LionOfJudah

How much weight did you gain or lose during sobriety? I found that the beer has given me quite the stomach. I'm looking forward to losing some weight. I'm 145 lb right now. I want to lose about 25-30 lbs.

zjw

when i was 18 i worked construction and went from 200lbs to about 135-140lbs. I drank but only on weekends really. Then i started to drink heavily. By the time i was 33 (when i quit drinking) i was 275lbs. Now through diet and exercise I've managed to get my weight back down to 150lbs i was down to 140lbs even for a time.

biminiblue

I was at a healthy weight when drinking, and I've remained the same weight in the last year since I quit.

I thought I'd lose, turns out I just eat a lot better

ScottFromWI

I lost and gained and then settled in to about a 15 pound reduction after a few months. Yet another benefit of not pouring gallons of beer down my gullet every day.

sugarbear1

I gained 8 and maintained this for almost 4 years now, apparently it's my healthy weight.

JensDestiny

Personally, I was pretty small before I started drinking but then gained a ton over the years as my drunken madness got worse and worse. I would say, in total, that I gained about 30 pounds when I started drinking and have since lost about the same. *Mine was mostly fluid retention (I was a swollen mess) and those extra calories from the vodka and soda every night didn't help.

Serotonin

5 years ago I stopped drinking and started eating healthy. In 5 months I went from 185 to 145. I started drinking again and gradually went back up to 177. Now that I've been sober for a almost 3 weeks I'm down 7 pounds. All the calories in beer plus the poor food choices packed the pounds on. My face already looks thinner and my skin looks much better. One of the great things about getting sober for me is feeling better about my body as well as my mental state.

Crossfitdad

Beer is LOADED with carbs. I try to live a primal life. No processed foods, grains, beans, peas, etc. I'm down big time since cutting down.

TheNatural

I would actually lose a lot weight while drinking, especially when I would go one for a very long time cycling through my binges. I was drinking about 3/4 of a gallon a day, and would chase my shots with diet soda, and I wouldn't eat for days. When I would stop, I would be so sick that I couldn't eat, and would be unable to even keep down water. When I would actually put together some sober time, I would actually gain a bunch of my weight back, because once I could eat, there was basically no satiating me.

pulltight

214 while drinking and still 214 nearly 6 months later, I'm 15 pounds overweight.
I was hoping that the weight would magically fall off when I quit and started eating better but it looks like I'm going to need to exercise more.

SDH73

I'm not sure exactly how much weight I've lost. Probably 12-15 pounds, I know I was over 195 2 months ago, and I'm under 185 now. Didn't start weighing myself regularly until about a month ago. I'm shooting for the low 170's. I've had to work at it, though. Exercise and reasonable diet.

I look at fitness sort of the same way I view sobriety: it's long term, more of a lifestyle change than a "quick fix". Recovery folk like to say "one day at a time", and I find that's true with fitness goals, as well. One day of exercise and nutritious food will help me feel good on that day, but not really change my body noticeably. String together a few weeks or months of those days and the cumulative results are easily noticeable.

Age may be a factor, too. If you're still young enough that your metabolism will work in your favor then you may lose weight just by cutting out the booze. I'm in my 40's, so if I want to lose weight I can't just sit around and wait for it. I have to work at it and make it happen.

advbike

I didn't lose anything the first six months, as I was sleeping a lot, and substituting sweets for alcohol. In the following year I have lost 15 pounds. I'm pretty lean again, about where I was 20 years ago. Of course part of this is diet and exercise, which wasn't very consistent when I was drinking, lol.

frankh77

My healthy weight is about 215. It hung around 240 for a while. The most I ever got to was 280. Towards the end of my abusing I dropped down to 190. Went down a little further about 3 weeks after I quit to 180. I couldn't eat anything those first few weeks.

Now I'm about 225

TheNatural

This thread really reminds me of the first time I tried to get sober. My apartment was trashed, empty handles of vodka everywhere, I hadn't showered in God knows how long, I was taking taxis to the liquor store because my car ran out of gas and I just left it on the road somewhere. I remember when I finally ran out of money, had sold my cell phone and whatever else I could, I called my dad and asked him to pick me up and help me detox, i finally took a shower, and when I got dressed I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself. I'm 6'1" and should weigh about 190-200, and I must have been 170 or less. My shirt was loose my pants didn't fit, my skin was loose, my cheeks were gaunt. I just started crying. A week later I checked myself into an in-patient rehab facility and stayed for 33 days. Followed by 7 weeks of intensive out-patient.

That image of myself is still a huge motivating factor to keep me sober. Although I still have relapsed. Alcohol is completely and utterly baffling.

alaina742

I lost weight. I was a binge drinker (and late night eater when drinking).

utopia

ty - im 21 days sober and was terrified id become super fat from the encouragement to stuff your face with junk, im trying grapes and other sweet things but some lemon squash was oh so nice tonight and better than cider that i really WANTED!

Justincredible

In my 3rd month sobriety and just over 10 pounds so far. Started exercising a month in very regularly, then tweaked my diet in the second month. This past month the fat is just melting off and the muscles are starting to show. I figured, I couldn't control the timeline of recovery and PAWs but I could control my health and go after the body I've always wanted. The mental benefits of exercise have been immense as well.

Gottalife

It's an odd thing but when I got sober 35 years ago, being overweight was not common among the Alcoholics I met back then. Mostly we were malnourished and underweight. This was because of two main factors. Beer did not have sufficient alcohol in it so we switched to spirits, rum in my case, meths etc for others. Secondly, we did not eat. There is nothing so likely to disrupt your drinking than a stomach full of food.

The hard drinkers were the overweight ones, but although they drank way more than was good for them, it was mostly beer, and they did not have all the dramas that the alkies had.

Nowadays there are a lot of overweight people turning up in AA. One member thought it might be due to other drugs, some of which give you the munchies, are much more prevalent these days. Perhaps it is a consequence of other drugs?

MelindaFlowers

I think people are just larger in general now. Lol! There are also more semi-fast foods like chipotle that are great hangover food and loaded with calories.

I gained 50 lbs from drinking 12 units of vodka a night. My appetitive was ravenous when I was hungover, which of course, was every day.

I have not heard many people share this type of eating but I would binge eat every day because it was almost like I thought eating a lot of food would cure the hangover. Or putting the food in my mouth in large quantities somehow made me feel better I'm not sure why. It really did not make me feel better though. It did not help the hangovers at all.

Soberwolf

i put weight on at first then went on a diet and lost weight