The average smoker would have to gain over 75 to 100 pounds to put the additional workload on the heart that is experienced by smoking, and this is not saying anything about the smoking cancer risk. But for esthetic and emotional reasons, allowing uncontrolled eating and the inevitable weight gain is a mistake that will often undermine the quitting process. Discouragement over appearance can cause some to return to smoking. Then the smoker has the additional problem of the extra weight combined with smoking. Sometimes the weight does not automatically disappear by simply relapsing back to smoking.
Weight gain following smoking cessation can be due to several factors.
Smoking can have an effect on a person's metabolism and thus quitting can account for a small weight gain in some individuals. Gains of 5 to 10 pounds over a number of months can be attributed to metabolic alterations in some individuals. But once weight gain exceeds 10 pounds, other factors are more probably responsible. Snacking between meals or increasing the overall size of meals, can easily result in the consuming of several hundred extra calories per day. Eating just an additional 100 calories a day will result in a one pound fat gain in just over a month, 10.4 pounds in one year, and an extra 104 pounds in ten years.