Bodybuilding and THE PILL

[junebird]

All you weight-lifting, body-building and gym-addicted ladies here, I want to know if you are on the pill and what kind?

Did you find it halted/slowed (or even sped up? Haha that would be wishful thinking) your process of gaining muscle/fitness? We all know the estrogen in it will lower the testosterone in our bodies.

Currently on a low-dosage pill (Ava 20) I am thinking of switching to the mini pill (Noriday) which contains no estrogen at all.

[crazyfacials]

just a random question but why not go on the jab? isn't it done once every 3 months?

[alice29]

Hi there,

I'm on Ginet-84, and I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome so my hormone levels are different to that of most ladies. I do find it very difficult to burn fat compared to most ladies, and yes it takes me a looong time to build muscle!! But I can't say whether that's due to the Pill or PCOS sorry!

[Dinahlady]

I think it's a hard question dependent on many things and there are quite a few things you should consider before changing pills.

But first of all let me say that the thing that is most likely to affect your muscle gains is going to be your consistent diet with enough calories, good macros and consistent smart training with enough recovery built in.

keeping you training and diet the same as it is now and changing your pill might possibly make you gain a couple more grams of muscle a week max, but making improvements in your diet and training (having a progressive diet and a progressive training program) could even double the amount of muscle you've been gaining.

I think natty is always best with training because by the same means that the pill decreases your fertility it also decreases your ability to absorb types of vitamins and minerals and sends a lot of those levels totally out of whack. I was on the implant which was the same as the mini pill (progesterone only) when I came off it it took a fair while to get back on track but when I did I felt SO much better, healthier and stronger than I did when on it.

But obviously that is not an option for everyone and I don't want to give out advice that's going to get people pregnant and ruin their lives or something.

I can't comment on weight loss or muscle gain as I did most of my dieting and training when I had the implant, so I'll have to keep you posted.

I think out of the pills being on a progesterone pill might be better for body composition and recovery. Effected cortisol, thyroid hormones and everything that goes with that can be related to low progesterone levels and high estrogen levels which can negatively affect your body composition and can in turn negatively affect thyroid and adrenal function. But you may have to be prone to this or already be having these kinds of issues for this to really apply. Also, Estrogen definitely helps with muscle gain in itself (and doesn't "lower" testosterone levels) so it isn't the enemy. In fact, playing devils advocate, it could be that increasing estrogen might actually stimulate your body to actually increase its testosterone production, I believe it depends on a lot of things. The amount of estrogen or testosterone your body has is definitely not the thing that is dictating your gains. It can be the ratio of these or how they interrelate with other hormones.

I think any change in artificial hormones (changing pills) will affect your other hormone levels and could easily make you gain fat or change your energy levels etc. It's really dependent on how you react to that drug and you'd have to know quite a lot of endocrinology and your specific blood panel and diet to know if a different one would be better or worse. It may not help you and you and changing things could cause you some unexpected issues (if its not broke dont fix it) . For example, I might have been slightly less prone to holding fat on the implant but I was being robbed of about 3 bra sizes - a trade off that I would never agree to again. But then again you may possibly see benefit and positive changes.

So it's up to you if its worth it. There definitely many risks coming off a pill that is currently working well for you as you may encounter sides you don't want (energy levels, mood, spotting, boob loss, blood-pressure related issues). And health wise I think the less you mess with things the better. Maybe work a bit on your diet and training and see if you can make improvements and gains there and if you really think the extra estrogen is inhibiting any progress then look at changing, even get bloodwork done or talk to an endocrinologist, if that's possible, if you want more information as I doubt you'll find a conclusive answer on the internet as this stuff is definitely very specific to the individual.

[Sandif]

Dinahlady. Interesting post.

I recently had a Mirena inserted for reasons other than contraception and ave been concerned about the "weight gain" factor of female hormones...

It's still early days and I'm not sure how I'm going ( screwy hormone / cycle( not the juice type!...) stuff happening) but I'm sticking in there as the results so far are definitely better thn what I was living with before! If a couple of kg ( and that's all it's been) is the trade off for no " leakage freakage" then I'll deal for a while...

[Dinahlady]

Yeah sounds good sandif, roll with it as well I'm pretty sure that if you focus on having good nutrition consistently and training consistently (without over stressing/not recovering as that can also negatively affect your cycle) while you are adjusting to the weight gain then you wont lose anything from it and might gain some muscle and better healthier hormones in the process of the weight gain then once things have settled down you can always easily lose a couple of kgs if you focus on keeping the nutrient dense foods piling in.

In other words what I'm trying it get at is if you freak out and try and diet/not eat enough while you're adjusting thats gonna compromise your ability to adjust hormonally, metabolically and not get the most out of it all. And compromise your ability to lose the extra weight after.

Basically, Just roll with it, your health and hormones are more important than a couple of mm's of bodyfat....

[fish]

Did you find it halted/slowed (or even sped up? Haha that would be wishful thinking) your process of gaining muscle/fitness? We all know the estrogen in it will lower the testosterone in our bodies

Junebird I cant offer you any advice on the pill but I used the contraceptive injection several years ago and buzzed around like a blowfly on Mortein.... I had heaps of energy and stamina and BF was extremely low. On the downside I was moody and quite aggresive at times...I subsequently had my bloods done and found I have a natural overproduction in testosterone (wahoo) but unfortunatley for my own sanity had to come off the injection....

It may be something to consider if the minipill doesnt work for you but make sure to get your bloods checked first.