What You Need To Know About Weight Gain After Quitting Alcohol

Two weeks into sobriety, I stepped on the scale.

I’d been drinking more in the past three years than I ever had, and I had the pudge to prove it. Everyone in my recovery circle talked about how much weight they lost when they quit drinking, and I was excited to see the number on the scale start dropping.

Only it didn’t.

How on earth did I gain four pounds in two weeks?? I was easily cutting out 500-600 calories a day just by not drinking my nightly bottle of wine.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

It’s easy to get discouraged when the number on the scale keeps going up. Especially in early sobriety, when every night without alcohol is a hard fought battle. Two weeks in, it’s difficult to see much benefit in all the struggle. Seeing the number on the scale go down would be a great place to find encouragement… but it’s not there.

Let me also say – I’m a little jealous of people whose most effective coping mechanism is exercise. My favorite coping skills are things like knitting, taking naps, reading, and eating Skittles. None of those things burn many calories. In the first two years of sobriety, I gained almost 20 pounds.

So what gives?

Weight gain after quitting alcohol is more common than you think.

Here are some important things to keep in mind:

People Share About Losing Weight – Not So Much About Gaining It.

Think about it: Would you run around telling everyone about how much weight you’ve gained lately? Of course not.

No one else is, either.

When we accomplish something we’re proud of, we’re excited to tell others about it. We’re excited to tell them how we did it, and we want to encourage them. Especially if it’s taken a lot of effort to get there – like staying sober does.

Weight is a tricky subject, one people don’t like to talk about. That’s especially true when the number is going up instead of down. For a lot of people, seeing the pounds increase causes a shame response, and we know that most people avoid talking about anything that makes them feel shame. So instead of sharing about it, they keep it quietly to themselves, often wondering what’s wrong with them.

It’s so isolating.

So I want you to know that you’re not the only one experiencing this. It’s actually normal, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s likely a sign that your body is healing.

Many People Are In A State of Malnourishment By the Time They Stop Drinking

On the surface, we see that we were consuming an extra 500 calories a day and now we’re not. Based on the information we have – that fewer calories equals weight loss – it would make sense to expect to see the weight start falling off quickly.

But there’s so much going on inside our bodies that we don’t consider.

• Alcohol impairs digestion, making it more difficult for your body to break down foods to absorb the nutrients it needs
• It kills healthy bacteria in the gut, making it harder for your body to absorb healthy fats and fat-soluble vitamins that it requires for healthy function
• Alcohol suppresses hunger, which can lead to malnutrition.
• Heavy alcohol use causes intestinal permeability – meaning nutrients leak out of the intestines instead of getting absorbed and put to use.
• Alcohol increases the transit time of digestion, meaning food moves through your body too quickly for nutrients to be absorbed
• It’s also a diuretic – meaning it makes you pee more than you normally would. Nutrients that your body needs become diluted and are removed from the body through your urine, instead of being absorbed and put to use.
• When your body is in malnourished, it holds onto every ounce of fat that it can, to try to keep you alive and functioning. It’s responding the best way it knows how.

If you’ve been drinking enough for alcohol to cause these side effects, and then you stop drinking, your body will begin to actually absorb the nutrients it needs.

It will take awhile for your intestines to heal and for your gut biome to balance out. While that’s happening, you’ll likely notice weight gain. Be patient. Keep giving your body the time and space it needs to heal, and you’ll see that it starts processing nutrients more normally.

Alcohol Disrupts Hormones

We tend to focus primarily on caloric intake when we think of weight loss and weight gain, but hormones play a huge part, too. Even moderate alcohol use creates a hormonal imbalance. (For reference: moderate intake means 1 drink per day for women, 2 drinks per day for men.) I don’t know about you, but I definitely exceeded “moderate”. Like, by a lot.

Weight management requires balanced hormones.

If you’ve been drinking heavily for a while, it’s going to take time for those hormones to balance out after you quit. The amount of time it takes is different for everyone – based on factors like how much you drank, for how long you drank, your unique physiological make up, etc. Research indicates that it can take several months, and even up to a year, for hormones to balance.

Sabotaged By Sugar Cravings

Sugar cravings are common occurence in early sobriety, and it’s easy to consume as many calories in sugar as you did in alcohol.

Understanding the reasons for the sugar cravings can help quell them. While there are several reasons you might find yourself craving sugar, these are the two most common:

• Blood sugar imbalance – Alcohol causes the liver to struggle to process glucose (sugar). It takes awhile for this function to return to normal. The decreased blood sugar causes the body to crave an easy source of energy – sugar.
• Dopamine deficiency – If alcohol was your primary source of dopamine (and if you were drinking to excess, that’s usually the case) you’ll find that your mood drops when you’re sober. Eating sugar is a quick, easy source of dopamine. It acts as a substitute for the rush of dopamine alcohol provided, but can become addictive and problematic if used in excess.

The best way to ward off sugar cravings is to eat a healthy, well balanced diet.

That said, someone once gave me a piece of advice that I think is worth repeating. When quitting alcohol, many people also try to quit other addictive behaviors. Instead of quitting everything at once, quit one thing at a time.

And start with the thing most likely to kill you.

Your weight is not the most important thing. If staying sober means you need to snack on some Skittles tonight, go for it. As things settle out, and sobriety becomes a more natural part of life, you’ll be ready to tackle the weight issue. (I started dealing with my weight gain around 2 years sober.) Don’t force it faster than you’re ready. Sobriety ALWAYS comes first. 

Take care of you. Build up your self love. You are beautiful just the way you are, and you’re right where you need to be. Things will fall into place when they’re meant to. Just keep showing up for YOU. 

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Too often, we think, “I’ll love myself as soon as I lose weight; get sober; overcome my depression…” or whatever it is for you.

I just want to remind you – you deserve to love yourself right now. Right where you are. Those changes you want to make come a lot more easily if they’re coming from a place of love.

If this is something you struggle with, make sure you download my FREE E-book – Journal Your Way to Authenticity. It’s a step by step guide to get to know the REAL you – so you can start to fall in love with her.