A smile is happiness you'll find right under your nose.
-Tom Wilson
Living a Smoke Free Life
Stop smoking now means you could live a happy and healthier life. As you already know smoking is bad for everyone, not just the ones that smoke but the ones that breath in the second hand smoke. Forty-five hundred Americans start smoking every year. Most people start at an early age in life, they are curious or they want to be cool. The biggest problem is most people lack education that helps them to see how smoking causes them to age faster.Smoking can cause many problems when it comes to your health, not to think about the expense. Smoking can cause cancer, heart disease, and strokes, increase cholesterol and so on. Your heart is affected, since smoking causes your blood vessels to build up with cholesterol and fat. The results leads to hardening of the arteries. Harden arteries mean that the blood flow will not pump fast enough to support the heart’s natural requirements. This can start blood clotting, broken blood vessels etc. It can also cause angina which will make you think that your having a heart attack, but it’s just not getting enough blood to the heart to make it pump right. Then it can cause you to have a heart attack.
Smoking can cause strokes. Smoking promotes bad breath, stained teeth, smelly furniture and clothes. You also get common colds and flu more often. In addition, smoking is so expensive now days. On top of this, you may become addicted to the nicotine.
Once you are hooked, it is going to be hard to quite. You have to decide that youíre going to quite regardless of what it causes, such as weight gain or being on edge.
You have to pull up the will power to do this and stick to it. You have to find the way that best fits your needs and build the will power. You may want to consult with your doctor who can offer you helpful suggestions on stop smoking.
Foods to Help You Stop Smoking
Apples are one of the four best foods recommended to help you stop smoking. The other three foods are beans, legumes, and spices. Condiments such as sauerkraut and fermented foods also help, for example foods such as tempeh. The worst foods for people trying to stop smoking are those that bring up cravings such as chocolate, cheese, meat, and sugar.
It's not only apples that can help you to stop smoking, but spices such as cinnamon as well as herbs such as garlic and ginger that also are anti-smoking foods. See the articles, UC-Davis Reports New Apple Heart Health Benefits and Health Benefits of Apples.
What area the best foods to motivate you to quit smoking or to never start the habit? First, you avoid some of the most addictive foods, sugar, milk shakes, ice cream, cheese, chocolate, and processed or BBQ'd meats. Instead you eat sweet fruits when you crave sweets, such as an apple or banana. Next, you eat vegetables other than fries. Try a salad of shrimp or salmon, raw spinach, celery, carrots, red bell peppers, yellow squash or zucchini, raw mung bean sprouts, and chopped green onions.
What happens to your body when you detox from smoking is a 10-day period of imbalance. The more green and red vegetables and fruits you eat, the quicker you'll get the nicotine toxins out of your body. Also try a little vitamin C, if your health condition permits taking vitamins. Drink lots of filtered, purified water. If milk and cheese causes you to crave suites, avoid dairy products and drink almond milk, hemp milk, or hazelnut milk.
Avoiding the most addictive foods: sugar, chocolate, cheese, and red meat
Or try a bowl of black rice and raw, organic sauerkraut and a dish of chili beans without meat. By avoiding the four most addictive foods which are sugar, chocolate, cheese, and red meat, especially cheese burgers, you will not stir up cravings for highly addictive foods that most people eat daily without realizing how 'hooked' on sugar, red or cold-cut meat, and cheese they really are.
Also, don't load up on bread. Try crackers. Instead eat apples and cinnamon. Spices reduce cravings as do apples. You might cook a pot of boiled brown rice with a handful of raisins or other sweet, dried fruit such as goji berries, blue berries, or cherries and a dash of cinnamon and cloves. When the rice is cooked and fragrant, add a can of coconut milk, and let the cooked rice absorb the coconut milk. Thin the coconut milk with almond milk. Serve chilled.
