MTF in need of help

[JudiBlueEyes]

Wow I don't know if I could tolerate 4 hours in my lip.  Ouch!  I've started walking on the treadmill since the weather is getting rougher.  I think I'll head out on a trail tomorrow as it will be nice out (dry). 

Great news about getting out.  Its hard but we all need to do it.     

[Northern Star Girl]

Hi Judi, thanks. If you get a vocal assessment and decide to get surgery I recommend taking your time and make a very informed choice.

I have been clean and sober for 21 years but I am one impulse away. I keep away from tempting situations as much as possible. When I go to community parties I am very careful and leave early. I was at a party in June and left early. It went for a day and a half. I was so tempted. Now that I have a voice I can go to community parties again (no fun just standing there and not being able to be heard).  I think there is one tomorrow night through Sunday.
-------------------------------------

I went to Papillion today and had 4 hours of electrolysis with numbing. Ramona is awesome and Bianna is too. My upper lip was worked on for 4 hours and then my left side. Next time there is Dec. 20.

I have a 1 hour electrolysis appointment tomorrow and then next two Tuesdays and Thursdays and then Papillion again.
--------------------------------------
I feel really good. Tomorrow night I will stop at a singles place close to where I live. My goal is to get something to eat at the bar and have a diet coke or two. Hopefully someone stops over and starts a conversation. Then spinning Saturday morning and I will go into the main gym for the first time and start working out. I hope to Ruck this weekend and spin Monday and work out in the main gym.
-------------------------------------
So my goal this weekend is to start socializing and meet people.

@Rachel
Dear Rachel:
I have been following your most recent posts regarding your voice, acid reflux, surgery, and having that very uncomfortable tube removed.

It made me cringe a little when you talked about the surgery and other voice vocal chord issues...
...so, what is the status of all of that now?... I trust that healing is going as planned and that you and your doctor can get your voice to the point that satisfies you.

Oh my, 4  hours of electrolysis on your mouth....   ouchi!!!   With or without numbing, you are a brave girl.  ... and more electrolysis on December 20th !!!  Is that another grueling 4 hour session that you have planned?

Please continue to keep your thread updated as you have been faithfully doing
now for 1 month short of 6 years....  kudos to you!!!

I will be eagerly looking for more of your updates as you feel free to post them.
Hugs and best wishes,
Danielle

[Rachel]

Hi Danielle, thanks for the support.

I do two one hour electrolysis sessions weekly and once a month I go to Papillion for 4 hours of electrolysis. They use numbing injections. I had my genital clearing at Papillion, 6 sessions and they did a great job down there for GCS. So I figured I would go there for my face. They use numbing and turn the machine up. So hopefully it will bring the face hair thing to an end.

My voice is progressing very well. For the first 6.5 months there was little progress. I was discouraged and thought I had made a huge mistake. I had gone to what I was told the best in the field and he was in network as well as the hospital. Still I had very little vocal power and I was hoarse. My vocal folds did not touch. Then they touched at the bottom and then the whole fold was touching. I was still hoarse and had very low vocal power. Tuesday I had vocal power and it was pretty clear. It is getting cleared each day. I am so very excited. I can not tell you had devastating it is to lose your voice and as time goes by I became discouraged and a little depressed. I though I would give it a little more time then seek other doctors for their opinion.

What is interesting about the web is that it looks very different than what I saw from other glottoplasties. I had about a 60% web. At about 40 % up from the bottom was a central focal point and the stitches radiated outward. I will post a pic or two in time. My voice is about 208 to 230 hz base and I can go upward from there. I need to practice this. it is like learning a new instrument.

[Rachel]

My voice is progressing. I need to start practicing all the techniques of a feminine voice again now that I have something to work with. To me my voice sounds very different when I talk. When I listen to my voice recordings it sounds higher in pitch and lighter yet very much the same. I can hear parts of my old voice yet it is different.

I was really hoping to go to India and Thailand this fall. My voice set me back and now I have a procedure in April 2019 so perhaps fall of 2019. I want to check out the locations for two reasons. One is minor medical tourism and the other is possible retirement locations in 12 or 13 years. maybe I just want to escape to somewhere for a little while and lose myself in a foreign land and experience their cultures. I give it a 50% chance I never get there.

