INicotine is a stimulant in itsself and stimulants naturally supress appetite, so it's not totally unusual. Plus some people tend to vape a lot more than they smoked... Therefore taking in more nicotine than they were before.
Two good points. Nicotine is a known appetite suppressant, like most stimulants. And I don't know if it's more nicotine, necessarily, or a difference in variance of nicotine levels through the day, or both - depends on what you smoked and what you vape.
I've definitely had less appetite since I started vaping a week ago. After reading quite a bit, on this forum and elsewhere, about nicotine absorption when vaping, here's my total-newb-laywoman's theory:
Nicotine from vapor seem to take longer to register with the brain, but keeps building in the system after you've stopped vaping. Nicotine from cigarette smoke starts fading pretty quickly - I think its half-life in the body is 1.5-2 hours - but it seems like nicotine from vaping keeps building longer and takes longer to fade. This is put together from threads and links in threads from this forum that (of course) I can't find again just now.
Personal experience suggests that it took about 10-12 hours for the nicotine in my system ingested by my first 4 days of vaping to fade out to the point of causing a full-on nic fit (my atomizer died and I had no spare). I would compare my state at that point to being about 6 hours from my last analog cigarette when I was smoking. So for me, vape-nicotine takes maybe twice as long to fade from my system.
But vaping is also more convenient. I tend to take 2-3 maintenance puffs an hour from my Volcano as I go about my day, not counting lunchtime, chatting with friends, or other "sit down and vape like you mean it" points. That's about the schedule I used to
wish I could smoke on, when lack of restrictions allowed: one cigarette every hour or so, with 2-3 cig chains for specific activities.
So if 'm vaping on the same schedule I liked to smoke, but the vapor-nicotine takes longer to fade... well, it could explain why I went from smoking a pack of American Spirits a day just to maintain to feeling buzzed on 11mg juice. ("American Spirit cigarettes contain 36 percent free-base nicotine, compared with 9.6 percent in a Marlboro, 2.7 percent in a Camel, and 6.2 percent in a Winston." -- from whyfiles.org, can't link). Instead of experiencing the high peak of an analog, followed by the usual decline over about 1-2 hours leading to a low point and need for another, I'm riding a nice, smooth, low-amplitude sine wave of nicotine levels centered right around what's most comfortable for me. I'm not getting as high a high point, but I'm spending a lot longer hovering near my new high point instead of being always on the decline unless I've just smoked.
And I'm never hungry. Apparently the nicotine level that feels just right to me is enough to kill my appetite completely. The only time I've been hungry in the last week was that 12 hours with no working atomizer.
Also count me on the list of people for whom vaping sweets is as satisfying as eating them. More so, really, since my stomach tends to rebel now at the thought of rich, sweet, or fatty foods. That's probably another stimulant side-effect. So... chocolate lava cake? Way too much for my system now, yuck. Chocolate cherry cheesecake vapor? Perfect dessert!
) but I do know it has helped me not to eat so many sweets.
