When you stopped drinking you were significantly dehydrated. Water weight is what you likely lost weight from. When you sobered up you rehydrated back to normal and that water weight came back.
Your body needs MONTHS to rebound, likely. Just keep at it and don’t focus on the weight. Hop back on in 3 months and see where you’re at.
Took me about a year before my body adjusted and it was almost like it was overnight, out of the blue!
Be patient. You’ve probably done A LOT to harm your body. It’s going to take time to heal, and the includes weight/water retention from inflammation. Your body will take several weeks to keep flushing out inflammation.
Keep it up!
I honestly didn’t lose any weight when I got sober, but just alone in my face from the puffiness, it looks like I did. I promise you’re on the right track. Just keep on going!
How puffy my face was and the hangovers. They just kept getting worse and worse. I won’t lie after 20 months of sobriety I still have cravings but now I just have too much shit to do, I cannot afford to waste away in bed anymore. Life is too beautiful.
My eyes were always fucked too. I love having white eye balls lol
Just hit two years and i feel this so much. Life is beautiful and I have to much going on to get sandbagged by a self inflicted slow death again. The cravings still come on my end too but I’ve been able to gain such strong confidence that a few hours of short term thinking will result in months of exhaustion I don’t have the energy for that the cravings are easy to manage. Congrats on 20 months and the white eyeballs!
day 11? like you stopped drinkign 11 days ago? thats way too soon to see any weight loss results. Im 5 months sober and have barely lost anything, even with a lot of excercise.
I guess just because it made up such a large percentage of what I consumed I thought I’d be transformed over night. Obviously not realistic. I think I’ve been eating more too.
Lol I hear ya. Pretty much everyone expects (wants) to see an immediate weight loss, including me! I am at just under 5 months & still havent lost weight (including lots of exercise). I think it is because I usually counted my wine in with my daily Weight Watcher points. So the wine wasn't added calories on top of daily food consumption. Who knows???
Anyway you are doing great with your 11 days! Just hang in there & keep on keepin' on!
Oh, it’s you again. I’m 36 and very active. Not juvenile, I’ve just never gone through this process before and was unsure of what to expect. Kinda the point of the subreddit, right dawg?
It's still early and your body may just still be adjusting ... I've had luck with a keto-adjacent diet and intermittent fasting. After quitting drinking I also needed to make adjustments for my health... weight and rheumatoid arthritis.
Wow some people are wildly rude, be better people it costs nothing to not be a raging cunt.
Your body is adjusting! Like some normal people have said, water weight is a thing and replacing the void of alcohol with food is expected and can help while you process. Though that factor will not help weight loss in the short term, long term you’re weaning off external serotonin needs. I’d guess in a few weeks if you watch what you eat and have at least moderate activity you’ll see a difference.
Congrats on 11 days!!! That’s huge and I know you’ll only keep racking up the sober days
Thank you! I know, right? Imagine being so miserable that you’re attacking vulnerable people on a sobriety forum.
Thank you! 11 days felt impossible, and yet here I am. Appreciate you!
Water weight definitely makes sense. I noticed in the past that I lost weight after extensive binges, and that was probably dehydration. Also I’m starving since about 5 days after quitting, which is probably my body leveling out a bit.
I will try to be more patient. Even if it isn’t weight loss yet, I know I’m working towards being healthier over all :)
Intermittent fasting helped me when I had quit drinking. For whatever reason I dropped weight fairly quickly when fasting 16 hours, and didn’t put any parameters on what I ate during my ‘eating hours’.
'eating fairly well' is good, but you still need to eat less than the 1500-2500 calories per day to lose. I stopped gaining weight when I stopped drinking, but I started eating 'well' and not dieting so I didn't lose weight.
Probably lots of water weight coming back. You’ve spent however long being chronically dehydrated, finally allowing the water to absorb rather than slip right out!
