When will people understand that you can't spontaneously....

some medications can also impact metabolic rate which means that at the same food intake at which you were maintaining, you are now gaining weight. Some medications also have a rather substantial impact on hormones and hormone imbalances often do cause metabolic issues for which, again, you can go from maintaining to gaining on the same calorie intake.

Indeed.

I actually can't think of a medication that impacts your metabolic rate, except for synthroid or certain stimulants. I think the vast majority of medications that cause weight gain do it because of either increased appetite, water weight, or somehow effecting NEAT. For example, antidepressants make people feel better and they move around more. Or decrease their anxiety, so they fidget and move less, as well as have a decreased heart rate.

I only have one thing to say - and it may or may not have been posted but I got sick of reading the same back and forth with no progress in arguing or evidence either way through the pages.

I'm not saying that taking birth control or meds can't affect your weight. HOWEVER, many people that start birth control for the first time or a repeat time after being on it are also in a life change - i.e. a new relationship. New relationships tend to help people gain a few pounds as you go out to eat more or whatever your case is.

In addition, for everyone who says that "my calorie intake didn't change" were you actually monitoring it? Tracking/logging everything? I go through times where I think, "Oh Im eating exactly the same, i'm working out just as much..." but then when I log it or REALLY think about it, something changed. Maybe I ran 10 less miles that week or went out an extra night.

Again - not saying meds CAN'T affect your weight. I'm sure they do in some circumstances. But just like anything else, there is a level of accountability that is also required.

My weight gain had nothing to do with meds. But yes, I was tracking it (food intake, exercise wasn't a possiblity at this point). It's how I convinced my doctor that more tests needed to be ran. Surprisingly: I never had issues with birth control. Not even Depo Lupron which effectively puts you in menopause. It's something I suggest to anyone who is experiencing a weight gain that's "unexplained": track everything! No one will believe you otherwise.

PCOS wasn't mentioned in what i qouted. In your case, what controls insulin? Calories, it's still a caloric issue regardless. You do have a medical condition, which is understandable. Regardless though, the issue is calories. Eat less to lower insulin levels.

1. I have a feeling you're OP, and bored tonight.

2. If you're not OP, you're quite the idiot. Or a troll.

I would suggest a trip to a Registered Dietician, a Physician, or a College/University program to aid in your understanding of pharmacology, nutrition, and hormonal imbalances if you truly did want to learn more. We're a website. We're not here to teach you how insulin or medication works.

I am well aware of this stuff. So you're telling me if you fasted with PCOS you'll get fat? Once again, it's about calories, pay attention please.

Also PCOS or not, it doesn't matter. If you eat 2,000 calories and it all turned in to fat, yet you go out and burn 2,500 calories. Where does the 500 calories of energy come from? FAT

You and the other person are talking about low carb dieting theory non-sense.

I pity you if you truly are as clueless as you're making yourself out to be.

There was a point before I went on medication that I was eating around 1,000 calories. I'm not a small person, and my sedentary TDEE should be, bare minimum, twice that (all the calculators actually put it closer to 2,500). That 1,000 calorie intake lasted all of a week, maybe two, because it was far too little for me. Technically, I lost a couple of pounds, but I also couldn't function. It took all the willpower I had just to get out of bed in the morning. Ultimately, it was causing more harm than good and was quickly sabotaging any potential weight loss effects it might have had, solely because the "eat less" half of the equation wasn't enough to fuel the "move more" that was supposed to happen and, instead, resulted in "move less."

There was also a time when I was a) weight lifting three times a week, and b) practicing martial arts twice a week. For both of those, the sessions lasted no less than an hour, and the martial arts were almost always two hours. The majority of the martial arts was 3/4 low to mid-level activity and 1/4 HIIT activity (sparring), though there was a span when I changed schools where it was 1-2 hours of high-intensity training. I ate about 2,000 calories the whole time.

My weight never moved, nor did the tape measure.

I actually had to stop weight lifting in order to continue the martial arts training, because I couldn't physically keep up.

Why? In large part because my insulin levels ran too high, yes, even while fasting (had it tested), for my body to consider going after fat stores and prompted the body to store any calories it did get. I quickly found myself having to choose between exercises just so I could have the energy to get up in the mornings. And my doctor told me that I wasn't losing weight because I was eating too much. Yes, that's right, I even got that song and dance from a doctor. Never mind at all the fact that I couldn't keep up with my exercise as it was at the intake I was at.

