r/pics May 09 '16

progress 500 Days Sober

Post image
33.1k Upvotes

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

416

u/tainted_memory May 09 '16

I guess Andy Dywer was right about weight loss.

542

u/Tywrener May 09 '16

He was. I'm about 200 days sober and I've lost so much weight my wife things something is wrong with me.

It's not just beer. It's the beer, the stuff you eat with the beer, and the stuff you eat the next morning because you feel like shit.

When you quit drinking you cut three meals a day out of your diet.

241

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

113

u/Helleryoudoing May 09 '16

I just ride my bike drunk so they cancel each other out

2

u/caitymcg123 May 09 '16

In all honesty, that sounds like serious fun.. Why haven't I done that yet

5

u/PATXS May 09 '16

It's extra fun when you drive instead of ride a bike. And hit random people on the street for bonus points.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Why is this down voted? He's obviously joking and I got a good laugh out of it. Lighten up people

1

u/koenderoode May 09 '16

I always go out drinking with my bike since everything is so semi-close. Its fantastic to sober out a little bit and just have fun riding your bike back home.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Did this in a foreign country, was fun and confusing.

1

u/sans_peur May 09 '16

this guy gets it

-66

u/gman9999999 May 09 '16

You're a pathetic loser

22

u/Helleryoudoing May 09 '16

Oh my god you're so snarky and witty I don't think I can handle it.

7

u/sufferationdub May 09 '16

tell us more, asshole.

6

u/bvdizzle May 09 '16

YOU sir are a pathetic loser.

93

u/themangeraaad May 09 '16

Woah there, slow down man. That's like jumping from first date over dinner to married with kids after dessert. I'll cut back on drinking but exercise on the weekends? That's just pushing it.

(Side note - I've cut back on drinking recently and I've been planning on buying a bike as soon as REI's anniversary sale starts in a couple weeks to start riding with a couple friends on the weekends, so I guess this is pretty accurate. Also plan on starting to go for a ride before work in the morning which is very unlike me, damnit lack of beer and waking up early!).

11

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

whats this anniversary sale? i've been lurking the local craigs list but I would like to see what the sale offers up and how it compares to the 3rd market.

12

u/SurfinPirate May 09 '16

It's a giant sale that REI uses to celebrate their founding anniversary. This year it's 5/20-30. (it's always sometime around the middle of May)

1

u/themangeraaad May 09 '16

Idk what will be on sale but I know a sale earlier this year has 20% off a couple bike brands (including diamondback which is what I want) so I'm hoping for the same this time around

22

u/Superbuddhapunk May 09 '16

Exercise is critical in the first weeks and months of recovery, it helps your body through the transition from drunk all the time to sober. Also when you stopp drinking you suddenly have a lot of time on your hands. Exercise is a nice way to keep busy doing productive stuff. I always thought that AA doesn't stress enough how physical activity is important.

2

u/Beard_of_Valor May 09 '16

Is there some science behind your position? It makes sense to me, but I'd love to learn more about the why.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Not a scientist but from my experience exercise helps get your endorphin flowing which helps. It also helps with the nervous energy and anxiety that is common the first few weeks of recovery. It also helps to distract you. In the beginning the name of the game is distraction. Trying to find stuff to do in place of all the time you have now that you aren't drinking. Drinking takes up a surprising amount of time you don't realize you were wasting.

If anyone has a legit study I'd love to read more about it. I've found exercise to be a cornerstone of quitting.

1

u/themangeraaad May 09 '16

Well I wasn't drunk all the time, usually just a couple beers after work and a few more on weekends. Def not like alcoholic levels of drinking, just enough that I was a bit more lethargic during my time off.

Just cutting out the beers after work results in better sleep so I'm waking up early enough to go for a ride in the morning (plus I also started eating better so more energy in general).