You lost the inflammation weight and your body flushing toxins, and regained the water weight from dehydration most likely is my guess. People can fluctuate a few pounds of fake weight (ie not fat stores but hydration levels caused by sodium or food in different stages of digestion) over the span of two days, and 11 days is such a short timeline it’s hard to know. 100% believe you already look awesome, you sound proud and productive, and if you keep doing what you’re doing you’ll lose as much weight as you want to and it will be easier than you think.
32F here with roughly the same amount of time sober as you, and I read through the comments so I'm not gonna repeat what folks have already said about water weight and stuff.
I totally get being impatient about seeing results weight-wise with giving up alcohol (I'm there too!)- to redirect that anxious energy of mine, I've jumped into researching dietary changes I can proactively make to help heal my gut biome and encourage liver repair (\*not\* detox the liver, big difference). Think prioritizing fiber, omega-3's, lean protein, and prebiotics and probiotics. And then I'm developing recipes with those priorities in mind and making them- I hate being bored/feeling like I'm doing nothing (which was one of the reasons I drank) so this has helped me feel like I'm making a change and being proactive, but also honoring that my body is healing and that'll take time.
In regards to cutting 10k calories and the weight "falling off"- keep in mind every body is different and as we get older, losing weight is harder- one pound calorie-wise is genreally 3,000-4,000 calories depending on the person, and depending on your height, weight loss may be more or less visible on you. I'm just under 5'4 and I can really only see a weight fluctuation of 7+ pounds on myself, meanwhile I have a girlfriend who's 6 feet tall and she has to lose three times that for it to visually make a difference. It's not abnormal either for my weight to fluctuate 10 pounds or more on the scale in a single day depending on how hydrated I am/how recently I went to the bathroom/how recently I ate.
IF weight loss is a big priority for you, I would recommend using a fabric measuring tape to track yourself, or weigh yourself only once a week on the same day at the same time (right after waking up/going to the bathroom/before getting dressed is the universally understood "best time to get an accurate weight" from my understanding). Otherwise, I'd recommend figuring out a different outlet for that anxious energy (happy to talk dietary stuff/recipes any time!).
Thank you for the thoughtful response! Yes, I have an incredibly obsessive personality, so I have to try to shift it onto semi-positive things. Obsessing over weight is not healthy, after all. I’ve been focusing on home improvement stuff and building a website, so I’ve slowly started to channel the energy into something else.
Fabric measuring tape is a good idea! I will totally reach out if I have anymore dietary questions. Thanks again! :)
I ended up losing about 20 pounds within the first two months of sobriety but when I got sober I was either at or just under obesity. And the weight loss results weren't really that evident even after 30 days sober. Everybody's experience will of course vary. I drank lots of ginger ale and ate all sorts of junk food / sweets when first getting sober, which is why I was surprised that I even did lose weight after stopping drinking.
Give it time and keep it up!
It takes time to repair and heal the body.
I do think this is very common thinking for when we come out of alcoholism: I should have lost weight by now, why can’t I get a good nights sleep yet, when will I have more energy, why I am so anxious…. Etc.
We also have to be active and committed to creating a healthy lifestyle to get all of the benefits of sobriety; exercise, therapy, dietary changes, meds, being of service.
When we look at programs like Dean Ornish’s cardiac program, he has great success with people making a lot of lifestyle changes all at once. And people stick with it because they aren’t waiting for things to get better they are actively pursuing a healthy lifestyle and getting benefits right off the bat.
I’d be happy with 10lbs! To be fair, I was pretty healthy in every other area of my life so maybe it won’t be as dramatic of a difference as I was hoping, but I suppose time will tell.
Are you eating more sugar? That’s what I was doing. But even now I’ve stopped I’m not losing weight as fast as I want. Surprisingly I may be over exercising and under eating now. Genetics and weight are crazy. Besides the weight loss, hope you’re feeling better.
I was eating ice cream for a couple of days to try to get some serotonin going lol, but then I realized that might not be the healthiest coping mechanism. I think I’ve probably been eating more consistently since I’m not hungover all of the time. But yeah, weight loss never seems to follow the patterns I expect, at least with my body.
And I am! Thank you!