And no, this isn't all just "low carb dieting theory non-sense." You know what one of the primary symptoms of Type 1 Diabetes (you know, the genetic one) is? Weight loss. Why is that? Because the body can no longer create enough insulin (it's also why T1 Diabetics almost invariably gain weight when they start insulin therapy). When there's too little insulin the body can't store the excess calories, and it goes out with the rest of the waste. Conversely, in disorders that cause too much insulin, the body can't access the fat stores it has. It therefore "thinks" it's starving and will do what it takes to conserve the energy it thinks is scarce, including resorting to downregulating metabolism, causing fatigue, etc -- without burning off the excess stores of fat.

Diabetics stopping insulin therapy in order to lose weight is actually a thing - it's call diabulimia:

Emboldened by her experiment, she continued to restrict her insulin. Without a regimented amount of insulin in her body to process glucose, Williams' body started to burn through fat and muscle. She lost weight very quickly even as she ate all the same foods. Classmates started commenting on her weight loss and remarked that she looked great. [...]

Many type 1 diabetics with eating disorders will not take their prescribed insulin so they can lose weight. Deprived of insulin, the body cannot break down sugars from food to use as energy. Instead the body's cells break down fat already stored and try to flush out the excess sugar through the urine.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/skipping-insulin-diabetics-find-dangerous-drop-pounds/story?id=18687005

In other words, if you decrease the body's insulin levels, either through the addition of medication (Metformin) or the removal of artificial insulin, you lose weight. If you increase it, you gain weight. (Outside of the balance thresholds for both ends.)

Also, here's some research for you (emphases mine):

Insulin is the pivotal hormone regulating cellular energy supply and macronutrient balance, directing anabolic processes of the fed state.27 Insulin is essential for the intra-cellular transport of glucose into insulin-dependent tissues such as muscle and adipose tissue. Signalling abundance of exogenous energy, adipose tissue fat breakdown is suppressed and its synthesis promoted. In muscle cells, glucose entry enables glycogen to be synthesised and stored, and for carbohydrates, rather than fatty acids (or amino acids) to be utilised as the immediately available energy source for muscle contraction. Insulin therefore promotes glycogen and lipid synthesis in muscle cells, while suppressing lipolysis and gluconeogenesis from muscle amino acids. In the presence of an adequate supply of amino acids, insulin is anabolic in muscle.29 [...]

In insulin resistance the effects on adipose tissue are similar, but in the liver the increased free fatty acid flux tends to promote hepatic very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) production37 whilst ketogenesis typically remains suppressed by the compensatory hyperinsulinaemia. Furthermore, since lipoprotein lipase activity is insulin-dependent and impaired by insulin resistance, peripheral uptake of triglycerides from VLDL is also diminished. These mechanisms contribute to the observed hypertriglyceridaemia of insulin resistance. (My note: in other words, this is why people with IR also have poor cholesterol) [...]

Whilst in insulin deficiency, e.g. starvation, these processes are more uniformly affected, this is not necessarily the case with insulin resistance. Compensatory hyperinsulinaemia, differential insulin resistance and differential tissue requirements may dissociate these processes.3 Resistance to insulin’s metabolic effects results in increased glucose output via increased gluconeogenesis (as in starvation), however, unlike starvation, compensatory hyperinsulinaemia depresses SHBG production and promotes insulin’s mitogenic effects. (My note: in other words, even when actually starving, a body under hyperinsulinemia that's independent of food intake still won't go after fat stores) [...]

Insulin receptors are found in the ovary and appear to have a role in enhancing steroidogenesis.48 Insulin and IGF-1 act synergistically with FSH (My note: Follicle Stimulating Hormone - what prompts the ovaries to mature an egg) to enhance oestrogen production by granulosa cells and with LH (My note: Luteinizing Hormone - what triggers the mature egg to be released) to enhance androgen production by thecal stromal cells.49 They have also been found in the rat testis where insulin may act synergistically with LH on steroidogenesis

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1204764/

The last part in the above quote is of particular interest to women in general, because that basically means "you screw with one of those hormones, and you screw with them all." It's also why PCOS is very often effectively treated with Metformin (which has the sole purpose of decreasing insulin) and a diet that limits and/or regulates dietary stimulation of insulin (from both carbohydrates and protein), and it's why medications such as birth control and steroids can cause weight fluctuations (usually gain, but sometimes loss) without dietary or exercise changes (and why, for some people, this weight fluctuation is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to reverse until the medication is stopped).

