I have an eating disorder and then learned that smoking tobacco is seriously affecting my appetite.
I smoke like a trooper. It’s a bad habit, it’s disgusting yet it’s got me. Hook, line and sinker.
Earlier on today I googled whether smoking tobacco could be the cause of me not eating anything through the day and I was surprised to see that it does. It turns out that nicotine activates a pathway in the brain that suppresses appetite. Essentially, nicotine is responsible for appetite suppression. It affects the central nervous system and the brain of a smoker. People that smoke feel fuller thereby eating less. That’s because nicotine alters hypothalamus receptors that are involved in satiety and hunger. This may be a commonly known fact, but to me it just hadn’t crossed my mind.
I have a few problems anyway and I’m getting help and support for these and eating is one of them. I tend to binge eat. I don’t spread meals out over the course of a day and eat like most of you do, I have like a forced habit of starving myself until I’m really hungry at night and then I’ll eat a big meal.
I know this isn’t right and can be quite dangerous, it’s just what I do, and have been doing for quite some time.
Please don’t get me wrong, I have started healthy regular eating habits in the past where I’ll eat 3 meals a day and healthy ones at that, I just always revert to going back to, not eating throughout the day and eating at night, late evening time.
A few days ago now I was talking to someone about how I eat and they likened it to an obssession, which made me think a little. Years ago now I saw a Psychologist (for the very first time) and after telling him everything that I told him he finally told me that I had an eating disorder. That was back when I was 23 back in 1989…
I’m 55 now and having been on a journey of recovery from some awful illnesses I’m sat here in the realisation that that psychologist was right, and now I’m aquaintening it to smoking nicotine.
Are there any psychologists in the house that are hopefully reading this and who can comment?
I think that while I’m smoking tobacco and smoking as much as I do it’s kind of obvious what’s happening. The nicotine is activating that pathway so much, which in turn is suppressing my hunger and because I’m so addicted to the nicotine it makes me not care, and I don’t.
Sure, I eat when I’m hungry and a lot of the time I force myself to eat because I know that I really should eat something.
Nicotine is the only addiction that I haven’t been able to break. I did it with drugs and I did it with alcohol, and I’ve even given up smoking before in the past (and found it really easy!) yet here I am again in it’s clutches, smoking myself to death.
Until today I never gave it a thought as to how the simple act of smoking a cigarette can even play a part in not having an appetite and I don’t know about you but for me it’s having a drastic effect.
Don’t you just love it when you know?
You know, when all of a sudden things come together and you understand something.
I understand now that this nicotine addiction isn’t only harming my lungs but it’s also harming my poor belly, and all that that entails.
I love food. And I love that it makes me feel so nice like after a great meal. I also know that smoking is bad for me, even worse now. And as I’m writing this I’m also aware that I’m addicted. An addict of nicotine.
Food over nicotine?
When I wasn’t smoking I would eat healthy and regularly, and I could feel the goodness from eating what I ate.
Now I’m smoking again and in the depths of the addiction I couldn’t care less if I don’t eat a breakfast or a lunch, or even at times an evening meal. Yeah, I’ve been more or less starving myself silly, but keeping myself ticking over by putting bits of nutrition in to keep going. And by that I’m talking about the vitamins that I swollow every morning. About 10 in all. They’re all very good for me and I researched them just for that. Now what I have to do is add proper food to the equation. Yes, Rob, stop smoking!
I find it truly amazing how while writing these stories or posts on here I mostly always come accross something that I needed to know. Something that explains things in a way that I never thought of, and it’s very healing for me.
So, thank you for reading, I hope this can help someone else, somewhere and I’d like to wish you all the best.
One Love.
