Back on plan. Didn't do to bad over the weekend, but I didn't get to exercise or document my points. I'm back on plan today. Packed my food for the day and everything. I got my workout in as well so that was good. Z and I talked a lot about me being so hard on myself and viewing every aspect of my life as a "task". I automatically said I'll make myself try harder, but totally defeats the purpose. I'm going to learn how to take it easy and to try to figure out what being happy with myself (whew a hard one) and with life. The major source of happiness is Z, but I know that it would be even more fulfilling to have happiness flow into other parts of my life. I do not want to be a person who does not know how to be happy - ever. That is my mother. Always on the go, trying to make something good, better, and nothing is ever good enough. It's acceptable or satisfactory, but she works her butt off to reach these mediocre results, because she won't ever give her self or anything else the credit it deserves. I guess the apple doesn't fall to far from the tree huh? *wry smile*. I'm going to try not to try to hard, make sense? Try not to take everything so personally or try to make everything perfect. I will try to not think of this as being lazy or not good enough, but it's going to be hard. Enough on this, since I can't exactly change this over night.

I'm going to make an appointment with a new doctor to talk about my constant break through bleeding that has been going on for the last 7 months or so. I have maybe a week reprieve but then it's back to having to use instead every single stinking day and bleeding during intercourse. It is really starting to get to me. It doesn't stop Z and I from being intimate but it does make it hard for me to not worry about how much I'm bleeding during the act. I know TMI, but it's my journal and I need to get it off my chest. He said he stopped worrying about it a while ago, but it just seems to intensify for me every time we do, but that doesn't mean that I want to stop heh. I just wish I didn't have to worry. I'm currently on a low hormone pill called Yasmin, but I'm thinking I'm going to ask to go back to regular strength pills. I used to be on Ortho-Try Cyclen and Try Norilyn as a teenager and never had any issues with side affects. I got the Depo Pro Vera shot for 8 years and loved it but it has a nigh propensity to cause a person to gain weight. I'm sure that beer and pizza and late nights eating anything I wanted didn't help either. But I also felt very aggressive at times of frustration and I sometimes had no libido but then again that could have been the result of my no so healthy past relationship. I loved it because I only had to deal with getting the shot every 3 months and I stopped having my periods completely after having it for a month straight when I first started and then nothing! It was very convenient, but I don't really want to risk the weight gaining factor though I'm already eating right and exercising so I should be ok I think, but still I need all the help I can get. I thought about the Norplant but I've heard bad things about hair falling out and stuff from friends, but they can place 5 tubes (wonder if they could place less than that if you only want to be on it for a couple of years) and then you don't have you're period until they take them out and then you should be able to get pregnant pretty quickly unlike with the shot.

A quick description I found was:

"A small amount of estrogen is needed to make the lining of the uterus repair the open blood vessels that result from a menstrual slough. After a menses, estrogen alone in a normally ovulating woman not taking birth control starts the tissue growing again and in effect seals off the bleeding blood vessels. This makes bleeding stop. With birth control pills that have both estrogen (very small doses) and progestin in each pill, the progestin component works opposite the the estrogen and does not allow the endometrial tissue to grow and repair itself. If a woman is on a progestin only birth control pill, or using DepoProvera� which is pure progestin only, the same effect takes place, i.e., the endometrium may not totally repair its entire surface inside the uterus because of a lack of estrogen or the antagonism of the progestin working against any small amount of estrogen present in the woman's body."

So if I keep bleeding it sounds like I'm too low on the estrogen,so my body can't repair itself & the lining in the uterus. This is strange to me as I was on Depo for a long time as I mentioned above, but I never had this problem. Only in the begginning did I bleed for a month straight. I do it every month excluding one week per month.

I also found this:

"For the most part, older studies using higher dose pills tend to show an average of about 5 lb weight gain using pills. One study looked at adolescents who were using DeproProvera� (DMPA) for contraception and compared them to other teens using birth control pills (1). They found that after one year of contraception, the average weight gain was 6.6 lbs (3.0 kg) in the adolescents using shots (DMPA) and 5.3 lbs (2.4 kg) when using oral contraceptives. More importantly, only 7% of pill users gained more than 10% of their body weight while 25% of the DepoProvera� users gained more than 10%. If you just look at the average weight gain of 6.6 lbs vs 5.3 lbs, you would conclude that DMPA had only a slightly higher weight gain than pills. The fact that these averages include 18% more woman who gained greater than 10% of body weight can be hidden by average weight changes. Thus DepoProvera� has a greater side effect of weight gain than oral contraceptives."

"Estrogen in high doses is known to cause weight gain especially that due to fluid retention (1). The more estrogen there is in a pill, the more tendency to gain weight such that a 50 mcgm pill will result in more weight gain than a 35 mcgm pill (1).

The mechanism of action is probably direct stimulation by the estrogen in pills of kidney substances called renin-angiotensin that cause water retention. The water retention then causes sodium (salt) retention. A lower estrogen level pill, e.g., 20 mcgm, will help reduce weight gain due to fluid retention. This was confirmed in a more recent study with 30 mcgm pills in which there was essentially no difference in weight gain or weight loss between the placebo group and the oral contraceptive group (1). Again, however, 30% of these women had a weight gain of more than 1 lb but the net result was the same in the control group. Those who did have weight gain had increased fat but no difference in fluid retention amounts indicating that fluid weight gain may be less of a problem with the newer, lower estrogen pills."

So it seems that though I might need more estrogen in higher doses than the low stuff I got right now it "might" help me gain weight. Well that sucks! But studies show that it would be smaller weight gain than if I went on Depo, but then again if I'm already watching what I eat and exercising shouldn't that factor into something? Hmmm more questions to ask the old doc. There is an injectable contraceptive called Lunelle that is a shot that has both estrogen and progestin, so there should be fewer problems with breakthrough bleeding. I'm going to ask about this as well since I like the idea of going back to a shot every 3 months depending on how much more it will cost me.

I'll hopefully be able to find out very soon.

Workout log:

60 min elliptical (hills)

(Engaged 9/16/05)