The not so fun part of sobriety: keeping weight off
 

Ah, here it is, well into the second week and needing to address that six pound weight gain since quitting. I remember one stint of sobriety lasting 3 months and I gained 50 pounds. Another sobriety adventure resulted in a 30 pound gain. I started drinking after my stint in rehab so I could lose weight. It worked, unfortunately, because the fallout from alcoholism was pretty bad too.

Weight gain causes my relapses. All of them. My weight never "evens out" with time, this is just another big problem I've got. Apparently ex alcoholics in sobriety often find themselves dying early from diabetes, so much that I've read articles from addiction specialists issuing caution to alcoholics to take care not to cross addict with sugar.

So since relapse is not an option, this week I put down the jelly beans (trader joes has the best ones), the kit Kats, the lollipops, the milk chocolate, the caramel popcorn. Yesterday I had nothing sweeter than a bit of fruit and dark chocolate, one corn tortilla with dinner, so carbs under 100. Sometimes I'm not sure if I crave alcohol or sugar more, it's just continuous craving at this point.

But I still go to AA every day, there's my gym workouts, and instead of food deprivation I choose to see it as a nutrition and cooking project.

Thanks for letting me vent...sobriety is work and I'm gutting it out.

I gained 70 lbs when I got sober. I gave myself permission to NOT look at the scale or freak out about it. Gaining weight doesn't ruin your sobriety - your self loathing over weight gain is what takes you out. Try being gentle with yourself. Tell yourself you are okay, and you are doing the best that you can. You can always, always lose the weight later on. I did! after I hit one year I said enough was enough and I started weight watchers and dropped a significant amount of the lbs I gained. I am very happy that I was able to just let the weight thing GOOOOOOOOOOO early on.

Thanks bunny. That's awesome you got the weight off a year in!

I'm not sure how I feel about it...as into fitness as I am I have felt first hand how much easier workouts become and how much faster and stronger I get when I pay attention to what I eat. I'm signed up for a spartan sprint in November. Fitness is my "thing." I think letting it all go wouldn't help me, in fact I feel I'd hit a "****-it, this sucks" moment and relapse.

That said too much deprivation will set me off as well.

Did I mention that moderation and balance are not my strong points??

��

It's been comforting to me that while having cocktails during my husband's gigs, wine with the ladies, beers and a movie, are all now completely out of the question, my fitness pursuits can stay....and thrive...

It's normal to crave sugar after quitting drinking - alcoholics often crave sugar because it boosts serotonin levels. When you quit drinking, your serotonin levels plummet. So you reach for the candy to boost them up again.

Here's a very technical study about it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4v...yNzlkNDg4/view

There are other healthy (and unhealthy) ways to boost feel good neurotransmitters, like:

falling in love
sex
meditation
exercise
sunlight
massage
remembering happy events

Eating sugar disturbs me, actually. I believe it causes inflammation in the body which leads to cancer and heart disease so that belief puts me in distress when I eat it... After enough of it, it seems to put me in a drugged-like state, kind of high on it, and also chasing that with more sugar. After all the research I've done and what I've seen in my line of work, sugar is a close second to alcohol. Kind of like marijuana use, pills, or anything else you ingest to try to deal with quitting alcohol, its another cross addiction in my book.

I think too much sugar is a bad thing too in the long run. What's really important is that you recognize that it is an issue and make a plan to deal with it. It can certainly be a cross addiction but again - the way you deal with addicion is make a concrete plan and carry it out. Exercise, working with your doctor, trying to eat healthier food can all be part of that plan.

Another comment you made earlier was that weight gain "causes your relapses". That's actually a trick your addiction is trying to play on you - weight gain cannot "cause" you to relapse. What causes us to relapse is not following our plan.

Thanks for pointing that out. Alcoholism, and not having a program in place, caused my relapses. I've been trying hard to separate my issues with eating from alcohol for that reason because I do wonder if my addiction conveniently uses those problems for its own end, despite the fact that those problems are there drinking or not.

Its difficult because I don't have to address eating when I am drinking. I don't gain weight when drinking, despite what I eat. I suppose I am resentful that I have to address both, now. But I've always known that. So many reasons I put off sobriety. I'm glad I changed paths, its just not easy.

Agree 100% I'm on my 11th day of abstinence from sugar and it's been difficult to give it up. I had headaches and body aches the first few days, plus some mood swings. I've been off the booze for years, but started to realize sugar was becoming a problem for me too. And since I have rheumatoid arthritis, it wasn't helping the inflammation.

Well done on 11 days!! It's so hard to quit, especially without alcohol...after a week of mainlining it, which I don't regret because it always helps in the first week of sobriety...I am headachy and fatigued, and dreading the gym.

Quitting sugar and refined carbs does wonders for arthritis! I'll bet you feel better already.

