Quitting smoking/NRT and sugar cravings.

Not sure whether this belongs here or IMHO, but my (ever-expanding) gut tells me there’s a factual answer for this so here it is.

I quit smoking at the beginning of the year. Aside from a couple of very minor slips, I’ve not smoked at all. However, since the beginning of the year, I’ve been using nicotine gum instead. Anyway, this week I decided to come off the gum. I’ve gone cold turkey and it’s been nearly 3 days since my last piece. So far, so good. The only thing is that ever since I quit the gum I’ve had the most insanely intense sugar cravings. I’ve been knocking back 6, 7, 8 bars of chocolate a day, snacking on cakes and biscuits between meals, the works. It sucks because I’m trying to get in shape as well. Basically, all I want to know is:

a) Are these kinds of sugar cravings normal?
b) What’s causing them?
c) How long do they last?

Many thanks.

It is fairly hard to quit smoking and most people have physiological cravings for about one month. I don’t think finding a substitute is unusual, perhaps you could exercise before eating some of the sugar to put it to better use. But hopefully it’s short term.

Are you diabetic or pre-diabetic? Be careful. Sugar can be lethal also.