I always cringe when people get on to the topic of smoking or exercise. The first I do regularly – about 15 times a day – but the second, I do not. Mind you, I am a member of a gym. Every month I write a cheque for £39, but that's almost all the exercise I get out of it. So naturally I perked up when I came across the paper by Bess Marcus and her colleagues from the Miriam Hospital and Brown University School of Medicine, Providence, Rhode Island, in The Archives of Internal Medicine, claiming that vigorous exercise helps women quit smoking and stay smoke-free.

Moreover – at first glance – the paper seemed to suggest that women who exercised gained only half the weight of women who also tried to kick the habit but didn't attend the aerobic work-outs.

Smoking among women is declining at a slower rate than among men. Not for lack of trying: women try to give up as often, but men tend to stay quit for longer periods. Giving up smoking isn't easy and problems with concentration, anxiety, depression and a foul temper are frequently perceived side-effects. In addition, a decrease in metabolic rate and an increase in caloric intake commonly result in a exceedingly rapid expansion of body size.

Fear of putting on the extra pounds appears to be a major reason for not giving up. Attempts to control weight while trying to quit smoking often prove fruitless and are associated with an increased risk of a smoking relapse. As exercise increases caloric expenditure, and is also known to alleviate anxiety and depression, it seems reasonable to assume that exercise might aid women in kicking the habit without gaining flab. That's the theory at least, but what's the practice?

The researchers found no shortage of female smokers willing to partake in a smoking cessation program – 281, to be precise. For the twelve-week duration of the experiment, about half the women attended thrice-weekly counselling sessions, while the rest spent a similar amount of time working up a sweat in the gym. Four weeks into the program they had to give up smoking, and were monitored at regular intervals thereafter.

At the end of the twelve weeks, 19.4 per cent of the exercisers hadn't smoked for at least two months, compared to 10.2 per cent of the control group; three months later, 16.4 per cent versus 8.2 per cent were still going strong; and one year down the line, only 11.9 per cent of the women that had done regular workouts had kicked the habit, whereas not more than 5.6 per cent of the others were still smoke-free. Thus, it seems that women who exercised while trying to quit smoking were about twice as likely to succeed as women who didn't exercise. But, what about their waistlines?

Although quitters who exercised gained less weight during the first eight weeks than non-exercisers – almost 7 pounds compared to close to 12 pounds – as soon as the controlled exercising came to an end, the average weight gain of the women shot up to a staggering 20 pounds after a year.

All in all, although exercise seems to improve a woman's chances of giving up cigarettes, the overall success rate remains rather slim, and my hopes of doing so and staying slim have gone up in a puff of smoke.