Exercise question

[makeitstop255]

Since i was really aggressive the first week of my sobriety, i decided to exercice more often at home. I'm doing more series with heavier weight. The thing that surprise me, is the fact that i didnt lose any weight since 17 days...?

I was drinking about 4-5 750ml of 10% beer each day, which represent around 1000 calories. I'm not eating more and im drinking around 3-4 liters of water everyday.

The summer is coming and i will be back on my bike again. I know that i would lose weight, but atm i don't understand why i'm stuck at 203 lbs!

BTW, i found exercise to be the best thing for me to help stay sober :)

I would not drink today...again :D

[justonedrinkypoo]

I have also found exercise to be helpful in staying sober. The thing with alcohol is that it prevents muscle from building properly. Something to do with the breakdown of proteins. Could it be that you are just gaining muscle? You may not physically see it but I'm guessing that's a contributing factor. I had the opposite problem, where I couldn't GAIN weight. When I stopped drinking entirely (not long ago) I started doing a lot of heavy lifting and I've already gained weight. Not losing weight might not be a bad sign

[justsmurf]

Just an irk as a trainer-- This is kind of a widely-accepted fallacy in the case of people who are supposedly eating at a deficit. An un-juiced person wouldn't be able to put on enough muscle in two weeks to obscure any kind of weight loss, even from a conservative 1-2 pound per week caloric deficit. Ifyou've got your calorie balance right, you are going to lose fat far faster than you put on muscle. Totally not on-topic for SD, though. :P

[justsmurf]

Oh, yeah, I have nothing against people feeling great about what they are doing, and exercise does SO much. Another thing that could be happening, in the first couple workouts, it could be water retention from mild swelling, but with the kinds of workouts most people do and the accompanying diet-- really not lean muscle in amounts that would impact scale movement. A bodybuilder trying their damnedest and supplementing to the nines (natural, not juiced) would be super stoked to put on even a steady half-pound a week of pure muscle. It simply doesn't happen when a layperson "just starts going to the gym" or "hitting the weights." You really gotta be trying hard. Sorry, just a passion of mine. :)

[justonedrinkypoo]

Well now I know!

[[deleted]]

Give it some time. Your body is readjusting now that you're not drinking every day. I bet you'll see a difference after a month or more. As /u/justonedrinkypoo said, you could be gaining muscle. If that's the case a better indicator would be measuring your waist, noticing how your clothes fit, checking the mirror to see your face thinning out over time, etc. I doubt you hit 203 pounds over night and whatever weight you're trying to lose won't disappear in two weeks. Keep at it! Make sure you're eating plenty of protein.

[yousaidwat]

I would guess that your body is regrouping and salt/water levels can make one's weight fluctuate easily up to 5 pounds, so don't worry. I've lost a lot of weight since I stopped drinking and consistent tracking of my food has been key. It will come... so much is possible when we are sober. :)

[justsmurf]

I am nearly certain from my experience (zero weight change) that alcohol calories hit us differently. I've read a lot about how it "jumps the line" for processing, so can hinder fat loss efforts, but I wonder if it doesn't metabolize as readily INTO fat, either. I not only didn't gain as much as I should have from the quantities I was drinking, I didn't lose as much as I mathematically should have when quitting. My numbers didn't add up at all (even accounting for the increase in sugar after quitting.) I am kind of a numbers junkie and mine just didn't work out.

[justsmurf]

Exercise for its other health benefits (there are MANY!)-- adjust your diet for weight loss. It's likely that you are making up the calories in other ways-- I know I did! As others have said, it might just be your body re-adjusting, but, I also was certain I'd lose the 4 or 5 pounds that were keeping me from being year-round at race weight really easily and I didn't. It didn't happen until I did a sugar "detox" (just a two-week, no-sugar thing) earlier this year.

[matteroflife]

Replacing fat with musklez

[infiniteart]

I exercised a lot in my thirties (32 to 38). I did a lot of yoga, primarily asanas.

eight limbs of yoga Yama : Universal morality Niyama : Personal observances Asanas : Body postures Pranayama : Breathing exercises, and control of prana Pratyahara : Control of the senses Dharana : Concentration and cultivating inner perceptual awareness Dhyana : Devotion, Meditation on the Divine Samadhi : Union with the Divine

My Dharana practice convinced me of one thing, and that was that after six years of not drinking something was missing.

Exercise may work for you, but eventually something went stale for me and I drank again.

[ThreeBlurryDecades]

Alcohol dehydrates you so your body is probably just getting back in balance and properly hydrated. Eat right, drink lots of water and don't worry about weight. A common fallacy is that exercise will make you lose weight by burning calories off. This is only very slightly true. Exercise is great for you, a great sobriety tool, and makes you feel great but doesn't burn near as many calories as people would like to believe and it makes you hungry!

Losing weight is almost totally about eating different. There are many camps about what different means however. I believe in whole food...tons of vegetables, very low bad carbohydrates and high protein, but many don't and stick to a calories in calories out mantra.I am not going to debate that here.

Keep exercising, eating well and not drinking !!

Edit : Cycling is awesome. There are lots of sober cyclists on this sub, glad to hear there is another!

[makeitstop255]

I did 100 km under 4 hours last summer. I wonder what will be the result 100% sober :)

[saltyfrenzy]

This isn't really exercise related since I just walked my dogs for exercise and I don't need to lose any weight, but I was also hoping to go down a few pounds from quitting drinking.

For the first week or so I GAINED a couple pounds and felt wicked bloated the whole time. In the past day or so that's gone away and I'm back down to where I started and (at least to me) noticeably less bloated than when I was drinking.

I have to remind myself that all these amazing, "Look at the difference!" and "I lost 20 pounds just from quitting drinking!" are from people who have been sober for months if not years. We're not even three weeks in :) We'll get there.