FuzzyFatSacks

How much weight did you put on (or lose) while drinking and how much has come off (or on) since you began recovery? I put on at least 40 lbs in the last five years due to bazillions of calories in wine and bad food choices when drunk. Man, I don't know where I put all of that food! I could eat and eat and eat! Since I stopped drinking 10 days ago I have already lost 5 lbs by doing nothing out of the ordinary. I have had serious sugar cravings but have satiated them with fruit instead of the candy I really want Curious about others!

Hopefully this isn't in the wrong forum. Feel free to move it, if it is.

Mark75

I lost a few pounds initially, but I've managed to get them back

Sugah

I lost, and I never really had a lot to lose. First time, I remember going from 105lbs to 93lbs. Another time, I had gained a bit -- up to 118lbs. Two months later, I was 98lbs. When I got sober the very last time, I had to learn how to eat. I didn't know how to eat right. The concept of three meals a day featuring the four basic food groups was something I fed my kids, not something I ingested -- it got in the way of alcohol-and-other-chemical absorption.

My suggestion? Eat healthy, eat as fresh as possible, eat raw when possible, and avoid too much meat, fat, sugar and refined carbs. Drink lots of water. Take a good multivitamin or, at least, a good B-complex. Move and breath. And sleep -- on a regular schedule.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

Taking5

When I was drinking heavily I could go for several days without eating. So I put on weight initially, then lost most of it after I was sober for a while and started eating better.

Nevertheless

I have seen a lot of people on here say they loose weight. It's slow going for me. I am probably about 15 pounds overweight. I put on a few pounds when I first quit because of chocolate. Ihave cut way back on sugar, but I still not loosing much weight. I have been working out in a gym 2 nights a week for the last 6 months, but stay about the same.
I havn't had a beer in over 11 months, and I havn't had any "real" chocolate in over 2 weeks. I swapped to artificial sugar free pudding. It seems to be weaning me away from the real thing. Yes chocolate has been known to lead to fatter things <G>.
Fred

FuzzyFatSacks

I hope I don't gain what I've lost back! Losing weight has been the icing on the sobriety cake

I'm sure it's not only lack of booze for me, though. I workout 3x a week and have for almost a year. Drinking and all, I managed to keep that up; probably only because I do it with a group who nags me when I miss. Sometimes I wonder why no one complained about my sweat smelling like alcohol. I probably smelled like a distillery! LOL

FuzzyFatSacks

As sick as it sounds, I always envied people that lost their appetite when drinking. That was never the case for me.

debs

SAME here!!!!!

Gawd, I ALL but lost my appetite...

When I'm drunk, all I WANNA do is eat, eAT, EAT!

Gimme a big fat juicy bacon cheeseburger!

Gimme some cheeeeeeeeeeeese....

BREAD!

PIZZA!

Just endless...

And yeah, I've put on about 50 lbs since June because of this crap.

I generally drop a few pounds when I stop..

But my stoppage/startage has been so random lately that I've not noticed much fluctuation at all...

I do know that I'm ridiculously ready to lose this weight!!!

lionheart

Eating went hand in hand with my drinking, it was like I gave myself permission and would "deal with it later".

Today however, i am concentrating on one thing at a time - i dont like what i see in the mirror but today i cant admit to what i see in the mirror.

One day at at time, all these things will be sorted out for me.

north

The difference between my weight at its peak (and when I was drinking) and today is 19 lbs. Almost all my weight loss (it was all body fat) occurred within the first one or two months after I quit the booze. And, it was not necessarily from cutting out the 'empty calories' from alcohol as some might assume -- I didn't drink frequently enough.

The weight loss occurred mostly due to the numerous bad habits attached to both drinking and hangovers -- eating crap food while drinking, scarfing an extra meal or snack before retiring (to "settle my stomach"), skipping exercise due to hangovers, and screwing up my metabolism with booze by even going out once a week.

Because guys can more or less hide the fact of being slightly overweight with all the visual tricks afforded by a good tailor, hardly anyone ever considered me 'fat'. However, after I lost the weight, people who hadn't seen me for a while were commenting how much better I looked etc.

Fluffhead72

Besides the calories in booze, hangover days are an excuse to binge on (usually unhealthy) food...all day long...and not go to the gym, obviously.