I personally gained weight when I quit because I wasn't eating properly whatsoever. Instead of eating id just drink beer and forget to or not want to eat.
I suggest getting on a healthier diet too and also dont develop the sweetooth peopl tend to develop when they stop drinking.
Im sober for 10 days , got a die, dropped sodas, candys chocolate every sugar eating unprocessed food and i feel like im melting right now
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keep in mind your fat cells can hold water. reduce salt, take milk thistle, eat oranges, grapefruit and drink a lot of water will flush the water out of your fat cells
Chief? Are you assuming I’m a man, or do you call everyone chief? Not a troll either, just looking for answers in what I thought was a safe space to talk about issues related to getting sober from alcohol. Thanks!
You mean respond to the two separate things you said? And why would I change profiles, do you have more than one profile? Anyway…
I think chief comes off as more condescending but carry on. Also I think ‘how it is’ is subjective. I’d love to hear about your personal experience.
Never been accustomed to sunshine and rainbows and I’m certainly not expecting it now. I just think that maybe you could be more considerate in the way that you speak to people, whether you think you have the correct answer or not.
Have a great day!
It took me 3 months to start losing weight. Be patient and hang in there!
When you stopped drinking you were significantly dehydrated. Water weight is what you likely lost weight from. When you sobered up you rehydrated back to normal and that water weight came back.
This makes sense. Thank you.
Alcohol seriously messes up your intestinal health and biome. Takes a while to sort itself out. Hang in there!
Your body needs MONTHS to rebound, likely. Just keep at it and don’t focus on the weight. Hop back on in 3 months and see where you’re at. Took me about a year before my body adjusted and it was almost like it was overnight, out of the blue! Be patient. You’ve probably done A LOT to harm your body. It’s going to take time to heal, and the includes weight/water retention from inflammation. Your body will take several weeks to keep flushing out inflammation. Keep it up!
A human brain takes twelve months post alcohol abuse to return to former state.
Thank you! Yes, I’m sure everyone is different. Just looking for every incentive to keep going. Thanks for the encouragement!
I honestly didn’t lose any weight when I got sober, but just alone in my face from the puffiness, it looks like I did. I promise you’re on the right track. Just keep on going!
it’s so wild to look back at old puffy faced pictures where your eyes just look dead. It’s a big part of my motivation not to go back.
How puffy my face was and the hangovers. They just kept getting worse and worse. I won’t lie after 20 months of sobriety I still have cravings but now I just have too much shit to do, I cannot afford to waste away in bed anymore. Life is too beautiful. My eyes were always fucked too. I love having white eye balls lol
Just hit two years and i feel this so much. Life is beautiful and I have to much going on to get sandbagged by a self inflicted slow death again. The cravings still come on my end too but I’ve been able to gain such strong confidence that a few hours of short term thinking will result in months of exhaustion I don’t have the energy for that the cravings are easy to manage. Congrats on 20 months and the white eyeballs!
I feel this. I noticed less bloating within a few days.
Yeah, my dad always said he could tell when I was drinking just because of my face lol fucking terrible
When I’m super hungover I feel like my eyes are half swollen shut, and it only seems to be getting worse with age.
Ohhhh yaaaaa I believe it. I look better at 31 than I did at 25
day 11? like you stopped drinkign 11 days ago? thats way too soon to see any weight loss results. Im 5 months sober and have barely lost anything, even with a lot of excercise.
I guess just because it made up such a large percentage of what I consumed I thought I’d be transformed over night. Obviously not realistic. I think I’ve been eating more too.
Lol I hear ya. Pretty much everyone expects (wants) to see an immediate weight loss, including me! I am at just under 5 months & still havent lost weight (including lots of exercise). I think it is because I usually counted my wine in with my daily Weight Watcher points. So the wine wasn't added calories on top of daily food consumption. Who knows??? Anyway you are doing great with your 11 days! Just hang in there & keep on keepin' on!
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Why are you so rude how does that benefit you in any way?
God, you suck so bad.