This thread is GOLD. You have nearly everyone arguing. Yet they're all saying the SAME THING.


The sky's blue!
No, it's not. The sky's blue!
You don't know what your'e talking about - Blue. Science!
Just because it's blue there doesn't mean it's blue here. It's blue!

Uuuum, actually, it's blue!

Most chemical birth control methods are very low calorie, so ingesting or injecting should not immediately result in a large caloric surplus. They're not even worth logging, imo. Thank you for reading this insightful point.

Most chemical birth control methods are very low calorie, so ingesting or injecting should not immediately result in a large caloric surplus. They're not even worth logging, imo. Thank you for reading this insightful point.

We actually agree...:drinker:

But don't bother trust me...even if you say yes your hormones could be screwy and that may have an affect but watch that etc you still get argued with...see last post

Speaking of which trackign is one thing...but do you weight your food...

Oh and a doctor saying you will go "into starvation mode" :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I would get a new doctor.

People sometimes have triggers, that are a point in their lives, at which time they gain weight (and they'd never gained excess weight before that). Some of those things could be illness, pregnancy, medications, a major life loss or stress or change of some sort. Most of the time that is what people are talking about. It doesn't bother me when people talk about the circumstances of their lives in which they gained weight. And with the awareness of that, they can prevent it the next time they encounter those same life changes and circumstances.

Edit: I wasn't following the conversation, this was not in response to the conversation above me.

Some meds and Birth Control aren't for everyone, if you have no issues consider yourself lucky...and really it doesn't concern you and there's no need to get flippant over others who have had senstivities to common products other don't have problems with.

If you do...well BC is a easier thing to drop and come up with another method of preventing pregnancy. I haven't taken for over 7 years...going off was the best thing I ever did.

I feel bad for others on meds that they absolutely have no other options

Yeah, BC isn't for everyone. It gave me headaches all day and kept me up all night, every night throwing up. they said I would adjust, but I just kept throwing up. I also threw up all nine months for both pregnancies. People do have different responses to strong hormonal changes and levels.

People sometimes have triggers, that are a point in their lives, at which time they gain weight (and they'd never gained excess weight before that). Some of those things could be illness, pregnancy, medications, a major life loss or stress or change of some sort. Most of the time that is what people are talking about. It doesn't bother me when people talk about the circumstances of their lives in which they gained weight. And with the awareness of that, they can prevent it the next time they encounter those same life changes and circumstances.

Edit: I wasn't following the conversation, this was not in response to the conversation above me.

True, and with many things maybe you can do things differently when you encounter them. For example, I was aware that going into surgical menopause may possibly cause an issue with weight gain and was diligent about monitoring food, being active, etc. But then there are those WTF things that come out of nowhere that you have no way to plan for and nothing you could really do about it. For example, in April I started gaining weight and didn't know why. I adjusted my intake (as you can see I came to MFP soon after), but still gained a lot. No way to know without getting a doc's opinion that I had a large tumor on my thyroid. Some things just can't be planned for.

When I was younger, I used to be fit and healthy... until I hit puberty. I ballooned up to almost 320 lbs, lost my memory, and many other things. Turned out I had a pituitary tumor that affected my hormones and sent me spiraling into my vast body. It was not a matter of me eating too much, my hormones were all out of whack.


So maybe until you know a situation, do not make judgement on others.

Why is everyone taking her post so personally?

You didn't end up 320 lbs without eating for it. Whatever hormonal disruption occurred, clearly changed how fast you were growing and your appetite. No one can manufacture fat, muscle or bone out of thin air. I think that is all that is being said.

ETA: I wanted to make it clear that *I* am not assigning blame to people who either took a medication and gained weight, or lost weight. I've been there and done that. Pituitary tumor - been there done that too. In each instance I know that I either ate more due to increased appetite or ate less due to decreased, as well as moved around a lot more on one (it made me antsy).

There are reasons why medications cause weight gain, and they are understandable. BC for certain causes massive water weight gains in some, and that doesn't entail eating any extra food.

Someone mentioned beta blockers. They slow the heart rate, which is going to cause a decrease in burned energy. You are also hard pressed to get your heart rate up when on those (been there done that one too), so exercise is less likely to burn as many calories as you would expect. Again, an easily understandable reason why someone's NEAT would drop when on them.

Frustration - I get that! For me, I was able to change medications and return to my normal weight. My pituitary surgery went well and I lost the extra lbm I had put on once my hormone levels were normal again. I was very lucky. I feel for those who are still struggling!