Day 8 after quitting smokingHunger that is not about food

By Yevhenii, who smoked for 26 years · Updated 30 Oct 2026 · 2 min read

In shortWith nicotine gone, appetite rises and food tastes better, and this can last for months. On average people who stay quit gain four to five kilograms in the first year, but the spread is wide. Keep something crunchy within reach.

What's happening in your body

Nicotine does two things to weight. It blunts appetite through the brain's satiety circuits, and it makes the body burn more energy across the day. In a small study in a metabolic chamber, twenty-four cigarettes a day raised the energy used over twenty-four hours by about a tenth, while the resting metabolic rate itself did not change. Both effects are now switched off. At the same time food tastes better than it has in years, and the hand that used to travel to the mouth two hundred times a day has nothing to do.

What to expect

Increased appetite is the withdrawal symptom that tends to outlast the others, often by months. It usually shows up as a pull towards sweet things and snacking between meals rather than as bigger plates. Across dozens of trials, people who stayed stopped gained four to five kilograms on average over the first year, and most of it came early.

It was a little over one kilogram in the first month and under three by the end of the third. The spread is wide. About one in six lost weight, and about one in eight gained more than ten. So an average is not a forecast, and the first three months are where your own habits make the difference. Weight is also the part of stopping that is easiest to deal with later, once the cravings are quieter.

Try this

Before the hour when you usually reach for a snack, put something crunchy and low in calories within reach, like carrots, an apple or sunflower seeds in the shell.

What else you could do

Do not start a diet this month. Two hard things at once usually means losing both. Eat proper meals at regular hours, so that a craving and an empty stomach do not arrive together. Weigh yourself once a week rather than every day, and treat the number as information, not a verdict. Movement helps with both the weight and the cravings; tomorrow's page is about exactly that.

Sources. Aubin HJ, Farley A, Lycett D, Lahmek P, Aveyard P. Weight gain in smokers after quitting cigarettes: meta-analysis. BMJ, 2012. Hofstetter A, Schutz Y, Jéquier E, Wahren J. Increased 24-hour energy expenditure in cigarette smokers. N Engl J Med, 1986. Audrain-McGovern J, Benowitz NL. Cigarette smoking, nicotine, and body weight. Clin Pharmacol Ther, 2011.