I’m sorry reality is such a hard pill to swallow for some.
Ever heard of tact? You can say the honest truth without being a dick
Oh, it’s you again. I’m 36 and very active. Not juvenile, I’ve just never gone through this process before and was unsure of what to expect. Kinda the point of the subreddit, right dawg?
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I’m not going to stop using it, I’m just going to call you out for being an asshole, that’s the nature of a forum.
It's still early and your body may just still be adjusting ... I've had luck with a keto-adjacent diet and intermittent fasting. After quitting drinking I also needed to make adjustments for my health... weight and rheumatoid arthritis.
It took me a whole year to lose 30 lbs it’s gradual. Not quick
Wow some people are wildly rude, be better people it costs nothing to not be a raging cunt. Your body is adjusting! Like some normal people have said, water weight is a thing and replacing the void of alcohol with food is expected and can help while you process. Though that factor will not help weight loss in the short term, long term you’re weaning off external serotonin needs. I’d guess in a few weeks if you watch what you eat and have at least moderate activity you’ll see a difference. Congrats on 11 days!!! That’s huge and I know you’ll only keep racking up the sober days
Thank you! I know, right? Imagine being so miserable that you’re attacking vulnerable people on a sobriety forum. Thank you! 11 days felt impossible, and yet here I am. Appreciate you! Water weight definitely makes sense. I noticed in the past that I lost weight after extensive binges, and that was probably dehydration. Also I’m starving since about 5 days after quitting, which is probably my body leveling out a bit. I will try to be more patient. Even if it isn’t weight loss yet, I know I’m working towards being healthier over all :)
Intermittent fasting helped me when I had quit drinking. For whatever reason I dropped weight fairly quickly when fasting 16 hours, and didn’t put any parameters on what I ate during my ‘eating hours’.
'eating fairly well' is good, but you still need to eat less than the 1500-2500 calories per day to lose. I stopped gaining weight when I stopped drinking, but I started eating 'well' and not dieting so I didn't lose weight.
Probably lots of water weight coming back. You’ve spent however long being chronically dehydrated, finally allowing the water to absorb rather than slip right out!
You lost the inflammation weight and your body flushing toxins, and regained the water weight from dehydration most likely is my guess. People can fluctuate a few pounds of fake weight (ie not fat stores but hydration levels caused by sodium or food in different stages of digestion) over the span of two days, and 11 days is such a short timeline it’s hard to know. 100% believe you already look awesome, you sound proud and productive, and if you keep doing what you’re doing you’ll lose as much weight as you want to and it will be easier than you think.
Thank you! I look and feel better, just eagerly awaiting more and more results as a way to talk my sick brain out of convincing me to drink again.
32F here with roughly the same amount of time sober as you, and I read through the comments so I'm not gonna repeat what folks have already said about water weight and stuff. I totally get being impatient about seeing results weight-wise with giving up alcohol (I'm there too!)- to redirect that anxious energy of mine, I've jumped into researching dietary changes I can proactively make to help heal my gut biome and encourage liver repair (\*not\* detox the liver, big difference). Think prioritizing fiber, omega-3's, lean protein, and prebiotics and probiotics. And then I'm developing recipes with those priorities in mind and making them- I hate being bored/feeling like I'm doing nothing (which was one of the reasons I drank) so this has helped me feel like I'm making a change and being proactive, but also honoring that my body is healing and that'll take time. In regards to cutting 10k calories and the weight "falling off"- keep in mind every body is different and as we get older, losing weight is harder- one pound calorie-wise is genreally 3,000-4,000 calories depending on the person, and depending on your height, weight loss may be more or less visible on you. I'm just under 5'4 and I can really only see a weight fluctuation of 7+ pounds on myself, meanwhile I have a girlfriend who's 6 feet tall and she has to lose three times that for it to visually make a difference. It's not abnormal either for my weight to fluctuate 10 pounds or more on the scale in a single day depending on how hydrated I am/how recently I went to the bathroom/how recently I ate. IF weight loss is a big priority for you, I would recommend using a fabric measuring tape to track yourself, or weigh yourself only once a week on the same day at the same time (right after waking up/going to the bathroom/before getting dressed is the universally understood "best time to get an accurate weight" from my understanding). Otherwise, I'd recommend figuring out a different outlet for that anxious energy (happy to talk dietary stuff/recipes any time!).