Work is really over the top right now and very stressful. I need to remain calm and effective. I lost my cool yesterday and I need to be very carful. I know the holidays are adding stress and work is over the top. I just need to think positive thoughts. Some moments of ideation are creeping in. I miss my family. I think it is all related. Maybe I need to take a few days off but what would I do? I am better off active and involved.

I do not know if I ever want to be in another relationship again. I know I am not over the loss of my family and I think I need to somehow find happiness but how. I no longer have dysphoria and I am fully transitioned the best I can. What to do?

[Maid Marion]

Great to hear about the progress with your voice!

My voice is quite feminine because I was taught to modulate it by a female speech therapist two decades ago.  Plus it was high pitched to begin with.

[Rachel]

Hi Maid Marion, thank you for your support. You are lucky to have started with a high pitched voice.
------------------------------------------------

Voice,
My voice has been progressing in smoothness and in strength. I was surprised this morning to listen to the voice recordings from the last two weeks and I can hear a very distinct improvement in voice smoothness. I am now working on intonation and inflection. I am also working on not punching my words and beginning a sentence smoothly.
-------------------------------------------------
I do not know how to say this PC but I will try,
I have been feeling very good. I have had some rough spots but overall I feel very good. I have been feeling very healthy and have been regaining a libido. I have been thinking about finding a guy more often.

So, those that have been reading this can you please give me some advise. What do you do to increase your chances of finding someone? Where do you go? I am a bit scared of doing things new but I really need to break out of my shell. Any help would be appreciated.



Rachel

[KathyLauren]

So, those that have been reading this can you please give me some advise. What do you do to increase your chances of finding someone? Where do you go? I am a bit scared of doing things new but I really need to break out of my shell. Any help would be appreciated.

When I was looking for someone, I realized that trying too hard would give off a vibe of desperation and would be counterproductive. 

So I resolved to get involved with activities that involved other people, and that were fun and meaningful in their own right.  Best case, I might meet someone nice with shared interests; worst case, I would be doing something enjoyable with other people.  Either way, I wouldn't be constantly "on the prowl" and therefore wouldn't be giving off that vibe.

The activities I picked were a hiking club and a vegetarian society.  I picked them because they were meaningful to me and reflected my personal values.  You should pick activities that are meaningful to you.

The strategy worked spectacularly.  I met a nice lady in the hiking club, we dated, we got married, and she is still with me through my transition.

[JudiBlueEyes]

First, congratulations on your voice, or moreso that you are hearing it now!  Good news Rachel. 

I can't give any advice on where to find friends other than to expand your circle as I have recently have through Meet up.  I've joined a hiking group and recently an art group that tours museums.  The hiking group introduced me to interesting folks but I really hit it off with a few people in the Art group.  I'm not looking for companionship just people with like interests to keep my mind sharp through conversation and exchange of ideas.  Any good relationship will take some time to develop so I recommend starting in a safe and wholesome environment.  As we've all seen, there are all kinds of people out there that may not exactly be who we want to hang around with.  This would also be a way to slowly, or at your pace, break out into the world. 

[Kendra]

I've endured some very, very long stretches of loneliness in my life.  We are each unique and I certainly don't have all the answers but I know what worked for me.  Most important is being able to accept and be okay and actually like myself.  I found it nearly impossible to find and keep good relationships when I hated who I was in so many ways.  Beyond that, it's interests.  Not simply aiming for the goal of friendships and relationships but stepping back and thinking about what activities and interests are most interesting.  And then finding people who are into similar interests.  Or going outside comfort zone a bit and exploring new interests.  Because those interesting activities often involve people, and one thing leads to another. 

Habits take time and effort to break.  I still find myself saying "no thanks" to social opportunities, and then realizing I could have somehow found the time, and then inevitably discover it was a good decision when I go.

[Rachel]

Hello KathyLauren, Judiblueeyes and Kendra, All three agree to do the things I love and find those of common interest.

