Water retention ?

I give up the booze a week ago stuck to my recommended calories and haven’t lost any weight I have been drinking more water. Could it be water retention is this normal when you first stop drinking alcohol
Advise please

Replies

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,986 Member
    Are you actually consuming less calories? How do you measure your calorie intake?
  • lobylou5
    lobylou5 Posts: 8 Member
    I’m using the MFP app with allocated 1200 calories
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,986 Member
    Ok, but how do you know you eat 1200 calories? Are you using the information on packaging, spoons or a scale in grams?

    Can you give us a bit more information to help you?
    What is your current weight and goal weight
    How tall are you, how old
    Female or male?
    weight loss goal?
  • lobylou5
    lobylou5 Posts: 8 Member
    I’m using information on packaging and kitchen scales. I’m female age 60 current 5ft 2” 10stone 11 pounds Goal weight 9st 3lbs
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
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  • lobylou5
    lobylou5 Posts: 8 Member
    Thanks for information
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    First, congrats on giving up alcohol.

    Second, you don't have much weight to lose and it's only been a week. I think 1200 is too low, to be honest - but if you are comfortable there it won't hurt you in the short term. I wouldn't try to stick at that low calorie for very long, though.

    Set your Goals to "Lose 1/2 pound per week." Be honest on the Activity setting and as accurate as possible with the food logging, then give it time...adjust after a month.

    The quitting alcohol thing - it does sort of depend on how much you were drinking, what your general nutrition was like while you were drinking. When I quit drinking it took many months for my nutrition to be good enough to be able to lose weight. Stay the course. I know all I wanted to eat was carbs when I first quit drinking. My body would prefer I give it what it needs. :)

  • Poobah1972
    Poobah1972 Posts: 943 Member
    I don't know enough to comment on the possible correlations between non-drinking and water retention...

    But congratulations on giving up the booze! And all the best to you in your endeavors!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    How much booze? My wife and I are both not drinking right now...she didn't really drink all that much, maybe a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. She's not losing weight, but it's a lot easier for her to also offset the calories from not drinking with more calories from a couple of snacks or something. For myself, I was taking in around 1500 calories per day in alcohol alone...the weight is falling off of me right now like leaves on a cottonwood in October.

    I don't know that water retention specifically related to cutting alcohol is a thing...but I do know that many people compensate a bit with food and often also develop a sweet tooth.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    How much booze? My wife and I are both not drinking right now...she didn't really drink all that much, maybe a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. She's not losing weight, but it's a lot easier for her to also offset the calories from not drinking with more calories from a couple of snacks or something. For myself, I was taking in around 1500 calories per day in alcohol alone...the weight is falling off of me right now like leaves on a cottonwood in October.

    I don't know that water retention specifically related to cutting alcohol is a thing...but I do know that many people compensate a bit with food and often also develop a sweet tooth.

    Yep, I developed an M&M habit when I quit drinking. And all AA meetings I've attended were chock full of sweets.

    I was able to lose weight, but like you was getting a considerable amount of calories from alcohol which I did not completely offset with the M&Ms, and I clamped down on that fairly quickly. (As I was doing WW at the time, I do not know how many calories of either it was.)
  • lobylou5
    lobylou5 Posts: 8 Member
    Thank you for all your replies I was consuming about 500 calories a day with alcohol Thankfully I haven’t got a sweet tooth I’m sticking with the calorie counting and see what the scales say on Friday morning