Losing Weight In Sobriety

For some people, quitting drinking alcohol in the hopes that it will improve their physical health. For many, sobriety and weight loss are a primary concern. Whether you’re at risk for obesity-related diseases like Type 2 diabetes or heart disease, or if you’re looking to approve your appearance and emotional wellbeing, can sobriety help?

The quick answer is: probably. There are many factors that go into sobriety, weight loss, and overall health outcomes. Let’s break them down.

The Relationship Between Alcohol and Weight

Does consuming alcohol make your gain weight?

Yes! In addition to being full of empty calories and sugar, heavy drinking impacts your body’s ability to burn fat. When you drink, your body converts alcohol to acetate. Your body loves acetate and will prioritize metabolizing it over fat and sugar.

When your body uses all its energy to metabolize acetate, the fat and sugar end up getting stored in the body. Additionally, alcohol lowers your testosterone levels which also slows your body’s ability to burn fat.

And that’s just the beginning. If you’re interested in learning more about the ways alcohol causes weight gain, check out the related post below.

All things remaining equal, if you quit drinking alcohol and change nothing else about your daily life and routine, you will eventually lose weight because you are consuming fewer calories.

For example, one small 330 ml bottle of beer with 5% alcohol has 182 calories, which is the equivalent of about half of a cheeseburger. One pint of cider, which is 2.6 units of alcohol, has 216 calories.

If you are consuming anything over two drinks in a single evening, you’re entering into some significant caloric territory. Naturally, if you drop those extra 1,000+ calories every week, sobriety will lead to some weight loss.

Sobriety isn’t so cut and dry, however. There are many other factors to consider.

Switching to Sugar – Sobriety and Weight Loss

Sometimes people experience weight gain in sobriety instead of weight loss (Hi, it’s me!). One reason for this is many people who quit drinking end up replacing alcohol with sugary drinks and treats.

Alcohol literally changes your brain. You become reliant on alcohol for dopamine. Without it, you may start to feel depressed, agitated, and like the world is dull and gray.

It is incredibly common to turn to sugar as an alcohol replacement. It produces the same kind of dopamine surge we used to rely on alcohol to give us. In the early days of sobriety, it’s easy to go overboard on the sweets because you’re desperately craving a sense of emotional balance.

For those of us who struggle with alcohol addiction and abuse, we do what we must to get through those critical first weeks and months. As it relates to weight loss, however, this is a hindrance.

Depending on your body type, genetics, and amount of alcohol consumption, you may add weight in the beginning. But if you’re able to keep your sugar intake to a reasonable amount and wind up consuming fewer calories than when you drank, your chance of early weight loss increases.

Exercise – Sobriety and Weight Loss

Another factor that contributes to whether sobriety and weight loss are in your future is exercise.

Exercise is critically important in sobriety for several reasons, including:

• Improves your mental health.
• Helps form healthier friendships with other like-minded people.
• Provides you an outlet for managing difficult emotions.
• Helps you combat boredom in sobriety by giving you something productive to do.
• Allows you to start healing your brain.

Depending on how often you exercise, the intensity, and what kind of eating habits you adopt in sobriety, you are likely to lose some weight.

Even if you don’t burn a ton of calories exercising, developing a new healthy habit will have ripple effects on your new sober lifestyle that will contribute to weight loss.

Even moderate amounts of exercise at a low intensity can help you lose weight. This is because physical activity helps you reduce stress, improves your sleep, and makes you feel better. All of these things can lead to weight loss.

Nutrition – Sobriety and Weight Loss

You might experience weight loss after sobriety if giving up alcohol helps you change poor eating habits. Alcohol frequently leads to binge eating. It tricks your body into starvation mode which is why after a long night of drinking you start devouring everything in sight. Oh, hello McDonald’s! I’ll have a large Number 2 and an extra, large fry, please!

Alcohol also lowers your inhibition which increases the chance of making poor food choices (among many other bad decisions).

If you quit binge eating and plowing through a pile of nachos several times per week as a result of sobriety, you will lose weight.

The combination of alcohol and a poor diet leads to an increased risk of depression, which further impacts your ability to stay active and eat well. It’s all interconnected.

If sobriety helps you make healthier food choices and start getting active, even if it’s just going for occasional walks, you will start to see weight loss. It’s another reason why good nutrition is so important in sobriety. Healthy food helps repair the damage bad lifestyle choices have done to your body and fortifies you against making additional poor choices. Net wins all around!

Takeaway

Does getting sober lead to weight loss? Most likely. Sobriety itself does not inherently cause weight loss. It’s the behaviors that sobriety supports that will help you shed some pounds.

If sobriety helps you reduce your daily calorie intake, inspires you to get moving, and helps you reduce stress and get better, quality sleep, then yes. You are going to lose weight, feel better, and completely level-up your life.

But there are some barriers to weight loss in early sobriety such as replacing alcohol with sugar and depression that can delay some of these sobriety benefits.

It doesn’t mean you should give up on sobriety or that you will never lose weight after sobriety. It just means that it will happen at different times for different people. Some experience weight loss right away and others requires a bit more time.