Wed, Dec-08-04, 11:07
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Senior Member
Posts: 184
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Plan: my own
Stats: 215/170.5/145
BF:
Progress: 64%
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So after some research on the whyquit.com website, I found an answer to my own question about why you might seriously crave sweets like chocolate at the beginning of a quit. They say it much better than I can, so I'll just cut and paste here. It all has to do with the body trying to self-correct low blood sugar during withdrawl:
"Blood sugar plummets in many people when first quitting. The most common side effects felt during the first three days can often be traced back to blood sugar issues. Symptoms such as headache, inability to concentrate, dizziness, time perception distortions, and the ubiquitous sweet tooth encountered by many, are often associated with this blood sugar drop. The symptoms of low blood sugar are basically the same symptoms as not having enough oxygen, similar to reactions experienced at high altitudes. The reason being the inadequate supply of sugar and/or oxygen means the brain is getting an incomplete fuel. If you have plenty of one and not enough of the other, your brain can not function at any form of optimal level. When you quit smoking, oxygen levels are often better than they have been in years, but with a limited supply of sugar it can't properly fuel your brain.
It is not that cigarettes put sugar into your blood stream; it is more of a drug interaction of the stimulant effect of nicotine that affects the blood sugar levels. Cigarettes cause the body to release its own stores of sugar and fat by a drug type of interaction. That is how it basically operated as an appetite suppressant, affecting the satiety centers of your hypothalamus. As far as for the sugar levels, nicotine in fact works much more efficiently than food. If you use food to elevate blood sugar levels, it literally takes up to 20 minutes from the time you chew and swallow the food before it is released to the blood, and thus the brain, for its desired effect of fueling your brain. Cigarettes, by working through a drug interaction causes the body to release it's own stores of sugar, but not in 20 minutes but usually in a matter of seconds. In a sense, your body has not had to release sugar on its own in years, you have done it by using nicotine's drug effect !..."
This was found at the following link on the whyquit.com website and there's more in the article if you care to read: http://groups.msn.com/FreedomFromTo...D_Message=65741
I hope this explanation helps others to understand the intense sugar cravings in the beginning. Also I found that chocolate contains a caffeine-like substance. I quit coffee at the same time as the cigs and craving chocolate may have been my body begging for more sugar and caffeine.
cheers, all!
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