Guessing your ideal pre-transition weight?

[Apples Mk.II]

All right, again with the dumb questions. At this moment I am 173 cm tall and weight 64 kg (a bit more, a bit less, depending on the day), having gone down from 70 on July. I still have a bit of a gut that sticks a lot when sitting or not pushing it inside, tiny love handles, and moobs that I don't know if they can be exercise-induced gynecomastia or plain fat.

But as for the rest of the body... I'm starting to see a bony "V" near the pelvic area (I think it's the pelvic area), ribs can be easily seen, and my face is checkbones only, as if I was starved (Last time the face looked like this was after leaving the hospital in 2004).

I wanted to kill all the abdominal fat before HRT, but I don't know If I am already on my ideal weight or I should go down even more, as the rest of the body it's quite OK. People are already telling me at work that I don't look healthy and I am too thin.

Current status (gut hiding mode):

http://i.imgur.com/Wbrcr.jpg

Lately I am eating at a minimum, and I wonder if I should go back to normal daily amount of food (minus the junk food and bad things I removed), and increase the level of exercise so that fat percentage is killed without losing more weight.

[MariaMx]

It's hard to say what the ideal weight would be. I think it all depends on your body type and how you react to hrt. Before I started hrt my thinking was the same as your's, that I should get as much as possible off and regain in the right places. The strategy seemed to worked pretty well but I'm not so sure it wouldn't have come out the same even if I hadn't dieted before starting. My appetite went crazy about 4-5 months in. I gained some but it came back off after a while.

After srs my metabolism rate dropped and I gained weight. At one point I had gained as much as 15kg (it was not a pretty sight). I took off 5 of them and have held pretty steady at this weight fro a few years. Earlier this year I decided to try to get back to my old pre-op weight and I'm very nearly there. I'm starting to look pretty smashing actually but it is becoming clear to me that if I go much further I will most likely start looking worse again. When my weight is up I have a big butt and round hips, but my tummy, shoulders, back and arms suffer. When I go down my tummy, waist, shoulders, arms and back looks great but I lose hips and butt. It's all about finding the butter zone where you look your best, and that is not necessarily when some arbitrary number is reach on the scale. Go for looks, not weight.

[Apples Mk.II]

That's the issue, that last bastion of man-fat on the ab... The diet is already OK, so I think is a matter of exercising it to the maximum... If I keep the low calorie intake it is going to affect badly the rest of the body.

[MariaMx]

A small amount of fat on the tummy doesn't have to be a bad thing. I think I'd rather go for that than a wash board and bony hips.

[Apples Mk.II]

Plus, If I completely kill it I won't have anything left for fat transplants, xD.


Nah, I guess it's better to leave it like this and aim for lean muscle for the time being.

[Nicolette]

It sounds like you're obsessing a bit, and there are so many things to potentially obsess about that have little significance. In Pandora's box of all things called transition, that little bit of tummy fat is trifling. You look absolutely fine for starting HRT.

[Apples Mk.II]

Oh, I forgot, I'm pulling in on that photo. In normal mode the beer gut sticks out A LOT.

[Nicolette]

Oh, I forgot, I'm pulling in on that photo. In normal mode the beer it sticks out A LOT.

Yes, sounds normal for most women.

[Stranger]

You look fine now. Less isn't necessarily more. I'm 174 and 55kg, and while having a tiny waist is helpful, it also means my veins+bones are more prominent on my arms and face, and I don't exactly have a lot of padding to sit on. Not especially feminine.

If your gut bothers you, work at it, but I wouldn't say you have much further to go. And I also don't agree with your workmates that you're "too thin" or "unhealthy", by the way. For whatever reason, people can be quite discouraging towards even healthy weight loss; I think it's because a lot of people associate any weight loss with serious illness.

That said, I don't know if you should suck in your stomach in photos like these - it's harder to give an honest appraisal!

[JoanneB]

I started out way overweight, all fat. I can gain weight by just smelling food. So being depressed and stuffing food in my face all night long and drinking too much packed on the pounds.

HRT for me started shortly after changes to my diet. Added in some exercise in the form of walking since I drive a desk all day. According to the BMI charts I am on the low end for males at my 5'11" height and 145 lbs, about ideal for females. Yet I do have a lot of abdominal fat and gigantic fat filled thighs.

Some of the ab problem is excess skin. In my younger days my weight was as high as 250 lbs, again all fat. The flab never really went away. I am not sure about my legs. I always did a lot of bicycling and walking. So I'd like to think much of the size is muscle. Yet when SCUBA diving I need to use ankle weights because my fat filled legs will make me float upside down    I don't fret over the legs since so many women are jealouse of them 

[Apples Mk.II]

You look fine now. Less isn't necessarily more. I'm 174 and 55kg, and while having a tiny waist is helpful, it also means my veins+bones are more prominent on my arms and face, and I don't exactly have a lot of padding to sit on. Not especially feminine.

If your gut bothers you, work at it, but I wouldn't say you have much further to go. And I also don't agree with your workmates that you're "too thin" or "unhealthy", by the way. For whatever reason, people can be quite discouraging towards even healthy weight loss; I think it's because a lot of people associate any weight loss with serious illness.

That said, I don't know if you should suck in your stomach in photos like these - it's harder to give an honest appraisal!

Ok, here goes the photo of the guilt:
http://i.imgur.com/FOzm8.jpg

Usually I take three photos every weekend front and side, pulling the gut and normal. Although I keep the natural look photo for myself, most people find "unnatural" the relaxed status. Checking them the gut reduced around a 25%  during July, to stabilize in August, but I'm far from a flat stomach. The biggest reduction is noticeable in legs and hips, with the belly as the final frontier.


Respecting the staff, I have found a pattern on the people that notices it:

- Woman
- 40+ year old
- Married
- Has children
- Slightly overweight
- Keeps trying miracle diets and paying to doctors
- Does not do any exercise. When asked, she always reply "I have children"
- Has given up trying to regain shape.

Never happens with younger people. Maybe the biggest issue was the face, that tinned a lot after quickly losing weight and it is slowly refilling. If I use the old BMI calculator method, my minimum male weight before going "underweight" is 58 kg. But with genetically muscular legs with big bones, I don't think I can go below 60.

Some of the ab problem is excess skin. In my younger days my weight was as high as 250 lbs, again all fat. The flab never really went away.

I have wondered if I need a tummy tuck, but my biggest weight 11 years ago was 74 kg (163 lbs). Until 2006 I was at 66, and after starting working I went up to 70. Now I have stretch marks on the inner part of my thighs.

Ok. Better to avoid people's comments, specially when they don't exercise. I was worried because they were even saying that I had developed some sort of bad skin tone, like "yellow". So time to go back to my additional abdominal routines, apart from cardio and strenght.

The sad thing is when i hear "You are perfect for a man" or "Hey, I like men with a tiny belly. My personal fetish".

"For a man".

[LizMarie]

You know, that doesn't look like gut. It looks like untrained abdominal muscles. You may want to work on your "core" muscles and see how you look after doing that for a few months.

[Apples Mk.II]

Woa, old thread. Yes, I decided it was enough when I lost the ability to sit without a cushion. And now after two weeks without exercising, I have packed a few pounds again.

The thing is that I rand into a bad episoded of BDD, so I entered into an absurd obsession with everything physical. I did a lot of stupid things...


The good thing about removing fat is that I could find why my hips were not working properly. A lack of alignment caused by a muscle issue and hidden under a layer of fat. I was going to prepare a plan for improving abs and legs, but it will need to wait, since I need to talk with my physiotherapist about fixing a muscular imbalance (Functional short leg).