I love to Ruck and secondarily hike so that will be a great meetup opportunity.

I purchased a 1999 30 anniversary Trans Am with the expressed intent to go to car shows. There are car shows in the spring I will be going to. My intent there is to meet people and maybe a person that finds me interesting. I would love to sell the Trans Am and I really want a 1967 fastback corvette. A girl can dream. I do love the trans am and I have the side blue flames to install in the spring. Lastly I will be getting the Daytona 500 decals to put on it. I have car #258 and it is original.

I am going to join a range in Bucks County in the spring. There are always a lot of guys at a range on the weekend. So perhaps I will meet someone there.

I did one meetup at the Philadelphia Art museum and there was a huge group of young children there and the meetup never happened. There was a lot of confusion due to the large group of children. There was a puppet show and the children were on the steps from the 1st to 2nd floor and that is where we were to meet. I will give that a try again. It is a good dead of winter event. It was mostly woman but I can be flexible in my sexuality.

I love New Hope and I want to move there. The commute to work is stopping me, for now. Perhaps there are some good places to go there at night I need to find. In town in Philly has some meetups for night life too.

Thanks for the suggestions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I went to Papillion today for 3 hours of electrolysis with numbing and that went great. Then I went in town in Philly to my Thursday electrolysis appointment and that went great too. Then jumped on a 3 hour conference cal for work. So much for a day off.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Papillion gave me my pre-op testing paperwork when I was there. I forgot the amount of workups I need to do. Blood, physical, prostate exam (bet he can not find it , LOL), chest x-ray two view, cardio eval for anesthesia and maybe something else.

I had a thought to ask if I could do a BA revision. My insurance would cover it with a letter stating need. I really do not know what to do. 50% of the time I think they are fine and 50% of the time I think I would look better if they were bigger. Too bad I can not show them here and have a poll. Or maybe I can If I where a bathing suit.

I had 555 cc implants and I would go yo 800 cc if I had a revision. What if I had a revision and I thought they were too big. 
______________________________

I want to have a little jaw skin tightening (mid face lift revision) in the future and I was thinking Mumba. I have put that off till mid 2019. I was thinking about some tummy and oblique fat removal too but I am losing fat there and by spring I may no longer need that at all. I am looking not bad there now.
---------------------------------------------
Libido,  I have been on a new supplementation program (enhanced) and my libido it like when I was 12. It is driving me mad.

I will be changing my food intake proportions soon. I had to add a little meet into my diet 2 years ago as I was always below normal protein and anemic. I had weekly blood tests for a while and got my iron up and protein to low. That is with a 20 gram protein supplement and some meet ( I had veggies for dinner and forgot meet). I really love stir fried veggies with fermented been curd paste. I need to get 60 grams of protein twice a day. This is my goal for next week. I had 20 grams of protein from my supplement today and some protein from nuts, which is way low.

I am into increasing my mitochondria and take supplements to reinforce this, I do time restricted feeding and high intensity exercise.  I need to add 2 60 gram portions of protein with low GI foods to go anabolic and build lean muscle and release prolactin and little to no insulin. I want to try 4 months and see what this can do for me and how I feel.

Right now I feel better than at any point in my life.

Rachel

[Zoey421]

I have my 1st appointment for informend consent in 6 days. I tried to move it up but they are booked. They are an informed consent location in Philadelphia. I really need to talk to them.

One 12/12/12 I admitted to myself I am transgender ( at age 50). A liftime of payback is rushing into my brain. I surrendered to my feminine self on 1/5/2013 ( scheduled the appointment at the LTGB center). I hate my male self for all the pain I inflicted upon myself and others and for my inability to be honest. I am responsible for this mess ( my head is throbbing and emotions are on the surface).

What triggered the bomb to go off? My wife asked me why I  never iniated sex. Was she ugly? I reassured he she was beautiful but I could not tell her why I could not iniate sex. This bothered me. I started writhing down my history and then a flood of things came in. Volumes of things I surpressed. Refused to remember, did not happen if I could not remember. I looked over what I wrote and thought. I am a complete fraud, chicken and transgender.

