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?