Buy Walking VideosDoes Smoking Make You Thin?
The advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes says:
To keep a slender figure
No one can deny…
Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.
Is it true? Does smoking make you thin?
Almost a year ago, there was news of a study that researched that:
Researchers conducted the study on mice over seven weeks. Half the mice were exposed to smoke from four cigarettes a day for six days a week, while the other half were smoke free.
The study found smokers lost muscle mass, which gave them the appearance of being thinner, but the fat instead was stored around their vital organs.
I don’t know about clinical research, but I can tell you that when I was in college, I decided to try smoking to lose weight. I didn’t lose weight. I got bronchitis and I realized that if I kept smoking, I would feel like that ALL the time. So I quit. While I was quitting, I gained ten pounds.
Smoking made me GAIN ten pounds.
What about you? I remember my girlfriends telling me that if I just smoked, I would lose weight. Is it just me? Does ANYONE lose weight by taking up smoking?
Photo via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1930s Luck Strike cigarette ad promises you’ll “keep a slender figure”
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June 14th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I don’t smoke it just kills your your taste buds but many smokers still over eat. It also ages you.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
The reason people say that smoking helps people stay thin is because it acts as an appetite depressant. When you quit smoking you still have the oral addiction of putting something in your mouth and most of us will put food there instead of a cigarette. My suggestion would be to replace the habit with something less harmful. When you get the fixation, pop a piece of gum in your mouth instead of food.
It worked for me and everyone I have suggested this too
June 25th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Well I might be the exception to the rule, but I have to throw this in. I picked up smoking again 4 months ago(quit 6 years ago). I went from 223 pounds to 190 in 4 months. No increased exercise It did however make my urge for alcohol a lot less, so I went down to drinking 2-4 beers a week from about 20. So I’m not sure that smoking makes you loose weight, but if smoking curbs your appetite for alcohol, and causes you to eat less as well then the side effects of smoking would cause you to loose weight. As for the long term health risks are they greater for a smoker or an obese person? My guess is probably the latter
July 20th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
The reason smoking helps people lose weight is because:
1.) Nicotine represses hunger
2.) Food tastes like crap when your taste buds are burned
3.) Nicotine keeps food in your stomach longer
4.) Keeps your hands and mouth busy
5.) Makes it harder to breath so your body has to use more energy to perform this simple function
September 8th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
yea.. NO! I assume that being in the fitness biz you are talking a bit tongue in cheek in asking the question. Besides all the obvious health issues with taking up smoking, the mere fact that you are going to kill yourself with cigs might be one way to consider at least the eventual weight loss advantage of smoking.
November 27th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
We are all going to die one way or the other
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
well smoking does make me hungry but i would only eat a little then i’ll get bored of the food and just sleep(sleeping burns a little calories)i only consume a bag of chips and i would get full already and smoking makes my desire for drinking soda decrease.
March 1st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
smoking kills
dont do it.
July 19th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Talk about double standards! Americans are so god damned focused on smoking, how unhealthy it is etc. however, consuming the fried flesh of animals being brought up in the smallest spaces eating hormone treated, WRONG dry foods, THAT is OK. Tsk.. I’d smoke a cigarette any day before I’d eat a meat from the US!
July 19th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Oh, and to Amanda:
Smoking is an ADDICTION, not a mere habit. Sure, you adopt habitual rituals that make it harder to quite, but the reason people keep smoking is that nicotine is an ADDICTIVE DRUG.
October 11th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
It’s funny…do a search for “smoking to lose weight”. The question is always asked, like it is here, “Does/can smoking help you lose weight?”. The answers however, are all like “OMG smoking is bad for u!!” “Don’t smoke it’s a bad habit” “Smoking kills”…etc etc. The question isn’t “Is smoking good for you?”.
I know smoking is bad for me. Duh. However, I want to know if smoking will help a person lose extra weight. Why is it so hard to get a straight answer to that without a lecture on the dangers of smoking?
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am
it actually makes people think that smoking makes people thin.
but we doesnt realize that it reduces our stamina and leads towards death.