In the past I had coping mechanism to substatute for the female side of me. I ( huge embarrassment) after puberty masterbated and fanticized I was a woman and was satisfying men in every way possible. There were thoughts throughout the day but I allowed an outlet at night and re-directed the day thoughts for later. Lots of other things I could expand on but they would be a bit graphic.

I have had a headach since 12/12/2012, now my stomach hurts almost costantly for the past 2 days. I can not sleep much and all  I can think about is coming to terms with my past, present and future. In the past three days driving home, Wednesday I was in a pure state of panic, Thursaday and Friday I cried. My drive is 1.5 hours and cried the whole time. Work is turning into a very difficult place to concentrate and I think 25% of the time about my MTF conflict. What is happening?

I took my daughter and her friend to the movies and when I came home I almost told my wife I am transgender. I chickeded out. I am so lame.

My wife and daughter are my life and I love them and would not ever want to hurt them. I love where I work and really believe what I do counts toward the final effort and we collectively do amazing things for others. I would be crushed if I lost one of the three yet the potential of all three, not to mention the embarressment of others finding out I am female. I am in hell ( can't fight back the tears).

I think I need to tell everyone, wife, daughter, work and family ASAP. Things are getting worse every day.

I think I need HRT but that scarres the hell out of me. Add a sex change and I am over the top. Voice, breasts cloths make-up, find another job, divorce and lose my daughter. Life will not be worth living. Yet I am drawn to admit who I am, stop the pain and get some quiet.

I will try to explaine the battle inside of me. I surrendered to my feminine self ( Cynthia) and apologized many time to her ho all the years of pain I caused her. She is extreamly creative, bright, very sensitive, loving, nurturing, quick witted and the reason I have been successful. The male personna has anger, hatrid, supresses creativeness, is very competive and mean. I can not control the internal feeling of male sub-rage running unabated inside of me. I am numb and unfeeling.


I have been reading the different posts for about a month and perhaps someone can provide some insight. I do not know what dysphoria is, do I have it? Is there hope for me? How do you cope.

Rachel, you just told my story and I'm close to crying. My wife suspected I was "different", probably gay (wrong), from the very beginning, during our honeymoon. She told she was concerned that we had sex only once during our honeymoon. I rarely initiated sex and was not overly interested, although I tried and it just felt weird to initiate.

I came out to my wife 3 weeks ago and she is happy for me. She already knew I had a strong female drive and identity and wasn't surprised when I told her. But, she didn't bank on being married to a woman and this is important to her. I am not able to meet her needs as a spouse; we are good friends and that is not enough for her to maintain a marriage. I understand that and have to respect her feelings and needs.

My children are so important to me and divorce will be tough for them. Telling them I am transgendered will be tough for them as well. So much change in so little space and time. I'm happy and excited for my next phase of life, but I am scared to death about the impact on my family. Ultimately, the kids will be better off because my spouse and I will be happier.

"The male personna has anger, hatrid, supresses creativeness, is very competive and mean," is a profound statement. I get it and have experienced this. I am sorry to those people I hurt in the past because of my male persona. I have been told by people know I am TG that I am happier, more easy going, more relatable. That is powerful.

I know your original post is from 2013, 5 years ago, but it is an important statement even today, particularly for someone who is over 50 years of age, with an established career, and who is married with children. Your story is so relevant to someone like me. Thank you for sharing.

I know there is a future, a beautiful bright day will I will flourish.

Thank you again ... I'm still trying not to cry ... HUGS xoxox Zoey

[Kendra]

Rachel's story is one of two reasons I joined this site.  The other reason is I am transgender and not that long ago was trying to figure out what to do, and how.

[steph2.0]

Rachel's story is one of two reasons I joined this site.  The other reason is I am transgender and not that long ago was trying to figure out what to do, and how.

I agree. Rachel, @Michelle_P, Laurie, and @HappyMoni were the rockstars who brought me here. It's possible I would have muddled through anyhow, but their stories and friendships were what caught my attention and drew me in. Oh, there was one other, who was building her courage to come out to her parents just before I did: @Kendra, rockstar extraordinaire.

