, but how about choosing neither to smoke nor to be obese.

Former smoker and former obese person here.

Of the two, smoking was worse for me.

Fortunately, life afforded me the opportunity and time to make the choice to neither smoke or be obese any longer. I think the same will hold true for you too, OP.

It's a false dichotomy you're setting up for yourself. Don't fall for it.

Physically fit long time smoker here.

Neither being obese or smoking is good for you. And often times the two go hand in hand. You can be a fit smoker - its true, but fit doesn't doesn't mean you're healthy. I smoked my whole time in the military and consistently ran sub 35 minute five miles and sub 13 minute 2 miles. I served with a 2 pack a day smoker who had consistent 29 minute 5 mile times.

I would actually argue that being obese is probably worse for your health, not because it is necessarily worse than smoking but because you're less likely to care about getting healthy than a fit smoker. A fit smoker knows they should stop.

I eat right. I lift. I train strongman style cardio. I have cut a ton of weight from my heaviest. I'm not a runner anymore but I can tell you my cardio is great. I could hop on my bike and do 20 miles right now and it would barely phase me. I'm a smoker, but I care that I'm a smoker now. I dont like it. I try to smoke less. Obviously I don't care enough to quit or else i would have by now (no excuses), but i know it's the last thing holding me back from being truly healthy and i hate it. I didn't care when i was obese. I also didn't care when i was in the military because a) I was an alcoholic and b) I was a bit fatalistic. I used the excuse that I half expected my job to kill me so I was going to do what I want. I also used the excuse of "I'm fit as *kitten* so what I smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish." Yeah, smart attitude right?

Nicotine is hard to kick. Damn hard. I know recovered heroin addicts who can't kick smoking.

Bottom line, it should be about health. A fit smoker is better in some regards than an obese non smoker, not in others. An obese smoker is worse off than both.

The thing is, a lot of the damage done by obesity can be reversed, and rather quickly too. The damage done by smoking, a lot of it cant, and what can isn't quick. I could quit smoking now and run/swim/cycle every day for 5 years and my lungs will still not be what they were before I ever touched a cigarette. I have however, cut 60lbs in 5 months, regained all my strength, normalised my heart rate and blood pressure, fixed my blood sugar, etc. In 5 months. See. Quick.

My .02

It's a lot easier to lose weight than to replace a destroyed set of lungs.

For both of these, obesity and smoking, there's a how much/how long set of questions, too.

Morbidly obese is different from BMI 31, though neither one is good for most people (except maybe BMI outliers, blah, blah, blah). Obese for a couple of years or 5 is different from obese for decades.

Similar with smoking: Two or five cigarettes a day is different from 2 packs a day; 2 years is different from 2 decades.

Stopping either or both now would be a really good plan for any and all of us, regardless of how much/how long.

I was obese for decades. Some of those effects are irreversible, even though I've been at a healthy weight for several years now. Blood pressure is great, blood markers great - sure. But some joints are trashed permanently. Last CT scan showed slight aortic calcification: I don't really expect improvement.

BTW, the last decade-ish of obesity, I was pretty fit: RHR in the upper 40s/low 50s, rowing machine race-pace at about the 75-percentile level for my age/open-weight class despite not starting being routinely active until mid-40s, stronger than most women my age, flexible, decent endurance. My blood pressure & cholesterol/triglycerides were still crappy, though. Losing weight fixed the BP/lipids, but my fitness markers haven't changed much (though the lightweight machine rowing class in my age group is a little less competitive, so my unchanged race-pace stacks up a little better, and my boats got faster when I got lighter because of reduced excess cargo. ).

I was never much of a tobacco smoker - maybe 2-3 packs over my whole life, most of that in a couple-year span; no known long-term effects from that. (Lungs looked good on the recent CT, athletic performance is adequate for my age at a CV-intensive sport, etc.) I smoked . . . not tobacco . . . nearly daily for around 20 years; if there are long-term effects from that, they're probably cognitive and hard to sort out from aging, chemobrain, and menopause.

Oh, and: Hypothetical questions are always pointless.

OP, granny says: Take back control. You can, if you decide to. That sense of agency and control is good for a person. It makes other good things seem possible . . . because it actually does make them possible.

We all have circumstances we can't possibly change; no point in fussing about those. The current state of your lungs is one of those. It might improve over the years, or it might not. Let it go. Focus on the things you can influence or control. Your weight (via intake) and activity level are among the things you can control.

Whether you do, or don't: That's a choice.

Doing nothing is making a choice.