Nicotine gives you a small boost of energy, which can mask the signs you need to eat. But, is the addiction to nicotine worth it?
Once you start, tobacco and nicotine addiction becomes very hard to shake off, even when you know you’re inhaling 7,000 chemicals (69 being carcinogenic) with every puff of a cigarette.
While it’s reported that vaping is relatively safer compared to smoking tobacco, is it really practical to use vapes for weight loss? In today’s post, we’ll dig deeper into it.
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Appetite Suppression and Nicotine
Cigarettes and vapes have one thing in common – they both contain nicotine.
Nicotine is highly addictive and potent enough to hijack your body’s internal reward system, and can cause severe withdrawals when you stop using it. A chemical with this habit-forming effect is highly likely to affect your hunger as well.
It’s important to note that nicotine isn’t the dangerous chemical inside cigarettes. While it’s addictive, it doesn’t cause toxic harms to your body – those are caused by the many other chemicals in cigarette smoke, such as carbon monoxide, tar, cadmium, and arsenic.
So, can it suppress your appetite?
One study discovered that by introducing nicotine to the diet of white mice, researchers found that they did not respond to hunger as strongly as their control group that didn’t ingest nicotine.
Combining this fact with how illegal vapes sold in tobacconists and convenience stores have strong, fruity flavours, they can very likely satiate the psychological aspect of eating – similar to chewing gum.
However, it’s not guaranteed that these will suppress your hunger due to the limited studies and data on the phenomenon. What it does guarantee is long-term addiction with continued use.
If you’re not quitting under the guidance of a medical professional using responsible pharmacy vapes, the kilos you’re looking to drop by vaping may come at the cost of having a crippling nicotine addiction.
Note: There’s a big difference between illegal vapes and high-quality medical vapes sold in pharmacies for smoking cessation. Learn more about the differences here.
Metabolic Effects of Nicotine
Aside from making you feel full as if you’ve eaten, nicotine also has some metabolic effects on the body.
After hijacking your rewards system and dopamine, a hit from a cigarette or vape may also release hormones that make you feel full after eating – such as serotonin and norepinephrine.
But just like how nicotine suppresses your appetite, researchers have yet to strongly correlate nicotine with increased metabolism due to the lack of data on the subject.
It’s better to just exercise and eat healthy rather than depend on nicotine vaping to lose weight.
Physical activity has actually helped many ex-smokers quit nicotine use by feeling stronger and much more fulfilled than consuming nicotine.
Plus, it’s guaranteed that your metabolism will greatly improve after two weeks of exercise.
Behavioural Factors
Vaping introduces fewer calories than a chocolate bar, which sounds good if you have a sweet tooth and want to consume something without gaining weight. It definitely sounds convenient for emotional eaters.
Considering all of nicotine’s possible effects on your appetite and metabolism, theoretically you could replace snacking with vaping and feel somewhat satiated.
Unfortunately, using illicit vapes or cigarettes to lose or maintain your weight isn’t sustainable. With cigarette smoke and the unidentified chemicals and dangers of illegal NVPs, you’ll possibly have long-term health problems that are not worth paying for just to lose weight.
Plus, you might become emotionally dependent on smoking or vaping rather than food.
Instead, it’s better to focus on controlling portions when eating, exercising, and practicing mindfulness when having meals. More importantly, improving your relationship with food as a whole is the best and most sustainable way to lose weight.
Pharmacy Vapes to Quit Smoking
Vaping soared in popularity because of overseas manufacturers bringing their products to shore and distributing them illegally via convenience stores and tobacconists.
It’s important to remember that all vaping products sold outside of a pharmacy are illegal and can be extremely dangerous to your health.
Buying from a pharmacy ensures you’re using a product designed for smoking cessation and with your health in mind.
Let’s learn the difference between these two products.
Illicit Vapes
Illicit vapes (such as those in convenience stores and tobacconists) are imported under the radar, just like illicit tobacco and drugs, and are made as cheaply as possible for maximum profits.
When we say cheap, we’re not just talking about the price – it also means they don’t adhere to any standards at all, nor do they care to.
Does it taste good and produce a huge amount of addictive nicotine to guarantee repeat purchases? That’s the goal for these opportunistic manufacturers and sellers, even if their devices also produce high levels of nickel and lead with each inhalation and have questionable manufacturing practices (they’ve found human saliva in them, too).
Apart from heavy metals and saliva, you simply don’t know what you’re inhaling when you use illegal NVPs.
Pharmacy Vapes
Now, let’s talk about the most trusted and reliable option – pharmacy nicotine vaping products (NVPs).
NVP products sold in pharmacies are made under stringent pharmaceutical standards on the manufacturing process and ingredients, are toxicologically assessed for inhalation, are locally insured, and are specifically designed to help you stop smoking.
Unlike their illegal counterparts, local manufacturers adhere to high medical standards, such as GMP and ISO standards for medical device manufacturing to ensure the consistent safety and dependability of their NVPs.
Summary
Using illicit NVPs for weight loss isn’t really a cut-and-dry approach to reducing weight and supplementing your diet. While it might have some fringe benefits like appetite suppression and metabolic increase, it doesn’t always work.
Furthermore, nicotine only introduces weight loss – which is different from the fat loss that people actually want. More importantly, you also lose body tone due to muscle atrophy, a clear sign you’re not eating properly because nicotine suppresses your appetite.
The best and most sustainable way to lose fat and improve your weight is still to stop smoking and only use pharmacy-sold NVPs to quit smoking and alleviate withdrawals.
You’re probably reading this because you think that by quitting smoking, you can gain weight and you can use vaping to suppress your appetite. We hope this information helps.
Smokefree Clinic gives you access to many medically reviewed and trustworthy resources that can inform and aid you in your path to wellness, so have a look around!
If you’re ready to get started, Smokefree can connect you to bulk-billing Australian healthcare professionals who excel in helping patients quit smoking for good, including using responsible vaping products where appropriate.
Click here to book your bulk-billed telehealth consultation with an Australian healthcare professional and quit smoking today.