Holy COW!
 

Literally! When the fog of drinking lifts and you look in the mirror...you realize how much weight you gained! At least I did!

I relapsed over a year ago after 5.5 years of continuous sobriety and gained almost 40 pounds just from DRINKING! Mostly beer, Irish coffees and shots 2-3 times per week.

I feel like a COW! Any advice (besides not drinking) on how to lose the weight? It really crushes my self esteem!

Thanks!

Sobriety was the foundation to my health improving!!

After a while with changes to diet and exercise, weight can be managed!! :)

Some exercise and a healthy diet would be a good start. Exercise will help with your anxiety as well. Don't rule out a full physical too and bloodwork to get all your levels checked. The doctor might have some specific suggestions based on the results.

Slowly switch out processed foods for whole food options.
less soda and less white sugar in general.
drinking apple cider vinegar before meals is supposed to aid in digestion and help you eat less.

Run....if you can't run yet walk a lot until you can.....our bodies are designed to move, if you do this your body will go back to the shape it was designed to be. Eat less move more is the saying my running coach always quotes at people saying they need to loose xmas weight, simple in its statement but 100% right.

I tell my wife, "There is a lot of me to love." Sort of like quitting drinking I'm going to quite eating too much tomorrow

I know the feeling well. Still clawing back my original figure :/ The basic sciencey premise is calories out>calories in. So find out your maintenance total calorie allowance for your height, weight and activity level. (There's lots of jazzy sites who can work out the maths for you) Then either subtract 500 cals per day or 1000 depending on if you want to lose 1 or 2 pounds a week. (1lb of fat =3500 cals... so that's 500 cals per day x 7)

They say that is the healthiest and safest amount to lose. You can create the deficit by either exercise or reducing energy consumed via dieting (calories). But above all this, you just have to do it. No other way. I know :/

It's a hard mountain to climb! It almost seems impossible! I can't even look in the mirror. Ugh. I guess I will just have to start moving my fat butt one day at a time until I am back to 125 lbs. alcohol sucks! It destroys everything!

Walking a lot has helped me. Once you quit you lose water weight/ bloat too. I also ate a lot of comfort food to get through hangovers which I no longer do. Once you start taking care of your mind/ body eating heathy and excercising is much easier and very rewarding.
Good job on getting back on the horse :c011:

Serenidad, I lost weight towards the end of my drinking days and I didn't feel good either. As others have said, getting back to a healthy weight is part of recovery. As you begin to care more about yourself, you will be encouraged to lose weight.

Hi, Serenidad: I lost 30 pounds and have kept it off for about a year now. I'll admit, it wasn't easy. I'm now in my mid-40s, and was still eating the way I did in my twenties when I was a dancer. (Not sure why I thought I could get away with that, but it was a habit).

I think you'll find that some of that weight and bloat will come off now that you aren't drinking. I agree with others regarding whole foods and exercise. But with exercise, I think it is important to find something that you love to do and will stick with. I've been hiking a lot these last several months, and now that classes are out, I've been taking the dogs for two one hour walks a day and doing yoga or pilates too, which I love.

I also used myfitnesspal to keep track of calories and exercise. I know that doesn't work for everyone (a good friend of mine finds that keeping track of what she eats makes her feel obsessive), but for me, it really helped. Just as I wasn't good at "portion control" when it came to alcohol, I realized that I wasn't too great at portion control when it came to food. It really helped me to "get real" about how much I was eating, when and why.

Your ok.

220,500!!! That's approximately how many EXTRA calories I consumed JUST from drinking the past 18 months. (I took what I normally drink per week and multiplied it by18 months) That should equal a 63 pound weight gain but I only gained about 40 lbs....but damn! That's pathetic! 40 is pathetic!!!

I'm so excited for the weight to start falling off now that I'm not drinking!

Starting weight on 5/25/15 (finally had the nerve to weigh myself yesterday) = 179 pounds
Goal weight: 139 (135 would be even better)

I can't believe the ONLY thing I changed was I started drinking again and POOF! I'm a whale! Oh well...it will come off, right? :-)

The cool thing about getting in shape is that every day gets better and you see results almost immediately. There are certainly many approaches but it comes down to calories burned need to be more than calories consumed so I am a fan of counting calories without being ridiculous about it (estimates are fine, you don't need to worry if you are 50 calories off on something during the day).

Not drinking helps a bunch, there are tons of empty calories in alcohol and if you throw in mixers and/or beer, it gets ugly in a hurry!

Serenidad-

I am in EXACTLY the same boat!!! I want this weight off!!

Starting to eat healthier. Lean protein and veggies as much as possible. Now I need to add in excercise. I have lost weight in my 2 weeks of not drinking.

I downloaded an app called 'Recovery Elevator'. It tracks sober days, but also money and calories saved by not drinking. I have saved 10,200 calories and $255.00 in 12 days!!

If you drink soda, Gatorade, koolaid, juice or anything like that the quickest way to lose weight is to replace that with water. If you do nothing else you will have cut a heck of a lot of calories out of your daily intake.

Serenidad: I'm exactly the same! I lost 40 pounds 2 years ago when I quit drinking for 6 months, only to slowly gain most of it back. Ugh. My go-to drink was beer (Miller 64). It somehow made me feel better knowing it was only 64 calories and less than 3 grams or carbs. It adds up tho when you drink over a six pack every day... plus binge eat. :(

I am so looking forward to losing this weight now that I'm on the journey to sobriety again.

Dharma33: Sounds like a great app. I'm going to download that myself!

Like some others have said, walking! Walking really helps. Of course you have to watch your diet too and always drink plenty of water.

That APP sounds awesome! I'm gonna download it now! How much weight do you want to drop?

Those beer calories really add up! It's rediculous. The more weight I gained the more depressed I got too and it made me want to isolate. I felt so alone from isolating that I would get more depressed and then drink and then gain more weight and then drink and on and on and on! Sound familiar? Ugh. :-/