Bob Gaudreau used to book cross-country flights with layovers on purpose. He knew he couldn’t make it the five-plus hour journey without a cigarette. “When you smoke, it controls your life,” says Gaudreau, a 54-year-old vice president of global sales in Harrison, New York.
But it wasn’t until he was diagnosed with early emphysema, a chronic lung disease, at age 45, that Gaudreau knew he had to kick his three-pack-a-day habit. If he didn’t, he’d risk being reliant on oxygen tanks in just a few years and likely cut his life short, leaving his wife and three young kids behind. “I didn’t really have a choice,” Gaudreau says, “I had to quit.”
Quitting, though, was easier said than done. Gaudreau tried nicotine patches, prescription smoking aids, even hypnotism. “None of it worked,” he says. So he turned to the Mayo Clinic’s Nicotine Dependence Center, an intensive, eight-day residential treatment program for tobacco dependence geared toward smokers who feel they have “tried everything,” says Kelley Luckstein, a clinic spokeswoman.
It worked: Gaudreau hasn’t smoked a cigarette since and, as a bonus, he lost about 30 pounds in the first year. “Quitting smoking, I could breathe again, I could smell again, I could taste again,” says Gaudreau, who had been overweight most of his adult life. “So many good things happened that enabled me to me lose the weight.”
Smoking cessation and weight loss aren’t expected partners — most people put on about 5 to 10 pounds when they quit smoking, thanks in part to changes in metabolism and behavior — but both are worthy goals for many Americans. Smoking, for one, is the top cause of preventable death in the U.S.; not quitting a pack-a-day habit gives you a 50-50 chance of dying from a smoking-related disease, says Dr. Norman Edelman, the American Lung Association’s senior scientific advisor. Obesity, meanwhile, also puts you at risk for life-threatening illnesses including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer; losing even just 10 percent — or less — of your body weight can lower your disease risk, research suggests.
[See: 15 Best Weight-Loss Diets at a Glance.]
So which problem should overweight and obese smokers tackle first? Complicated question, says Susan Veldheer, a registered dietitian and project manager at Penn State University College of Medicine, whose research finds that overweight and obese smokers gain more weight after quitting than their heavy counterparts who keep puffing. “There’s a big debate in the clinical and public health worlds: What should we recommend to people?” she says. “I believe we should support people in whatever choice they make.” Here’s how to support yourself:
1. Prioritize.
If you’re committed to making a single behavior change, quitting smoking is the most reliable route to health, experts agree. “You should always quit smoking; that should always be No. 1 on your list,” says Dr. Anne Thorndike, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who studies obesity prevention and treatment as well as smoking cessation.
What’s more, people who stop smoking for one month have a greater than 50 percent chance of still being cigarette-free five months later, Veldheer’s research has found, whereas only about 20 percent of overweight people maintain weight loss for at least one year, research suggests. “You don’t have to make a decision about smoking every day; with weight, you are constantly making decisions that are influencing your weight,” says Thorndike, who’s also a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. “You don’t have to smoke, but you have to eat.”
[See: How to Break 7 Unhealthy Habits.]
Conquering your smoking addiction first may also inspire you to tackle weight challenges. That was the case for Gaudreau, who found that his improved lung capacity encouraged him to move more, as did the attendant endorphin rush, which helped him cope with nicotine withdrawal. He also replaced his smoke breaks with a walk and an apple. “It all started in that second day in Mayo Clinic, when a doctor said [exercise] will release endorphins and it will help you,” he says.
2. Know yourself.
Still, smoking cessation followed by weight loss isn’t necessarily the best order for everyone. People who are severely obese and whose weight affects them more on a daily basis than their smoking habit, for example, may be more motivated to commit to a weight-loss program. Ask yourself which change is most important to you, Veldheer suggests.
Other people may find it easiest to tackle both issues at once, particularly since exercise has been shown to help people quit smoking, Thorndike says. Making healthy food choices, like reaching for a carrot stick rather than chocolate when battling a nicotine craving, can help too, Veldheer says.
3. Get help.
Most people can’t quit smoking cold turkey, but many can kick the habit with a combination of prescription medications and smoking-cessation programs like the American Lung Association’s Freedom From Smoking program, Edelman says. If you talk to your physician to find the best fit for you, he says, “the chances of quitting and staying off cigarettes increases substantially.”
For Gaudreau, an individualized combination of nicotine replacement patches and antidepressant medications — plus intensive counseling and the Mayo Clinic program’s tobacco-free environment — were what he needed to quit once and for all. Help also came in the form of friends, who stayed with him when he returned home from treatment, and his wife, who redecorated the room he smoked in to create a new, healthy environment. “When I got help,” Gaudreau says, “I succeeded.”
4. Don’t give up.
Quitting smoking and losing weight aren’t easy endeavors: Most people try to stop smoking about seven times before succeeding, Edelman says, and most people who lose weight end up gaining it back — and then some — years later. But anticipating the challenges and having strategies to cope with them can help, Thorndike says. For example, you can expect to be hungry (both quitting smoking and dieting will do that) and counter it by only keeping healthy snacks at the house, Thorndike suggests. “Making healthy choices easier for yourself is the best strategy,” she says.
[See: 6 Ways to Train Your Brain for Healthy Eating.]
Gaudreau says focusing on his day-to-day progress — like being able to walk for 20 minutes instead of 15 without getting winded — kept him on track. It paid off: He’s now off the medications, walks for 30 minutes every morning and has finished two 5K races. “The best part is freedom — I decide what I want to do, I don’t have to pull over to smoke, I can pick up my daughter and walk up the stairs if I want to,” he says. “I’m free.”
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Should You Quit Smoking or Lose Weight First? originally appeared on usnews.com
