Day 8 after quitting vapingHunger that is not about food

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

In shortNicotine blunts appetite and makes the body burn more energy, and both stop when it does. In the short vaping studies people weighed slightly more after six days off. Weight gain after quitting a vape has not been measured long term.

What's happening in your body

Nicotine blunts appetite through the brain's satiety circuits and makes the body burn more energy across the day. In a small study of smokers the increase was about a tenth over twenty-four hours, while the resting rate itself did not change. Both effects switch off when nicotine goes. This showed up even in the short vaping studies, where participants weighed slightly more after six days of abstinence.

There is also the mouth. Sweet flavours were arriving all day with no calories attached, and the mouth has noticed that they stopped.

What to expect

Appetite is the symptom that outlasts the others in nicotine research, often by months. It usually shows up as a pull towards sweet things and snacking between meals. How much weight people gain after quitting a vape has not been measured over the long term. The figures you may have seen come from cigarette smokers, where the average was four to five kilograms over a year with a very wide spread, so they are a rough guide at best.

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. Sugar-free gum or mints handle the missing sweetness. And movement helps with both the weight and the cravings.

Sources. Weight change measured in vapers over six days: Hughes et al., 2020. Mechanism measured in smokers: 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. Weight over a year measured in smokers only: Aubin HJ, et al. BMJ, 2012. Not measured in vapers.