Stephanie

[HappyMoni]

I agree. Rachel, @Michelle_P, Laurie, and @HappyMoni were the rockstars who brought me here. It's possible I would have muddled through anyhow, but their stories and friendships were what caught my attention and drew me in. Oh, there was one other, who was building her courage to come out to her parents just before I did: @Kendra, rockstar extraordinaire.

Stephanie

I agree Steph. I joined because of HappyMoni too. If it weren't for her I wouldn't be here. She is a pain in the butt and is a real wise ass, but over the years she has grown on me. (In me?) 
   I won't name the people who influenced  me, as I would leave someone out and feel bad. Well, I have a special place in my heart for Denni. We started together and shared so much. I can cry at the mention of her name. I miss her dearly. 
   You ladies are amazing. You really kicked butt and took names. I am in awe of the obstacles overcome. We can all be proud of what we have accomplished. It is nice that we all seem to care about those who come after.

[SadieBlake]

Rachel I'm so glad you are feeling better and you've also turned the corner on the voice procedure :-).

I'm curious what you're using to pump libido??! Its always nice to hear what works for people.

[Rachel]

Zoey, divorce was inevitable for my marriage if I transitioned. I tried to bargain and reason. I gave time and reinforcement of my love. In the end my ex married what she thought was a guy. I changed the terms of the marriage. At first I wanted to do anything to stop the divorce but I knew it was best for both of us.

In reality we grew apart over the years and our daughter was our focal point. She was turning 18 in 6 months or so when I fully transitioned and divorce was initiated. Our daughter is 21 now and graduating college in 6 months. I am so very proud of her. I will not be invited to the graduation.

There was a huge cost personally when I transitioned. I spent a lot of money and endured a lot of pain becoming comfortable in my body. I think that one day in my room in Boston alone throwing up was the most painful and hardest day of my life. In many ways there was no turning back and I had to make some very tough decisions over the next few days. I stared at the bottle of pills for 2 days, not taking a single one. I was afraid of opening up the bottle. I spoke to my therapist and together (she on the other end of the phone) I dumped the pills in the toilet. FFS and no pain meds after the hospital. I did not take any after GCS or revision GCS either.

No matter how bad you feel or how bleak things look you can endure and eventually thrive. I think Plato said something to the effect you are rich if you can be happy with little. I was alone for thanksgiving and face being alone tomorrow (perhaps not). I became angry and hostile. I realize I am hurt and need to express the hurt but not by acting out at others. I am still growing and learning. This is a journey of a thousands of steps and I do not mean distance. The holidays has taught me to understand the pain I am feeling and it is from the loss of family associated with things I shared in the past.

Tomorrow my ex invited me over to give presents to our daughter. It is at 9 AM. I can not eat until noon and she knows this. So I guess it will be brief. I already send my ex a gift card and our daughter money for a new mac. So, I will look at the bright side. I will see them tomorrow morning.

We all experience our lives with others in different ways. I know you said you are excited to become yourself. I was and am too. I am so very glad I am finally able to be me. I miss some of the things from my past family life and some of the things I am so glad are over. I wonder if I was to find someone else, how would I process my present stressed relationship. Hopefully in a positive way.

I am so very glad I had a therapist during the journey. I see her in a month due to the holidays, skype if needed sooner. I have come to the conclusion I will let go of the past and accept the new normal of the present and not press for the future.

I wish you luck in your journey and I hope you can work out continuing your family relationship in some constructive way.

Happy Holidays,
Rachel

[Zoey421]

Zoey, divorce was inevitable for my marriage if I transitioned. I tried to bargain and reason. I gave time and reinforcement of my love. In the end my ex married what she thought was a guy. I changed the terms of the marriage. At first I wanted to do anything to stop the divorce but I knew it was best for both of us.

In reality we grew apart over the years and our daughter was our focal point. She was turning 18 in 6 months or so when I fully transitioned and divorce was initiated. Our daughter is 21 now and graduating college in 6 months. I am so very proud of her. I will not be invited to the graduation.

