Can vaping help you lose weight?

How does Nicotine effect the body’s metabolism?

How quitting smoking could cause weight gain

How does Vaping affect your weight?

How does Nicotine effect the body’s metabolism? | How quitting smoking could cause weight gain | How does Vaping affect your weight?

Nicotine and Your Metabolism

Nicotine plays a part with the body’s metabolic rate, which is fairly important when it comes to maintain weight. If you didn’t already know, you’re probably asking yourself how Nicotine can affect the body’s metabolism, and it’s quite simple really:

Studies have shown that Nicotine does in fact speed up a person’s metabolic rate which would mean they would not gain weight easily and they’d use more energy and burn calories quicker as stated above.

If you have a high metabolic rate, your body will use more energy in a quicker fashion than someone who has a slow metabolism, and this has a large contributing factor on your weight as a whole. A lot of factors can lead to what your body’s metabolic rate is, such as height, weight, gender, age etc so everybody’s is different. But Nicotine doesn’t just affect metabolism, it can also affect the brain with the release of some endorphins. I’ll explain below:

Inhale

When you inhale on a cigarette or an e-cigarette, you will ingest Nicotine which your body will absorb

The Kick

The nicotine then gives a “kick” to your Adrenal glands causing them to become stimulated.

Adrenaline

This will release a small amount of adrenaline through the body. And then causes a chain reaction within the body by increasing heart rate, blood pressure and the rate of breathing.

Dopamine

Whilst delivering this kick, it also indirectly releases a small amount of dopamine to the pleasure and motivation parts of the human brain.

So now we’ve established how Nicotine affects the metabolism of the body, how can quitting smoking be associated with a gain in weight? Let’s find out…

Quitting Smoking and Weight Gain

Nicotine is an addictive substance, and unfortunately does come with some withdrawal symptom side effects if someone was to stop smoking and not use any form of nicotine replacement therapy.

There are several different side effects associated to Nicotine withdrawals, but one of the most common side effects people may find is they experience weight gain, which is due to an increase in appetite.

As well as all of the above that Nicotine acts as, it also acts as an appetite suppressant believe it or not! But how does it do it?

Where nicotine travels on the pathway to your brain to release the dopamine I mentioned above, it also drifts off to the part of your brain that’s linked to appetite and helps keep those cravings for food down and suppress appetite.

So if a person had opted to not use a nicotine replacement therapy tool, and going cold turkey, nicotine will not be present to aid in suppression of the appetite.

It’s also reported that people who quit smoking will try and replace the habit of smoking with something different, and weirdly enough, the dopamine that’s released into the brain by ingesting nicotine is also the same dose as what is released when eating satisfying food. So replacing the nicotine with that goes hand in hand really don’t you think?

So how does Vaping affect your weight?

Using a vape as a nicotine replacement therapy tool has now become the most popular option amongst people who are wanting to quit smoking, with the amount of adult E-cigarette users in the UK now sitting at an all time high. And this is thanks to our GPs and Stop Smoking services backing the use of e-cigarettes to help people quit smoking.

When you quit smoking and start vaping, you will want to make sure you’re using e-liquids that contain the right amount of nicotine in suited to how many cigarettes you smoked in a day. This way, your body is still getting the nicotine it’s previously been accustomed to, and you won’t be facing any of the withdrawal symptoms.

With your body still receiving the nicotine from your vape juice, you will find your metabolism should remain the same as when you smoked, and not endure the sudden weight gain that you may incur if you were to stop nicotine all together.

Conclusion

The question of can vaping help with weight loss is a bit of an open ended question, but I personally believe it can play a part in it for sure. As your metabolism will be a regular rate, and the nicotine will still be working as an appetite suppressant so you shouldn’t see any gain in weight, and with the other correct partners such as a healthy diet and regular exercise, you may see that Vaping can indeed aid in you losing weight.

I would not recommend starting vaping just for weight loss if you are previously not a smoker. Nicotine is an addictive substance, and starting to use vapes just as an appetite suppressant or to help with weight loss could likely result in you creating an unnecessary addiction and dependency on nicotine.