January 1st, 2010 at 9:15 am
Hi, I just thought I’d throw in my two cents’ worth. I am not advocating smoking and neither am I suggesting it should be used to lose weight, but simply because it is hazardous for health, people should not deny that it does hep you lose weight. I have gone from long periods of smoking to a non-smoking life according to whatever my lifestyle philosophy was at a given time, and for me at least, smoking made a massive difference to my weight. In fact, it kept me very trim, and this was also the case for fellow smokers. I think any smoker would tell you, it definitely makes you thinner, no question. However, it should never be taken up for this reason because it destroys your body in more ways than one. Would you rather have cancer or be a little chubby? There are healthy ways to lose weight, but yet, there are no healthy methods to beat cancer because the treatment is almost as bad as the disease. Don’t smoke, and before the puritans pounce on me, I enjoyed smoking, I know all about the dangers,but I do so on rare occasions and I will probably stop altogether before I am 35. The rest of you smokers – Set a quit date, from which point you will stop smoking habitually. Remember you can still have the odd cigarette on special occasions – it is habitual smoking that does you in.
January 24th, 2010 at 10:01 am
I wasn’t gonna write any thing But hey, I just thought I’ll leave something before I go.
First of all, well said Ilsa! I totally agree. It does makes you lose weight. I can drop as much as 14 pounds in two weeks! Not that I mean to but hey, you asked, I answered.
I will not repeat why and how it helps you lose weight cause if you even read mine, I figured you have read the rest above.
Plus, as I said, I did not do it to lose weight but sometimes when you’re down, it can be comforting… LOL before all the health freaks out there say anything, I KNOW ITS NOT GOOD ,YES YES and I am not addicted… Just smokes now and then. (When I get into one of those emo mode…)
Why I even read this?
I just wanna know if it does make you thin or it is just me~ Guess not.
April 10th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
To Kylie,
Living itself leads inevitably towards death.
Thank you, Miss Obvious.
Regardless if whether or not smoking helps one to lose weight, perhaps you should reconsider the way that you wish to die. A morbid thought, but we all will, and it would be infinitely preferable (at least in my opinion) to NOT die from lung cancer, which must be embarrassing at the least and extremely painful at the worst. I’m a smoker currently, and almost everyone in my family smokes. However, I think to continue to lose weight I should simply quit cold turkey and diet and exercise. Why shouldn’t that work? I mean, if you really stick to it and don’t cheat.
April 25th, 2010 at 9:43 am
hi..you ask did smoking help to lose weight. YES it does!!
i’m the type of person that only smoke when my mood was down..and i noticed that every time i become active smoker i loose weight fast like 10 pounds in a week.
smoking make your appetite drops, and prevent you from feeling hunger. but it just temporary..like a yoyo..when you quite smoking your weight will rise up again sometimes double.
my suggest is better not rely on smoke,i did it not because of the lose weight thing “it’s for comfort”
July 1st, 2010 at 10:43 am
Maybe smoking regulates people’s eating, thats all I notice most of the time. I’ve been smoking for over a year, haven’t noticed any loss of weight, but I can’t gain weight, not sure if this is from smoking. Probably depends on the person. Either way smoking rocks, is one of Canada’s largest manufacturing businesses, is one of the Canadian government’s biggest tax revenue and it keeps me happy (well along with a little green). What I want to know is why non-smokers always need to put their nose in our business…
“it actually makes people think that smoking makes people thin.
but we doesnt realize that it reduces our stamina and leads towards death.”
And yes sounds like ya got that straight from a medical class, nice spelling, shows how reliable you are, along with your little speach. By the way, how would it even be possible to prove this? Overall, I’d say theres more overweight non-smokers than smokers, but I guess that would contradict your idealistic knowledge on smoking…
Also smoking has been proven more often than not to reduce the chance of alzheimers and other dimensia greatly, The average lung cancer patient lives to around 68 (9 years less than average). And theres only around a 20% chance of a smoker getting cancer. You do the math, meanwhile I’ll stick to smoking.
August 15th, 2010 at 8:30 am
Yes, smoking can help you lose weight and keep extra weight off. There are healthier alternatives to name-brand smokes, there are electronic cigarettes which I prefer and there are natural tobaccos without extra additives.
Smoking can help you lose weight, as can drinking a lot more water. Water is calorie-free and you burn a lot of calories digesting it – especially if it’s ice cold. Water also flushes toxins out of the body, which in some cases, can actually make you retain weight.
People who don’t smoke should get off their high horses. If you don’t like it, don’t befriend smokers and stay away from them. Are you fat? Do you never shower? Are you a party ho? Do you have road rage? Are you a work-a-holic? Those things could kill you, too. Anything in EXCESS can kill you. Breathing in car exhaust or living in the city isn’t any healthier for you, but I don’t see people handing out free bikes to car drivers!
Either way, we’re all going to die some time. Not all smokers get cancer and it’s stupid to say they do. 90% of the people I know who have had cancer were not smokers. My grandmother smoked for 65 years and finally died at 90 because of her doctor messing up her medications, not because she smoked 2-3 packs a day.