Birth Control cause weight gain?

could birth control cause you to gain weight OR make it harder to lose weight?

i learned in Bio 30 that birth controls tricks your body into thinking its pregnant.

well when you're pregnant, the body wants to keep fat and retain it for the baby. could this happen while you're on the pill? ever since i started the pill, it's been very difficult for me to even budge a pound.

birth control doesn't make you gain weight.

birth control might make you want to eat more, but eating more makes you gain weight ;)

OMG.  Birth control pills with estrogen make me absolutely ravenous.  Like, I will tear apart everything in the work fridge and I don't even care who it belongs to.  I've tried regularbirth control pills and the nuva ring crap.  I took that thing out after a week.  HOWEVER, the progestin (sp?) only (mini pill) caused no increase in hunger what-so-ever.  If you have the same hunger problem, you may want to consider the switch.

When I hit a three month plateau losing the last ten pounds of baby fat I finally ripped off the patch and lost the weight.  (This was after upping my workouts to twice a day-which helped, but I was in a hurry at the time to lose that last bit) 

Birth control has the opposite effect on me. It reduces my PMS symptoms - bloating, cramps, irritability and best of all, chocolate and other junk food cravings.

I am taking Yaz, for my pms symptoms, and I haven't noticed anything. I just started dieting-like yesterday lol- so I don't know if it affects my weight loss but I definitly didn't gain weight. =)

Actually certain birth control can cause weight gain in and of itself.  For instance, conraceptives such as the Mirena IUD (which contains levonorgestrel, a synthetic form of perogesterone, a natural hormone which is meant to stay in balance with estrogen in the body) can cause estrogen dominance which can cause weight gain - it's even listed on their side effects on the pamphlet.  I'm actually having my IUD removed next week after 4 years, because I don't want even a possibility of the weight gain side effect inhibiting my weight loss.  I plan to go on a low dose BC pill, which I was taking last time I was able to succesfully lose quite a bit of weight.

"In the prescribing information for Mirena, weight gain is listed as a common Mirena side effect seen in clinical studies, occurring in at least 5 percent of women (an exact percentage is not given)."  - http://women.emedtv.com/mirena/mirena-and-wei ght-gain.html

I was 199lbs at 9 months preg with my daughter 4 years ago.  At my 6 wk postpartum, I was down to 166 and had the IUD inserted.  I was still following the same diet and exercise plan as during the 1st 6 weeks, which was very healthy, and was also nursing my daughter, however within a few months I was back up to 190, and there I have been stuck ever since.  After doing a lot of searches online, I have found literally hundreds, if not thousands, of women with the same story, which finally has me making up my mind to take it out.

Not trying to make this thread about me or a certain BC - but just saying that in my opinion it is possible for BC to affect our hormones and in doing so can cause real side effects including weight gain/difficulty or inability to lose weight.

Not using birth control causes weight gain too.

thanks for the feedback. i haven't gained weight since i've been on BC, i've just noticed that before the pill, whenever i was 'dieting' i could lose weight really fast.

Now being on the pill, and having started 'watching what i eat' etc, it's been really hard for me to even lose a pound. so i thought maybe they could be connected. But i'll just have to wait and see.

Original Post by trhawley:

Not using birth control causes weight gain too.

 But that's just temporary weight gain, it goes away eventually.