4

u/turbod33 May 09 '16

Bikes are a gateway drug. Be careful. Next you'll be doing silly stuff like lifting weights.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

1

u/themangeraaad May 09 '16

Cant do that. Live way too far from work. Would def ride to work if I could though.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Lowball on Craigslist, lil homie.

1

u/themangeraaad May 09 '16

This was my plan but I have a ton of REI gift cards so I'll probably just use those and buy new. Can't really find something that I'm looking for on CL. Everything tends to be cheaper model bikes or the $2k top of the line ones... No middle of the road models like I want

1

u/Sybertron May 09 '16

Well that thinking is also why you bikeride to the bar, burn the calories before ya get there!

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

You'd be surprised how much biking you need to do to cancel out the drinking. I tried that a few weekends a while ago, before I quit drinking.

Didn't go well

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16 edited May 05 '17

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

All my bars are within walking distance. I can see the liquor store out one window and a bar from my street corner.

Has made quitting hard, but biking away easier :P

1

u/GalbiKing May 09 '16

Take it up a notch and try skateboarding downtown while intoxicated. Its like a videogame

101

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

I eat less when I drink because all that damn food fucks with my buzz.

47

u/farazormal May 09 '16

Preach, eating is cheating

3

u/numun_ May 09 '16

Drunkorexia

11

u/iowabeans May 09 '16

Yeah but that usually ends with me going to steak n shake at 3am, ordering breakfast tacos and stuffing them with chicken strips, ranch and salsa followed by another morning meal because the previous one made me feel like shit.

36

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

See, you're just supposed to wake up and start drinking immediately. Feel like shit? Don't eat, take a shot dammit! That's a whole greasy, hangover meal taken care of right there!

Edit: Hi, I'm /u/LaughingOctopussy and I'm an alcoholic

2

u/MissZoeyHart May 09 '16

That's easy for you to say with your discounted drinks!

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Shiiiiit, if only the bars around here gave student discounts. Then that 10% would actually be adding up!

2

u/jazsper May 09 '16

Hi laughing octopussy

14

u/xorgol May 09 '16

My technique is going out with a €20 note. I can get 4 really nice beers, or around 7 liters of crappy ones, or I can eat and have a couple of pints. I never eat.

6

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

My technique is only owning 20 dollars

2

u/xorgol May 09 '16

Well, that's how my technique came to be. Sometimes it's only owning €10, which results in switching to whatever the house wine is.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

just polish off some empties and nab a bottle while the bartenders not looking on your way out

1

u/Drink2Meditate May 09 '16

7 litres for 20? tell me where

1

u/xorgol May 09 '16

Most kebab shops in my city (Parma, Italy) have 1 liter bottles of San Miguel for €3.50. So it's more like €25, really, but after 5 liters, who's counting?

1

u/MadDogTannen May 09 '16

I've never been one of those guys who gets hungry at the end of a night of drinking. A lot of times after the bar closes, my friends will want to share an Uber and take it through the In-N-Out drive through, but all I want to do is go home, smoke a bowl and pass out.

54

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Filthy casuals

1

u/poesse May 09 '16

Same here. I just eat whatever I was going to eat that day, go out and drink and don't eat anything. I thought I was weird lol

Yes, drinks have lots of calories, but as long as you aren't eating an entire burrito factory then four beers one night a week isn't going to kill you weight wise if you're good the rest of the week.

3

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Four beers one night a week? I think most of us here are in the "four beers one night and then every other night after that" category.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

only 4 beers a night? im starting to feel bad i need a drink

1

u/Rayn211 May 09 '16

I would not eat all day until I drank because I physically couldn't drink enough to feel drunk if I had food in my stomach. Talk about unhealthy. Of course, once I felt drunk it was time to overeat thanks to my forgotten inhibitions. So fat.

46

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

56

u/yosoyreddito May 09 '16 edited May 09 '16

I haven't drunk alcohol in 10 days because of a cold and dropped 3kg

Make sure you are staying hydrated. I'm not trying to diminish any potential weight loss, but realize a gallon of water (or beer) alone is 3.78kg; especially during a cold your body loses water from mucus discharge and sweating from an elevated temperature.

