How President Obama gave up three Marlboros a day

President-elect Obama has had a long time battle with giving up smoking.  His “dirty little secret”, as FoxNews host, John Gibson called it, was out in the open, and almost every magazine was taking polls asking voters if they could ever elect a president who smokes.  In reality, Obama gave up smoking almost a year ago, but the question is: how did he manage to give up three Marlboros a day and not gain weight?

Obama has been a smoker for 25 years. His wife was the one who encouraged him to give up smoking.  He replaced cigarettes with Nicorette gum.  ‘‘I’ve been chewing on this Nicorette, which tastes like you’re chewing on ground pepper — but it does help,’’ he said in an interview on  ‘‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show.’’  Barack Obama admits giving up smoking hasn’t been easy.

His recommendations for a wanna-be quitter is to try not to link cigarettes to morning coffee, or to after meal.  To keep healthy and in shape, he works out six times a week, for 45 minutes. “I lift one day, do cardio the next. I wish I was getting a 90-mintue workout. Most of my workouts have to come before my day starts,” he says. "There's always a tradeoff between sleep and working out,” he explains. In the October issue of “Men’s Health”, Obama reveals his ways of “unplugging and recharging”.

He says working out clears his head and relieves him of stress. “My blood pressure is pretty low, and I tend to be a healthy eater. So I probably could get away with cutting [my workouts] back a little bit”, he said.  The President avoids eating junk food, but he really likes MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and Black Forest Berry Honest Tea. The 44th president of U.S. was ranked in Men’s Fitness magazine not only the fittest president but one of nation’s 25 fittest guys.