Category: Healthylife® QuitWell™

What you eat or drink and how you eat or drink can influence your urges for tobacco products. By working on quitting, you are taking an important step to manage what goes into your body.

*  Drink at least 8 glasses of low-sugar, natural liquids per day: water, herbal tea, sparkling water. This will make you feel less hungry and give your body the water it needs to function. Water is important for clearing toxins from the body.

*  Eat small, nutrient-dense meals and snacks throughout the day. This will help your blood sugar and energy stay steady and avoid feeling too tired during the day. You will also get the fuel your body needs.

*  Eat protein as part of all meals and most snacks: lean meats, fish, poultry, low-fat cheese, nut butters, nuts, and seeds. These foods are full of nutrients and help give you even energy throughout the day. They are also filling, so you will find you don’t reach for as many snacks.

*  Eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, and salads. These foods are filling, vitamin-rich, and low in calories.

*  Eat foods high in calcium, such as dairy or calcium-fortified juice. Smoking can add to your chances of having brittle bones, so extra calcium may be needed.

*  Avoid high sugar foods. Look at food labels to spot added sugars. “Sweets” are not the only culprit! Cutting out added sugar helps prevent your blood sugar from going too high or too low. Low blood sugar can trigger an urge.

*  Cut down on coffee, tea, colas, and other caffeinated drinks. These drinks are often tied to a smoking habit. Cutting out caffeine, even temporarily, while you are quitting, can help reduce urges.

*  Avoid alcohol. Alcohol causes blood sugar to rise. Your habit may also be linked to drinking habits. Alcohol can lessen your desire to quit in the moment.

*  After eating, brush your teeth and rinse with mouthwash. The minty fresh taste in your mouth won’t go well with tobacco. It also helps scramble your old routine, if you smoked after a meal.

Quitting is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Quitting tobacco/nicotine can lead to changes in your weight. There are ways you can manage your weight, as you are quitting and afterwards. You may even find that you lose weight over time as you adopt more healthy habits.

The average person who quits gains 5 to 10 pounds in the months after quitting. This can happen for several reasons.

*  Nicotine has been speeding up your metabolism while you’ve been using tobacco/nicotine products. This means that your body was burning energy (fuel from food) faster. When you quit, your metabolism returns to normal.

*  Nicotine has been raising your blood sugar and interfering with your body’s natural hunger cues. This is the main way that nicotine suppresses your appetite. Now that you are quitting, cravings for sweets may increase as your blood sugar drops. Plan for regular, healthy meals and snacks to help you feel better and avoid eating too many high-sugar foods.

*  You may feel a strong urge to have something else in your mouth, leading to more snacking. If these are high calorie foods that are high in sugar or saturated fat, you are likely to gain weight.

The QuitWell™ program will teach you how to avoid gaining too much weight after quitting. Read on to learn ways to manage urges with food and ways to plan your eating with your health in mind.

Over the next week, whenever you have an urge, wait 5 minutes before using your tobacco/nicotine product. If, after 5 minutes, the craving is still there, go ahead and have it. If the urge has gone down to the point where you can put it off further, try stretching that 5 minute “time out” to 10 or 15 minutes. You may find that, with time, the craving goes away on its own.

Waiting 5 minutes is like adding a speedbump to your regular routine. When you approach a speedbump, you probably slow down before carefully going over it. Even if you aren’t ready to quit, this helps you flex your muscle of self-control and show yourself that you can put off tobacco if you really want to.

Many people use tobacco to manage stress-and return to old habits in times of stress. If you currently use tobacco/nicotine products to manage stress, it is very likely your mind will go there in times of stress in the future. If you have quit, having a plan for when stress increases will help you from returning to tobacco/nicotine.

What is stress?

Stress is normal and can be a healthy, productive force in your life. Stress can have a good or bad effect on you depending on:

*  The type of stress

*  The amount of stress

*  How well you deal with stress

“Good” stress can help you pay attention, stay focused, feel challenged, stay interested, and complete tasks.

“Bad” stress or chronic stress is intense stress over a long period of time. You may not be able to manage this stress as you would like. You tend to stay tense and don’t or can’t relax after things are once again under control. In our modern world, there are many things that can “push your buttons” and stress can become a way of life.

When we have too much stress to manage, our bodies can be more prone to illness-heart disease, cancer, ulcers, asthma, and colitis.

The stress response is the way your body and mind react to change. Our bodies have an inborn “fight or flight” response to a stressor:

*  Heart rate and breathing speed up

*  Blood pressure rises

*  Blood moves away from the internal organs to the muscles

*  Muscles tense

*  Sweating occurs

*  Blood sugar (glucose) increase which gives the muscles and brain a lift

Create Your Stress Strategy

1. Explore what causes you stress and how you react to these stressors.

2. Identify stressors that can be reduced.

3. Learn tools to reduce the feeling of stress, even with the same trigger.

4. Learn ways to manage the stress that remains.

Know Your Stressors

Everyone reacts differently to stress. In order to manage stress, you need to find out the source of your stress and how you react to it.

1. Look at the list that follows and think about stressors in your life. Check off any that apply to you right now or that are common stressors for you. Knowing your stressors will help you better prepare for triggers.

2. In the space next to each, write how you react to these stressors. What do you do? How do you feel?

There are medications available to help you quit. Some of them contain nicotine and some do not. The idea behind nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is that by replacing the nicotine with nicotine in another form, one can focus on becoming comfortable with the new behavior with less withdrawal/symptoms. Then, later, the nicotine can be cut down in a systematic way. Studies have shown that users of NRT are about twice as likely to quit tobacco.

You should check with your doctor before using these products if you are:

*  Younger than 18

*  Pregnant or nursing

*  Have heart disease or had a recent heart attack

*  Have high blood pressure not controlled by medication

*  Take insulin for diabetes

*  Have a stomach ulcer

Always follow the instructions for NRT carefully to avoid complications. Any questions that you have about the products should be addressed with your doctor or pharmacist.

Common side effects of NRT include nervousness, a racing heart, dizziness, headache, and nausea. These are caused by the nicotine and may be a sign of too much nicotine. If you have any of these symptoms, cut back on the total nicotine you are getting. Chew less gum or use your inhaler less frequently, for example. Avoid smoking, dipping, or vaping while using NRT.

A rare, but dangerous complication is nicotine overdose. Symptoms include a racing heart, headache, weakness, dizziness, nausea and/or vomiting, and cold sweats. If you are having symptoms like these, get immediate medical attention.