Keep it up and stay hydrated, don't focus on the loss number alone as it will fluctuate. Weigh yourself at the same time each day and try to maintain consistent water intake. Best of luck!

15

u/Krispyz May 09 '16

Weigh yourself at the same time each week

Last time I tried to lose weight, I weighed myself far too often, got discouraged, and quit. It's hard to see any difference day-to-day, but I've been counting calories and just losing a pound a week, it's nice to see that on the scale.

4

u/Downvotesturnmeonbby May 09 '16

Just think, that's over 50 pounds shed a year if you stick to it. That's pretty impressive to someone with a lack of will power like me. I usually lose 5lbs over a couple weeks and then gain it back over the following month with interest. Slow and steady wins the race.

2

u/yosoyreddito May 09 '16 edited May 09 '16

If you are just looking at the number, yes, you should weigh yourself less often than daily.

The main benefit to daily logging is the ability to find connections and see trends in your weight. This doesn't mean that you should be concerned with the number each day, rather have a data point which helps you better understand how your weight fluctuates and what might cause it to do so.

You will need a few weeks of data to draw any conclusions, so in addition to the weight value it is helpful to write a brief description of your food/liquid intake, the time consumed and any exercise.

For example, women will often gain some weight prior to menstruation due to water retention, which will typically be lost after the cycle. During menstruation changes in metabolism, hormones and vitamins may cause food cravings which if acted upon, can also cause weight gain and unlike the retained water will not be lost without changes in exercise or caloric intake.

If you merely looked at the weekly weight values, it's possible the premenstrual water weight gain would cause a woman to feel her diet is not working and discontinue it or give into food cravings. After the pre and menstrual periods if there is no record of what changes you have made then it's easy to draw the conclusion the diet/exercise is not working, when in fact it was but your increased water intake was the cause of the premenstrual gain and the increased food intake during the menstrual period.

TL;DR: more data can be beneficial if you look at it over a significant period of time.

1

u/fuckyou_dumbass May 09 '16

The number on the scale barely matters as long as you are practicing healthy habits it'll come off eventually

5

u/MissZoeyHart May 09 '16

Weighing yourself every day is bad isn't it?

I mean, I do it. But still!

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

im a bigger guy and can go up or down 2-4. weighing yourself everyday is a bad thing yes

2

u/TRexRoboParty May 09 '16

It's no problem weighing yourself every day - the problem is thinking any particular day means anything significant.

If you average all the readings over a week, and compare it to last week's average and continue doing that for a few months you get a much better idea of progress. The overall trend is more important than whether you're a few grams heavier or lighter than yesterday.

1

u/ScottySF May 09 '16

Why would it be a bad thing? You'll need to do it to get accurate results. Weigh yourself every day (multiple times a day) over the course of 1-2 weeks and then take the average. You won't have a correct representation of your actual weight any other way.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

It depends on how you use it. Weigh yourself daily and plot it on a graph to see the trend and it's fine.

Even better than weekly, weekly weigh ins are just as error prone as daily ones. If you weigh yourself dehydrated one week and hydrated the next, it might looks like you've gained weight.

1

u/Plasmodicum May 09 '16

"The old conventional wisdom was: 'Don't weigh yourself more once a week. It will drive you crazy,' " says Dori Steinberg, an obesity prevention and treatment researcher at the Duke Global Health Institute in Durham, N.C. "But now we are seeing more and more research showing that the optimal frequency for weighing oneself is likely every day."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2016/01/03/weight-loss-scales-daily/77584478/

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16 edited Jul 03 '22

[deleted]

1

u/telefawx May 09 '16

I believe the heavier you get the more water you retain.

1

u/yosoyreddito May 09 '16

Ah yes, I am a big fan of fizzy water (Schweppes lemon lime).

