Bex: Hello, everyone. It is Bex here, and I am here with Alisa Vitti. We already did
a video and we talked about my heavy period, your irregular period and PMS.
Alisa: Yes. We're going to get that all sorted it out.
Bex: We sorted it out. It's fixed. Now we're talking about birth control.
Alisa: To be or not to be on the pill? That is the question.
Bex: I have four kids, so there were four times when I was not using birth control,
and I'm going to tell you why: because it sucks. It sucks for me.
Alisa: Tell me your story. So many women take the pill and they think that it's just supposed
to be this thing that they're on, and if it's not working exactly right for them, then it
must be them. Bex: Before we get into it, though, why am
I talking to you? They might not have seen the first video. You are a fabulous author
of Woman Code, and you're also the founder of FLOLiving.com. That's important. You have
to go both of those places. You have to buy the book and go to FLOLiving.com. But let's
get back to my birth control problem. I was using birth control when I was a teenager
to help regulate my periods, which I don't even know if I needed or not. It was something
that my parents did. I hated it. I had terrible mood swings. I didn't know it was because
of the pill until many times after, trying all different pills, rings, and shots.
Alisa: Right. It's not those things. It's you. That's what we think. That's what we're
encouraged to think: it must be something wrong with you if these things aren't working.
It couldn't possibly be that this pill, this ring, or these multiple versions aren't just
the right fit for you. Bex: Because it's so good for us, because
it's something that people have said to us, especially because it's a powerful tool in
controlling your family planning and all sorts of things. It allows us to be freer with our
sexuality. But it's not great for everybody. What's happening?
Alisa: Here's the deal. I am pro women feeling fantastic. I am anti-dogmatic about how they
get there. That's significant when it comes to thinking about the pill, and if you can
adopt that mindset that not getting pregnant is your priority but being on the pill doesn't
actually work for you, then there are other ways to prevent pregnancy, other barrier methods:
condoms, sponges, and diaphragms, etc. They might be less easygoing, but if you're not
a candidate to be on birth control pills, then that's what you have to do.
For example, I'm not a candidate to be on birth control. How do you know you're not
someone who's okay to take birth control pills? Let's say, in my case, you take it and ten
days into taking it, you all of a sudden develop heart palpitations, lose vision, and get an
ocular migraine. Bex: That's extreme.
Alisa: That's extreme, but this happens to women all the time. Or let's say you take
it and you're breasts grow a whole other size. You have a completely different personality
and mood. You're bloated. You just don't feel right. You try several different pills, and
it's still basically the same problem. It's not you. It's the pill. The pill is not
working for you. These are synthetic hormones that just aren't jiving with the hormone receptor
sites in your body. It doesn't matter which pill you take. These pills most likely are
all going to have a similar not-pleasant effect in your system. So you may be someone who
needs to find another way to prevent pregnancy. The other way you know you're not a great
candidate is if you have a pre-existing hormonal imbalance. Let's say you have irregular cycles,
PCOS, fibroids, endometriosis, or a history of infertility in your family. You definitely
don't want to get on the pill as your first choice. You want to give yourself time.
One of the cool things I've done in my recent career is I wanted to build something for
women to be able to access to fix their hormones online. It's 2013. We should have a modern
solution for an ancient problem -- so we built Woman Code system online. Think of it like
Weight Watchers and Rosetta Stone. You log in and it's super cool. You can fix any of
your hormonal issues online using our protocol, using food, and getting all the support you
could possibly need doing it in a private way from the comfort of your own home.
Bex: I'm hearing if I clear up all the other stuff that's going on with me, I could potentially
be a candidate who can take the pill even though I've never been able to.
Alisa: Yeah. When you change your diet, you actually change your internal hormonal conversation.
You can completely change that. Think about my story. I went from having severe PCOS,
covered in acne, 200 lbs. and not getting my period to the beauty that you see before
you getting regular menstrual cycle. I did that by changing by what I was eating in a
way that supports the function of my endocrine system. You can change it totally.
Bex: And it's what you're eating. It's not how you're eating. I know a lot of people
watching this will say, "I have a very clean diet," like I do. I eat very well. I eat a
whole foods-based and plant-based organic diet, but I could still be missing stuff.
Alisa: I get this so often. In fact, a lot of the women who come to work with us as clients
are women who are Paleo, or vegan. They're eating really well, but you might not be eating,
if you're having these issues, in a way that's actually helping your hormones.
Bex: For me, one last question about the pill and my problems with it. I look at this as
a superficial issue, but it's become much more important now that I'm 35 and loving
my body and loving my life. The pill, after three months, every single time for every
single type I've tried causes me to lose my sex drive completely -- no interest.
Alisa: That's such a common problem, and I don't think it's one that we discuss enough
about women who are on the pill. What about your sex drive? It really does interfere with
your sexual response and testosterone production, and you want to be thinking about if that's
something that's worth it for you. If the whole purpose of the pill is because you want
all this sexual expression but then your sex drive is MIA, that doesn't seem to be in alignment,
in your best interest. So if that's happening to you, that's just
an example of how the pill is not working for you. All joking aside, this is a really
serious issue. I don't know if you all caught those really interesting commercials about
the class action lawsuits against Yaz. So many women were being put on that prescription.
Bex: I was on it. Alisa: Women were dying from this. It's very
serious. Think in a critical way about your personal interaction with that medication.
Yes, it was so important that women had access to this universally. It's so important that
we hit that milestone. It has allowed so many wonderful things. But now medicine is becoming
so much about that personalized experience. Bex: Thank goodness.
Alisa: Right. You get to decide, "Is this good for me? Is it working for me right now?"
If it is, great! If you're someone who has these pre-existing conditions or it's affecting
you adversely, and you know, for example, you want to have children in the next few
years, instead of waiting to go off the pill and then start trying to get pregnant at 37,
go off the pill at 32 and give your body a few years to correct whatever hormonal imbalance
is there so when you're actually ready to do the conceiving, your body is actually right
there ready to do that with you. This is opposed to what I see so often with women who struggle
with infertility. They've been on the pill for 15-20 years, with all those pre-existing
conditions staying just under the surface in a little time warp. Then you feel stressed
that you're running out of time. It's not pleasant and it's not necessary to have to
go through that. Bex: I love your message that we're in control
and that we are meant to feel pleasure. Thank goodness.
Alisa: Hormones are easy to play with, as long as you're playing with them with your
food. Bex: We love easy. Thank you so much.
Alisa: My pleasure. Bex: Let me see your book, "Woman Code." Go
pick this up, and visit Alisa at FLOLiving.com. I know I'm going to go there right now.
Alisa: The BioCycle study unequivocally shows that if you have something as harmless as
PMS in your 20s and 30s and you don't address it, it increases the likelihood post-menopausally
that you'll develop the big four diseases of inflammation: heart disease, diabetes,
Alzheimer's or cancer. Bex: This is the biggest takeaway of this
video.