Really struggling despite diet and exercise...

Archaeus

Thanks. I am by no means overweight, and you can't tell by looking me that I'm 150 lb except for my belly/hip/thigh fat that's only really noticeable when I'm in my exercise clothes. All of my surviving females include my mother, aunt on my dad's side, and cousin on my mom's side (all the rest are male), except for my cousin, are heavier women. My late aunt on my dad's side was also heavy, in fact, everyone on my dad's side is heavy. So it may also be genetics and the fact that I'm female and my body naturally wants to cling to fat/water in those areas. The biggest difference I have seen is with water pills, but I am very sensitive to caffeine (the only caffeine I usually consume is from tea and that's usually pretty low), so I stopped them and of course gained the water weight back. I know I carry at least 10 lbs of water weight, since I have lost that much suddenly on my period when I was eliminating more water from my system than usual (strange because I usually bloat on my petiod). I drink 8-10 cups a day usually, so I'm not sure why it's clinging to me, and that's another reason I ditched my current BC because in some women, while symptoms usually go away after a while for most, long-term water retention can occur. Considering my weight gain started a little over two years ago, right around when I started the new BC (I had been on the NuvaRing for several years for a series of ovarian/uterine issues and then switched to MonoNessa because I was having trouble with heavy, extended periods, we're talking a month and a half of straight up bleeding and misery that the doctors couldn't explain except for maybe I had too low of estrogen levels, so they put me on MonoNessa, which has a higher estrogen level), I thought there might be some connection. I could be wrong, but I am having an easy time with water weight now.