I predict that my new workout regimen (and lifestyle regimen) will produce results in that area soon.

flavinho

Believe it or not, but in my booze times, I was really fat and bloated. I managed to gain about 40 kilograms, it should be about 75 LBS. Alcohol is very caloric and conbined with my awful diet of Pizzas and Burgers. I was really in total misery and wasted, couldn't even leave my room and look at the mirror

zoomer

That is one thing I miss about drinking is that I use to drink instead of eat and I was way skinny. Now I'm over weight from eating too much,but at least I'm a healthy fat sober person.

sev

I lost 115 lbs, but I was focused on losing the weight I put on from my drinking/eating problem as soon as I went into recovery. I know that you're not supposed to do that, but it worked out that way for me. I'm a total anomoly. But you asked, so I told My spiritual malady stretched to all facets of my life.

Scratch that...I'm not an anomoly...I'm a miracle. Living, walking, breathing miracle.

FuzzyFatSacks

Working out and eating properly has helped me stay sane in these first few days. If I stopped drinking and continued to put on weight because I was replacing booze with food I would be so pissed at myself. When my mom quit drinking she put on a LOT of weight. She replaced drinking with sugar. Because of her that really scares me so I've been very careful to not do that....even though I have major sugar cravings all the time lately I understand it's more common than not to do replace alcohol with sugar.

Part of my motivation to keep on keeping on with no booze is that I will lose weight (if I try, that is). I hate my extra tire. I hate that 80% of my clothes don't fit and the clothes that do are ugly. I'm tired of feeling unattractive and beyond my years. I want to feel good AND look good...for the first time in a long time.

Anyways, I'm ranting! Enough of that.

FuzzyFatSacks

Sev...115 is INCREDIBLE! You lost an entire person worth of fat! That's awesome!!!!!

zizanie

I've gained a lot of weight since I quit 10 mos ago. I barely ate when I drank. I have also recently realized that my spiritual malady has shifted itself to compulsive/emotional eating. It's something I've always struggled with but the drinking kept it in check. It's not nearly as progressed as my alcoholism but I'm pretty sure it's going to kick my ass too if I don't do something about it soon. But it's one of those defects that serves a definite purpose in my life (funny how at the beginning I didn't think I had any of those ) and I'm still quite attached to it...so I'm currently 6th stepping it: acting "as if" and praying to become willing to do something about it. Something to watch out for because a lot of the advice I got in the beginning was "eat something sweet."

Fandy

FFS, i am the same...we calculated on the physical vanity thread over in the newcomers section..that I was ingesting between 1750-2000 extra calories PER DAY from my wine drinking, close to 14,000 calories a WEEK..i've gained 35 lbs. since 2006, all in my abdomen and face, i am pre-diabetic....and boy was I a dumb-ass to ingest all that sugar.

I have switched the wine out for herbal tea most of the day with lemon and splenda...(about 7 large cups a day)...in addition i have 4 cups of coffee and I try not too use much of the flavored creamers...(yes i *sprint* to the bathroom constantly in case you were wondering, but i also take a HcTz which is a diuretic for my HTN.)..i was too beat-up to exercise while drinking, i could just about drag my a$$ through the day at work, then i would just go home and lay around...it was an effort to clean the catbox.

I do allow myself some of the sugar I've craved...but i am adding fruit to combat the intense NEED for chocolate...and then today there was this carrot cake at work with cream cheese icing and fresh jelly donuts...i had both.

I'm STILL losing weight....i haven't gotten on the scale, but my clothes are much looser, my one pair of jeans are falling off and my face is noticibly thinner....I haven't yet gotten back to exercise, but should start sooner rather than later...I plan to spend a LOT of time outside once we get some nice weather...and like you 80% of my nice expensive clothes don't fit, but I going to try like H** to be sure they will.

as silly as it sounds, losing weight is part of my sober motivation..I keep visualizing myself just going into my closet and choosing something and not worrying whether it will fit....

i hope my long-winded post helps, when i read yours above it's like you were channeling my thoughts exactly in some aspects.....:day6

hughs dad

I gained 80lbs since I fell off the wagon hard in '04. Also picked up smoking. Completely ********. Booze makes me eat before bed and all day the next day. makes Working out impossible...

Nettaja

Yes I am the same. I'm not sure whether it's true we need to gain a healthy obsession in order to get rid of the unhealthy one, at least possibly in the short-term?

I've always been into the gym, so drinking really knocked that back. I'd even put in extra gym sessions before times when I knew I was going to be put into a situation where I'd be drinking (and thus unable to work out). Which then made the drinking OK as I'd already made up for it in the gym. Madness!

Personally I find it hard to be confident without either i) being really fit, or ii) a drink in my hand and seven more in my belly. Out of the two I think the first choice is better for me.

The worst physical thing about the drink isn't the fat gain so much as I would only have three or four-day drinking sessions at most and then get back into the gym for a few days, but the facial and belly bloat makes you look 10-20lbs heavier than you really are and it always takes at least three days to shift.