Questions about my girlfriends weight gain

[islandsurfer]

Before spring break(about 2 months ago) my girlfriend was going back to the colleges health center to get another month of her bc pill, i had her ask about her weight gain and if they had another pill for her to go on(following advive from this board, once again thank u for listening to me and responding). she asked me to go with her so i did.

 

My gf had been on the pill for about 5 months and the nurse said it would not have been uncommon for her to gain 5 to 10 pounds. My girlfriend got weighed and was 147 pounds. My gf hasn't weighed her self since the summer after she graduated from high school, then she was 110. She kept that same weight her freshman year of college and it was not until the summer after her freshman year she started to gain. She estimates she weighed around 130 this last oct. when she went on the pill

 

The nurse gave a lil speach on how the pill can cause weight gain, but is prolly not sole responsible for the weight she has gained since oct. expecially if she was goining weight before she went on the pill(if u read my earlier posts u can see why this is prolly true) They decided to take her off the pill she was on and put her on the depro shot. The nurse said that weight gain is still a side effect but it should be less then the pill she was on.

 

It has been about 2 monthes since this visit to the health center and its been about a month and a half since she got her first depro shot. Her weight has skyrocketed over this month and a half. Since college ended a week ago she has been staying with me,(my parents are out of town) but she is going home this weekend. She is worried about how they are going to react to her weight gain. When she was home for spring break weighing 147 her sisters teased her about her weight. she knows she has gained since then.

 

Today I borrowed a neighbors scale and she weighed 162, she didn;t believe it so i borrowed a friends scale, this one was digital and said 161.2. Being around 125 at the start of the school year this depressed her. She is 5ft 3 and the weight really shows on her.

 

I researced depro shot in a search engine and got lots of stories about people gaining weight on it, i wish i knew the pill she was on so i could have compared the amount of weight gained by the two birth controls. It just seems the health center put her on a birth control that caused more weight gain then the one she was on. But then again i;m not a doctor and the nurse did say that each birth control method had a different effect on the person useing it.

 

I hope this question isn't too rude. but has anyone gained weight away from home, then when going back how did ur friends and family act. I want to give her some advice for when she goes home this weekend. Also, does cellulite go away. She seems to think that now that she has it, even if she loses weight it will still be there.

 

Right now i feel helpless, i really want to help her but there isn;t really much i can do. I just want to be able to talk to her and offer advice and input when she talks about her weight.

 

Any input or advise will be much appreciated. Thank you.

[westernxer]

Does she eat a lot in addition to the birth control?

[sophia34]

Ask her if she is eating more now than she did before, when she wasn't on hormones.

 

One thing that hormonal birth control can cause is an increase in appetite--it's as if you're always hungry or craving food. I know because it happened to me. I gained almost 20 lbs. on the pill. I got up to 158 lbs. However, after a while I finally realized that I was overeating (it hadn't felt like overeating to me, because dammit I felt HUNGRY!)

 

But when I added everything up, I realized I was eating more than 2,300 to 2,500 calories each day. So of course I gained weight.

 

My next step was to try to counteract my appetite. After doing some research, I found that vitamins such as B vitamins, magnesium, and iron (though your girlfriend should not take iron without a consult with her doctor--too much is not good) do regulate metabolism and appetite. AND they can be sapped by hormonal birth control. If your girlfriend has a vitamin deficiency of some sort, that may be why she's always hungry. Her body is trying to get what it needs somehow, which leads to cravings and overeating.

 

I now take individual supplements of magnesium and B-complex each day, with the occasional iron pill thrown in (with my doctor's OK). I also upped my exercise (a natural appetite suppresant!). My appetite decreased and my weight went back down to around 140. I can now control what I eat much more effectively, even though I'm still on the pill, because I'm not craving food and feeling ravenous all the time.

 

I'm not sure if this is your girlfriend's problem or not. This is not meant to be universally applicable, because I'm sure it's not. But if she is eating a lot more than she used to and she isn't sure why, she might look into a vitamin deficiency with a doctor and/or nutritionist. She may be able to counteract the appetite-increasing effects of the hormones.