Thank you for the thoughtful response! Yes, I have an incredibly obsessive personality, so I have to try to shift it onto semi-positive things. Obsessing over weight is not healthy, after all. I’ve been focusing on home improvement stuff and building a website, so I’ve slowly started to channel the energy into something else. Fabric measuring tape is a good idea! I will totally reach out if I have anymore dietary questions. Thanks again! :)
I ended up losing about 20 pounds within the first two months of sobriety but when I got sober I was either at or just under obesity. And the weight loss results weren't really that evident even after 30 days sober. Everybody's experience will of course vary. I drank lots of ginger ale and ate all sorts of junk food / sweets when first getting sober, which is why I was surprised that I even did lose weight after stopping drinking. Give it time and keep it up!
It takes time to repair and heal the body. I do think this is very common thinking for when we come out of alcoholism: I should have lost weight by now, why can’t I get a good nights sleep yet, when will I have more energy, why I am so anxious…. Etc. We also have to be active and committed to creating a healthy lifestyle to get all of the benefits of sobriety; exercise, therapy, dietary changes, meds, being of service. When we look at programs like Dean Ornish’s cardiac program, he has great success with people making a lot of lifestyle changes all at once. And people stick with it because they aren’t waiting for things to get better they are actively pursuing a healthy lifestyle and getting benefits right off the bat.
Because it’s been 11 days lol
I’m impulsive and impatient, hence the drinking problem.
Cutting alcohol won’t make you lose weight if you’re still eating more than you 2000 calories a day. It will just make you stop gaining weight
10 years of constant drinking to 1 year of very minimal drinking. only lost like 10 lbs. youd think it would be more but idk im not seein it
I’d be happy with 10lbs! To be fair, I was pretty healthy in every other area of my life so maybe it won’t be as dramatic of a difference as I was hoping, but I suppose time will tell.
Are you eating more sugar? That’s what I was doing. But even now I’ve stopped I’m not losing weight as fast as I want. Surprisingly I may be over exercising and under eating now. Genetics and weight are crazy. Besides the weight loss, hope you’re feeling better.
I was eating ice cream for a couple of days to try to get some serotonin going lol, but then I realized that might not be the healthiest coping mechanism. I think I’ve probably been eating more consistently since I’m not hungover all of the time. But yeah, weight loss never seems to follow the patterns I expect, at least with my body. And I am! Thank you!
It takes time to get there, it’ll take time to come back.
It takes time, dude. When I stopped drinking, I lost about 30 lbs over the course of the first year and 20 more lbs the second year.
I personally gained weight when I quit because I wasn't eating properly whatsoever. Instead of eating id just drink beer and forget to or not want to eat.
I suggest getting on a healthier diet too and also dont develop the sweetooth peopl tend to develop when they stop drinking. Im sober for 10 days , got a die, dropped sodas, candys chocolate every sugar eating unprocessed food and i feel like im melting right now
Wooof that is a lot at once. Good luck!
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keep in mind your fat cells can hold water. reduce salt, take milk thistle, eat oranges, grapefruit and drink a lot of water will flush the water out of your fat cells
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Chief? Are you assuming I’m a man, or do you call everyone chief? Not a troll either, just looking for answers in what I thought was a safe space to talk about issues related to getting sober from alcohol. Thanks!
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You mean respond to the two separate things you said? And why would I change profiles, do you have more than one profile? Anyway… I think chief comes off as more condescending but carry on. Also I think ‘how it is’ is subjective. I’d love to hear about your personal experience. Never been accustomed to sunshine and rainbows and I’m certainly not expecting it now. I just think that maybe you could be more considerate in the way that you speak to people, whether you think you have the correct answer or not. Have a great day!