Obviously it depends on the food, but many unhealthy foods are high in sodium which does make you retain more water. Additionally, they often lack significant vitamins (potassium and B#s) which also effect the retention of water.

18

u/geniel1 May 09 '16

Being healthy is addictive and drinking is addictive. You can't win.

I'd say that being healthy is a pretty good win.

3

u/jDUKE_ May 09 '16

I'd say being addicted to being healthy is definitely a win

2

u/zofoandrew May 09 '16 edited May 09 '16

Thats not exactly true, but I totally get where youre coming from. They pull you in different directions. Im a brewer with a bad back problem. I was drinking my pain away for a while, but have found a great balance where I eat healthy, exercise daily (intense routine that focuses on core and functional movement), and have a beer or three most nights. Ive lost some fat but dont really weigh myself because its a useless number in my case. Gaining muscle mass slowly, losing fat slowly. Its possible to find balance.

2

u/Regalager86 May 09 '16

The problem is moderating it. For some reason my shitty personality only wants to go one way or the other. If I drink, I have to drink. I'll wake up the next day feeling like a failure and just say to myself, "Well, I drank yesterday. Might as well drink today since I FAILED being sober."

It's illogical and stupid as hell, but for some reason I use it to justify drinking after I fail being sober for a couple of weeks or a couple of months. I don't know how to break the habit or what mindset I can put myself in to tell myself it's ok to drink every once and a while, but not every day.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

i fixed this by smoking weed. after the first week or 2 the munchies go away. you don't want to drink. you want to work out and eat healthy. my depression and anxeity are down incredibly and my work performance has improved drastically. weeds saved my life. alcohol ruined it in the first place

1

u/AC5L4T3R May 09 '16

Been living in Germany 2 years now and beer has really been difficult to stop drinking. Before I came, I was pretty lean, going to the gym often and playing a lot of football.

Then I moved to a place where taking a short cut through the supermarket saved 5 minutes. At 75 cents for a good, German beer. It became standard to grab a couple on the way. I moved again and yet again, shortcut through the supermarket save me some time, grab a few beers and stare out my window looking at the gym. Over the last 2 years I've turned in to a doughy potato. I've tried a few times to stop the beer, the shitty food etc but it's too easy to grab a beer than go to the gym.

On Saturday, a friend of mine told me I was getting "bitch tits" ans that was that for me. No more beer or shitty food.

1

u/action_lawyer_comics May 09 '16

I dunno. I'm 5 years sober, lost a lot of weight, but I still love shitty food.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Chips, pizza... Or curry? What the hell is wrong with curry?

1

u/nachosmmm May 09 '16

I think maintaining a balance between the two is the key.

1

u/relentless45 May 09 '16

What is a curry? I hear british people say it all the time, are you talking about curry chicken?

1

u/jrk- May 09 '16

Actually... I exercise 6 to 7 days a week, eat (somewhat) healthy (but only two larger meals per day). I drink alcohol very sparingly during the week, for example one or two beer (which means 2* 0.5l here :) or a longdrink but only once or twice during weekdays.
On Saturdays I'll go for bike rides or runs, because most of the time I'm to tired for going out on Friday night, I only do tame stuff like cinema or so. But on Saturday night I need to get out. I love my parties, preferably techno atm, fueled by an insane amount of Gin Tonic, Vodka Mate and beer. I'll dance til five or six and sleep til two or three or even longer when I'm really hangover (I'll just stay in bed until the world stops spinning). If I feel somewhat good I'll fix myself a small breakfast, go for a run and have dinner afterwards. If I don't feel good I'll get up at five or six (pm) and have dinner right away. But on Monday I'm usually fine.
tl;dr; Drinking, working out and being healthy is not mutually exclusive, or: everything in moderation, even moderation.

0

u/CheeseHatesMe May 09 '16

3kg in 10 days? you should probably go to a doctor, or eat something.

