Today the two Melissas birth control pieces are linked on one of my favorite sites, Back in Skinny Jeans. There, Steph mentions that she actually lost weight on the Pill — another reminder that everybody and every body is different. As well, the Pill is just one of many factors that influence your weight, so don’t despair if you’ve recently started.

I didn’t gain weight on the Pill either, but I was 20 pounds overweight at the time. So I figure my body didn’t think it needed to put on any more padding for this new, never-ending fake pregnancy. (That’s how the Pill works: The hormones “trick” your body into thinking that it’s pregnant so that you don’t have a period until you interrupt them.)

The most interesting scuttlebutt I’ve heard about the Pill isn’t actually weight-related, but mental-health related. A couple of years ago, I switched to a lower-dose pill. For a few months after, I had terrible mood swings. Actually, I often get pretty bad, occasionally debilitating, PMS moodiness/depression, although I haven’t taken the BigPharma bait and started medicating myself against “PMDD.” (Does anyone else absolutely hate birth control/women’s health commercials, with their oh-so-carefully-chosen crews of diverse, upbeat women who are all actually just many painful shades of bland?)

Anyway, during that kooky time after I switched Pills, I did the ol’ Google search and found tons of bulletin boards with posts from women who felt that the Pill had not only given them bad cases of the blues but absolutely destroyed their sex lives. Since many had gone on the Pill at the onset of puberty, it took going off to make them realize that they actually enjoyed sex. What a nightmare.

I found myself asking how much the Pill had become a whipping boy, and how much the hormones were actually to blame. It’s a fair question. But as most any woman can tell you, hormones are a major part of the elusive physical cocktail that governs our moods and perceptions. It’s not a far jump to wonder whether some women don’t do well on the specifically regulated dose that the Pill administers.

But as for me, I love my Pills! If I had put on weight, I would have seen it as ten measly pounds for a Fort Knox of freedom. (And then headed to the gym.)