Fragrance of dried fruit helps lower cravings to smoke
The fragrance of the dried fruit, such as dehydrated nectarines in the brown rice is filling and sweet without addicting you to dairy and table sugar or white rice. If you can't tolerate whole grains, try an egg drop soup made from boiled diced onions, celery and carrots into which you drop by the tablespoonful two beaten eggs. Flavor with cilantro and any spices or seasonings you enjoy.
For more bulk, add a cup of cooked chick peas, pinto beans, or black beans to the soup and slices of avocado. Spices cut down on cravings for sweets as well as for other food items familiar to you such as the food that creates cravings which are sugar, cheese, chocolate, and meat. What helps most in food items to help you quit smoking? Apples, ginger, and cinnamon. And adding garlic to any foods also helps you cut the cravings. Think spices and herbs--ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and garlic added to foods.
Spices help you lower your cravings for smoking
Save the garlic for the savory foods like fish, beans, and grains. Also a dash of curry and turmeric help. The spicier the food as long as you can stand the spices and herbs, the lower the cravings for smoking or for sweets. Sometimes coconut milk because it's medium chain saturated fats also helps you cut the cravings. But go easy on the fats. Olive oil on salads also helps as long as you don't crave lots of cheese with the olive oil.
Be aware of your cravings for dairy unless you're lactose intolerant and don't enjoy dairy items such as cheese. Instead, you may prefer organic raw sauerkraut and fermented foods such as tempeh which you could use instead of cheese. For example, try sauerkraut over tempeh, which is fermented soy. Sauerkraut is fermented cabbage. Numerous fermented foods are made more digestible by the fermentation process with cultures, molds, or bacteria that is said to help digestion.
Choose crunchy vegetables instead of mushy comfort foods to help you stop smoking
"Eat more vegetables and fruits to be able to quit smoking," a new study published online by University at Buffalo researchers reports. But do smokers really want to eat healthier foods? Do they choose these foods over meat, potatoes, and comfort foods such as pasta--that encourage people to smoke because there's not enough fiber in meats or starchy fillers?
The vegetables that help smokers the most to quit smoking are the cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. And these are the foods many smokers are least likely to select over meat, melted cheese, fried seafood, and potatoes.
It's the high fiber in cruciferous vegetables that stop the urge to smoke tobacco
The reason why eating more fruits and vegetables may help you quit smoking and stay tobacco-free for longer, scientists think is because fruits and vegetables have high fiber. And higher fiber consumption from fruits and vegetables make people feel fuller. You feel so filled up, you're no longer hungry, and just don't feel like lighting up a smoke.
Do smokers want healthy foods?
Do smokers really want healthy foods? Or chips, meat, and soda? Locally, in the Sacramento and Davis regional areas, researchers from the University of California, Davis found that smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and being overweight were each linked to potentially dangerous vascular changes in the brain.
"We can't cure disease or cure aging, but the idea of a healthy body, healthy mind is very real," said study author Dr. Charles DeCarli, director of UC Davis' Alzheimer's Disease Center, according to the August 12, 2012 article, Smoking, Diabetes, Obesity May Shrink Your Brain. "People should stop smoking, control their blood pressure, avoid diabetes and lose weight. It seems like a no-brainer." The study is published in the August 2012 issue of the journal Neurology.
Do smokers who want to quit the habit choose more raw foods or canned vegetables and soups?
When smokers turn to eating more vegetables, usually they may start with canned vegetable soups which are loaded with starches (potatoes, rice, or pasta) that spike blood sugar levels and contribute to many health problems. The glycemic index of cruciferous vegetables, on the other hand, is extremely low, according to the research available at the Diets in Review site. See, The Low Glycemic Index Diet - Diet Review.
Check out the December 2010 Life Extension Magazine article, "Do Consumers Really Want Healthy Food?" The end result is you don't feel hungry when you're filled up with vegetable and/or fruit fiber. This in turn gives you more of a feeling of satiety or fullness.
