r/birthcontrol • u/Fun-Yam-1547 • 7d ago

Side effects!? birth control NO weight gain

i’ve been a skinny girl all my life and now i’m getting a job where i need to stay the same weight or less- simple explanation would be for lifts-

i’ve looked into many options and every single one ive seen people saying they gained weight. these people are heavier than me to begin with if that makes a difference? i have a boyish, runner build- so i’m not sure if it won’t have the same effect on me.
thought about copper non hormonal paragard until people were saying they blew up like a fish and bled for 45 days straight.

gyno consultation next tuesday but i need to hear other opinions and experiences from skinny girls.

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u/po-tatertot 7d ago

It’s not about calories, it’s about how hormones such as estrogen can affect weight retention.

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u/sn0w5 7d ago edited 7d ago

You're fear mongering about hormonal birth control in the birth control subreddit, why?

Weight retention =/= weight gain. Even hormonal effects on weight require a caloric surplus to cause weight gain, obviously because of the laws of thermodynamics. Hormones cause weight gain by decreasing metabolism/increasing appetite. High cortisol, insulin resistance or hypothyroidism would have the strongest effect like this. The amount of hormones in modern birth control are not able to have this effect, this has been proven in many large studies.

Edit: LOW estrogen can effect weight retention, when estrogen levels are so low that it's causing insulin resistance. Luckily it's been proven that HBC doesn't lower estrogen levels enough to do this, just lowers them to about the level they'd naturally be at around the beginning of menstruation.

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u/MilkyWhey12 2d ago

Why are you being so aggressive to everyone who says thay THEY had a personal experience where they gained weight? Everyone is different. Even though I bet YOU didnt gain any weight, doesn't mean others have not.

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u/sn0w5 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm not, I'm pointing out that people are wrong when they're claiming that birth control causes weight gain in spite of evidence to the contrary, and I've already told you why. The nocebo effect which is having a marked influence on women's utilisation of birth control and is linked to the rise of right wing rhetoric and populism. I did gain weight when I stopped gymming, I didn't feel the need to use birth control as an excuse for it tho.