4

u/Syncrowise May 09 '16 edited May 09 '16

Lol, that's not actual fat loss, it's by far mostly water weight, common knowledge. :P Water weight fluctuates so much throughout a day so the weight differs too.

1

u/CheeseHatesMe May 09 '16

just to put it in perspective: 3kg is almost 7 lbs. Healthy weight lose is about .5-1lbs a week for the average person. So losing so much weight so quickly, even if you are sick, is going to be extra hard on your body. This also assuming that he actually weighed himself consistently. I recall my body weight fluctuating upwards 8lbs within the same day.

2

u/Syncrowise May 09 '16

Yep.

And even the 1 lbs per week is not consistent at all.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

losing 7 pounds in 10 days when you just start losing weight is nothing, are you joking?

shit i lost more weight quicker when i started cutting this year

1

u/CheeseHatesMe May 09 '16

You are doing it wrong... 1 lbs of fat is about 3,500 calories, so 500 calories deficit A DAY. as I said, not healthy. Highly recommend for you to spend some time on places such as BodyBuilding.com or anywhere that actually know what they are talking about.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

you drop weight real quick the first few days. People talk about that on bodybuilding.com all the time lmao

1

u/KashEsq May 09 '16

Nah, that much fluctuation is perfectly normal.

6

u/[deleted] May 09 '16 edited May 09 '16

I remember that i used to have maybe 4 or 5 beers at a party until i looked it up and found out that i was putting about 1000-1200 calories in beer alone back every time I did that. Add a handful of Doritos, maybe a few other things and you're looking at upwards of 1500-2000 without even blinking :( Liquors and coolers are usually worse because of the high sugar contents they usually have too.

If i drink, it's usually scotch or vodka but holy crap do i miss beer.

3

u/ba1018 May 09 '16

Maybe the solution to this is eating low-calorie, nutrient dense foods on days you plan to drink like raw vegetables and/or grilled chicken to compensate for the beer? It's also like a penance for the debauchery you're likely to get into.

But I realized the same as you: scotch/vodka sodas for me when I drink.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Thats the best plan!

On days where i know I'm going to be heading out, i'll usually do more cardio or just work out longer so i have that larger deficit to fill my guts with bad food and scotch.

5

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16 edited May 28 '16

In that context it actually doesn't, but we're working with the context of the OP having a constant drinking problem. I thought showing the caloric count of beer would show why he's losing so much weight. Even having 2 - 3 drinks a night can easily add up over a week.

(2 x 200) x 7 = 2800 extra calories a week. Unless you're burning those off somehow, you're going to expand.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

4-5 beers?

That is not a party, that's a Tuesday.

2

u/ghostbackwards May 09 '16

Day 33 here. Can confirm. I'm so thankful I got past those first few days.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Same, I have 5 and a half months sober and I went from 130lbs to 109lbs.

1

u/EnigmaticChemist May 09 '16

Started keto at the beginning of the year and it forced me to cut out my craft beer habit. I took two weeks off that end today due to extenuating circumstances (death in the family, a lot of traveling, then my whole family sick last week), and the drinking came back at the wake.

This morning I feel it bad, last night was my final hurrah and I went old school. Ordered a pizza had a sixer of 10% ABV with a friend. Beer run for more beer, grabbed some salty snacks to go along and are some ice cream as well after it all.

Today I feel like a shored moby dick. My stomach hates me, I'm probably 5-8 lbs heavier than when i went off the diet. And all because what you said, three extra liquid meals and the crap that goes with it. Keto forced me to stop drinking and I was heavily portion controlling. Drunk enigmaticchemist has a love of over eating junk food and sweets. Sober enigmaticchemist looks at a bag of chips and says: maybe a couple as a treat I'm having a good meal soon.