This caught my eye, and got me thinking - maybe you cause them yourself, by focusing too much on your weight and using that as an justification? :)

I had similar issues early on, I was eating normally for the first time in years, and I was too wiped out to exercise, so I gradually put on 25 pounds or so. I had to make deliberate mental decision that I was not going to care - I can work on the weight later, but I will not let considerations like that influence my commitment to not drink alcohol. Worked for me, I stayed sober and eventually took off most of the extra pounds, but it meant I was going to have to buy some new pants to wear for a while, and I'd just have to persevere knowing it was a temporary situation.

This is inspiring! I know I have to cool it with the sugar because I'm gaining weight since getting sober as well. I also have RA and sugar is definitely bad for inflammation.

I'm cutting myself a break right now and will probably get stricter with myself after 90 days. I was already overweight before getting sober and now additional weight is packing on...

Oh....the amount of headspace I've devoted to my weight. My parents did a number on me there! Started me on diets at age 9. I don't think that's ever going away. Its sort of ingrained in me now. I lost 50 pounds from 2015 to 2017: went from a size 18 to a size 8. Now that I'm sober and my diet crutch is gone, I'm getting weirdly freaked out by seeing overweight people everywhere....as in, see they don't drink, so they are fat, maybe I am destined to be fat....women wanting to sponsor me in AA but they are fat, so I'm too freaked out to let them in. It's getting weirder and weirder. :(. I have nothing against women who decide not to worry about their weight, more power to them. I myself am terrified to gain weight.
I just have to refuse to let it derail my sobriety. It's getting messy up there in my head, but I won't let it cause a relapse.

Funny, I gained 35 pounds from drinking over a five year period I stopped six days ago and lost two pounds. There are a lot of calories in wine, beer and whiskey. I guess every body is different.

I actually lost weight. I had this bloated belly that went away. I also rode a bicycle often in my early sobriety. It's the sugar that adds pounds. You have to limit that.
Hang in there and don't drink over this. Never an option. NEVER.

It's a good idea to keep the focus on your alcoholism, definitely. I didn't begin to tackle other issues until I had a year sober. And it's an ongoing process, as I can easily become compulsive about many things besides alcohol. It's a bit like whack-a-mole! :D

It's a balance I guess. Something most addicts (at least this one) don't really have on so many levels. Alcohol, drugs, sugar. The sugar is tricky though because at least in my mind it's the better alternative of the three. On the other hand if I ate a lot of sugar and gained a lot of weight my self image would decline.... I guess in the end I will just keep trying one day at a time.

I think my plan is to stay low carb; I know how to make great dishes low carb, but moderate sugar. Unlike alcohol, I think moderation is ok when it comes to sugar! We will see if I am able to keep it to 1-2 times a week.

Lately the sugar thing has been plaguing me so much that I've turned to fruit when a craving hits and it almost always helps.

When i got sober, i had pretty bad diabetes. my A1C was 11.9 or 11.2...something crazy like that. I think the highest it measure in the hospital was 390 something.

After i got sober, i lost a ton of weight because i HAD to cut out the sugar.
FF to my last physical and my A1C was 4.2 or it wasn't even pre-diabetic yet.

Well, slowly, i've been gaining weight again. I tend to yoyo a lot so i have to keep things in perspective. I try to take off 10 pounds a month. I'm a really big guy too. I'm 6'5" and about 290. I need to be about 230.

Leanest i ever was, was back in 2006 when my daughter had to get life saving surgery a month after she was born. I was 160 then.

So i'm in the same boat. I just try to keep it in perspective. As long as i keep chipping away, it'll come back off.

I was 308 about 2 weeks ago...i weighed myself today and i was back to 298. By the end of the month I'll be back to 288.

What bums me out is that i used to be able to lose like 35-40 pounds a month. I played football, did mixed martial arts and did a lot of weight lifting. After years and years of all of that impact, my joints are in pretty gnarly shape. Some days it can hurt to walk.

I have a buddy who did all of the same stuff but he was also on active deployment until just last summer.

He came back after 3 tours with a back that was in really crappy shape. He turned me on to something called DDP yoga. I just got the packet the other day, but what little i did, kicked my a$$ and didn't hurt me. So i'm going to keep on with that.

I feel like as long as i'm not going backwards, i'm winning. Some days are a struggle, but such is life some times.

Wow! You *are* a big guy! I love big guys...that's all I'm going to say about that. ;). Seems 290 isn't far off for 6'5 but it probably depends on the amount of muscle you have, and being diabetic yeah you really have no choice about sugar. There's a real connection between ex alcoholics and diabetes, I have both in my family. I think sugar just needs to be a cautionary thing after quitting. I'll google your yoga thing! I've been thinking more about yoga to balance out my hiit and weight training, which gets results but it's also a stressor and needs to be balanced out.