When you feel full, you don't crave a cigarette
When you feel full, you have less of a need to smoke. Many smokers are confusing hunger with an urge to smoke. Also vegetables and fruits don't enhance the taste of tobacco. What does enhance the taste of tobacco are meats, caffeinated beverages, and alcohol. Fruits and vegetables don't enhance the taste of tobacco. Check out the June 6, 2012 news release, "To quit smoking, try eating more veggies and fruits."
There is a growing concern that the lining of canned foods with bisphenol-A or BPA (found in 57% of canned foods) represents a health risk.145,146 It has been shown to be an “endocrine (hormone) disruptor,” which raises concern about potential cancer risk, according to the article, Do Consumers Really Want Healthy Food?
Diets like the South Beach Diet, The Zone and Sugar Busters are all popular forms of the Low Glycemic Index Diet. In this new study, Researchers also found that smokers with higher fruit and vegetable consumption smoked fewer cigarettes per day, waited longer to smoke their first cigarette of the day and scored lower on a common test of nicotine dependence. This new study is the first longitudinal study on the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and smoking cessation.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Legacy Foundation provided funding for this new study, which is published online by the University at Buffalo public health researchers. Read the original paper published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research. This is the first longitudinal study on the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and smoking cessation.
The authors, from UB's School of Public Health and Health Professions, surveyed 1,000 smokers aged 25 and older from around the country, using random-digit dialing telephone interviews. They followed up with the respondents fourteen months later, asking them if they had abstained from tobacco use during the previous month.
"Other studies have taken a snapshot approach, asking smokers and nonsmokers about their diets," says Gary A. Giovino, PhD, chair of the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior at UB, according to the news release. "We knew from our previous work that people who were abstinent from cigarettes for less than six months consumed more fruits and vegetables than those who still smoked. What we didn't know was whether recent quitters increased their fruit and vegetable consumption or if smokers who ate more fruits and vegetables were more likely to quit."
The UB study found that smokers who consumed the most fruit and vegetables were three times more likely to be tobacco-free for at least 30 days at follow-up 14 months later than those consuming the lowest amount of fruits and vegetables. These findings persisted even when adjustments were made to take into account age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, household income and health orientation.
"We may have identified a new tool that can help people quit smoking," says Jeffrey P. Haibach, MPH, first author on the paper and graduate research assistant in the UB Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, according to the news release. "Granted, this is just an observational study, but improving one's diet may facilitate quitting."
Several explanations are possible, such as less nicotine dependence for people who consume a lot of fruits and vegetables or the fact that higher fiber consumption from fruits and vegetables make people feel fuller.
"It is also possible that fruits and vegetables give people more of a feeling of satiety or fullness so that they feel less of a need to smoke, since smokers sometimes confuse hunger with an urge to smoke," explains Haibach in the June 6, 2012 press release.
And unlike some foods which are known to enhance the taste of tobacco, such as meats, caffeinated beverages and alcohol, fruits and vegetables do not enhance the taste of tobacco.
"Foods like fruit and vegetables may actually worsen the taste of cigarettes," says Haibach in the news release. Smoking rates in the U.S. continue to decline, Giovino notes. But the rate of that decline has slowed during the past decade or so. "Nineteen percent of Americans still smoke cigarettes, but most of them want to quit," he says in the news release.
Haibach adds: "It's possible that an improved diet could be an important item to add to the list of measures to help smokers quit. We certainly need to continue efforts to encourage people to quit and help them succeed, including proven approaches like "quit lines," policies such as tobacco tax increases and smoke-free laws, and effective media campaigns."
More research is necessary to find out if additional findings are similar to the latest study
The UB researchers caution that more research is needed to determine if these findings replicate and if they do, to identify the mechanisms that explain how fruit and vegetable consumption may help smokers quit. They also see a need for research on other dietary components and smoking cessation. Gregory G. Homish, PhD, assistant professor in the UB Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, also is a co-author.
-Above article from Examiner.com
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