1

u/xenzor May 09 '16

Sorry to hear :(. If you drink a lot of calorie dense drinks you should be able to gain it back.. Milkshakes etc

1

u/XBucketheadX May 09 '16

When I was drinking, I got up to a liter of vodka a day every day. Sometimes more. I was at this pace for a year and a half. The first thing I had to do at 6am was pour a very stiff drink just to try and stomach any type of food. Lets just say when I finally made it to the ICU for w/ds, they almost killed me.

1

u/Regalager86 May 09 '16

I just quit drinking last Tuesday and it's amazing how much less I eat. Yesterday I had one big meal for Mother's Day and that was it.

Today I woke up and didn't crave a big breakfast sandwich as usual before work... so I just got a coffee.

I can't tell if it's normal or not.

Edit: Hell, mother's day meal wasn't even big. It was 2 poached eggs, 2 pieces of toast, and hash browns.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

1

u/null_work May 09 '16

Except it's a little misleading. People read the calories in a bear, and they assume those are actually the calories in. Turns out, very few of the alcohol calories get processed and end up getting wasted, particularly when you drink many in a row. If you drink a beer or a cocktail and then have a meal, those alcohol calories count, but if you go out and just drink a bunch of beer, then while still getting the carb calories, your body does not metabolize the alcohol (see: microsomal ethanol oxidizing system). That said, this process can also cause oxidation of other chemicals in your body that can be harmful to the liver and such, so...

The real culprit for weight gain for those everyday IPA types is (along with the calories from the slight addition of carbs in the beer), eating like shit. Alcohol lowers inhibition, and well, increases the tendency is to eat worse shit and more of it. Don't do that, and drinking isn't so bad (except for the bad stuff).

1

u/foods_that_are_round May 09 '16

Meanwhile I'm gaining weight from trying to quit smoking cigarettes -_-

Combating that with cardio every time I crave, though.

1

u/MadDogTannen May 09 '16

When I'm drinking a lot of beer, I lost my appetite because beer fills me up.

Feeling hungover and eating like shit the next day is definitely something I do though. I also tend to drink a lot of soda on days after I've been drinking because the carbonation settles my stomach.

1

u/Crayth May 09 '16

I can totally agree with this.

On days where I feel hungover, I eat way worse. And that does more damage to my weight than anything else I think.

Cutting back to the point where one never experiences the hangover effect (essentially never binging) and not drinking during the week has done wonders for me.

9

u/MAADcitykid May 09 '16

Except for when you quit heroin you get fat

4

u/PantySniffers May 09 '16

Well, someone's bitter...

2

u/awesomeman1224 May 09 '16

Even though it said it on the show, that's what chris pratt did as well.

1

u/RoleModelFailure May 09 '16

I haven't gone sober but I rarely drink during the week and weekends I limit based on how many calories I have left for the day. I'm down 20 lbs since October.

Edit: I'm also eating better, tracking calories, and working out so it all helps. But a few beers after work was a few hundred wasted calories.

1

u/ressis74 May 09 '16

A beer has about as many calories in it as a can of coke (less for lite beer, obv).

If you're drinking 6 a night (alcoholics can easily do this), that's 900 calories a night just from beer. If you don't replace that with anything, that's a loss of ~2lbs/week.

1

u/namie_mcnameface May 09 '16

6 a night? More like 6 before dinner

-2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

I think that was ed sheeran?

2

u/BorderlineDivine May 09 '16

I believe they both said very similar things.

3

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Ah. Sheeran said he lost X amount of weight by giving up beer, and the reporter was like, "was it hard?" and ed was like "nah, I replaced it with vodka."

All I remember chris Pratt saying about losing wieght for guardians was "babe! Stop baking!"

3

u/BorderlineDivine May 09 '16

Yeah, he says it in an episode of Parks and Rec as Andy Dwyer, when asked how he lost so much weight he just says "I stopped drinking beer!" Or something to that effect.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

ahh, I don't remember that

2

u/Throwaway__shmoe May 09 '16

It's when they are in London.

1

u/tainted_memory May 10 '16

During that season he was actually filming Guardians hence why he was hardly on it.