There was a huge cost personally when I transitioned. I spent a lot of money and endured a lot of pain becoming comfortable in my body. I think that one day in my room in Boston alone throwing up was the most painful and hardest day of my life. In many ways there was no turning back and I had to make some very tough decisions over the next few days. I stared at the bottle of pills for 2 days, not taking a single one. I was afraid of opening up the bottle. I spoke to my therapist and together (she on the other end of the phone) I dumped the pills in the toilet. FFS and no pain meds after the hospital. I did not take any after GCS or revision GCS either.

No matter how bad you feel or how bleak things look you can endure and eventually thrive. I think Plato said something to the effect you are rich if you can be happy with little. I was alone for thanksgiving and face being alone tomorrow (perhaps not). I became angry and hostile. I realize I am hurt and need to express the hurt but not by acting out at others. I am still growing and learning. This is a journey of a thousands of steps and I do not mean distance. The holidays has taught me to understand the pain I am feeling and it is from the loss of family associated with things I shared in the past.

Tomorrow my ex invited me over to give presents to our daughter. It is at 9 AM. I can not eat until noon and she knows this. So I guess it will be brief. I already send my ex a gift card and our daughter money for a new mac. So, I will look at the bright side. I will see them tomorrow morning.

We all experience our lives with others in different ways. I know you said you are excited to become yourself. I was and am too. I am so very glad I am finally able to be me. I miss some of the things from my past family life and some of the things I am so glad are over. I wonder if I was to find someone else, how would I process my present stressed relationship. Hopefully in a positive way.

I am so very glad I had a therapist during the journey. I see her in a month due to the holidays, skype if needed sooner. I have come to the conclusion I will let go of the past and accept the new normal of the present and not press for the future.

I wish you luck in your journey and I hope you can work out continuing your family relationship in some constructive way.

Happy Holidays,
Rachel

Hi Rachel, I hope you enjoy the time you spend with your daughter tomorrow. I can't tell from your post the type of relationship you have with your daughter. Perhaps as she moves forward in her young life, establishing her own place in the world, you and she will find time to connect more.

I am personally ambivalent about the holidays and wrote a post today in the general section about this. You gave up much to accept yourself and I hope you found a community where you live that provides love and support in addition to your therapist. I hope you are not going through your transition alone.

You have gone through a literal life-changing transition. You needed to be strong to do this and this strength will help you navigate the future as well. You will find more positives, I'm sure.

I keep telling myself ... be strong, be confident, be wise.

Thank you for responding at this time of year. It means a lot to me to make these connections.

Hugs Zoey

[Rachel]

Hi Sadie,

I do quite a few things for my health. I think it stems from being alone and trying to keep as far away from my old habits. There is a huge amount of addiction and deaths from addiction in my family. So keeping in the straight an narrow is something that is a constant in my life. With that said I do several things to aid in my health.

Time restricted feeding. I eat in a 6 hour window per day. I want to eventually eat in a 4 hour window but with work it is difficult. I think I can do this. Perhaps I will try narrowing the window in half hour increments in the new year.

High intensity exercise. I ruck with a 65 pound pack 5.25 miles on Saturday mostly I do this in 1 hour 38 minutes comfortably. I timed myself Saturday, Sunday if it is raining. This is a 18.7 minute mile. I never thought to increase my speed until Alaskan Danielle mentioned it.  I need to get some wet weather gear. After I ruck I shower then go spinning. I burn 550 calories at spinning on Saturday and 450 on Sunday. I also spin on Wednesday and sometimes Monday. Decreasing my ruck time and increasing my spin calories are both objective in the new year.

I ruck and spin and time restricted feed. So I am very hungry on Saturday at noon so sometimes I wait to 1 PM to eat. Sometimes I skip eating when I come home and spin. I do this on purpose to cause my body to consume canescent cells (old cells that can not replicate but cause inflammatory cytokines, inflammation).

I do cheat sometimes with my eating. I do like chocolate and I purchases 95% cacao thin bar today. Milk chocolate is something I love but eat very sparingly. I do go to a bakery and buy raspberry twists and a brownie some times after  my Saturday ruck spin thing.  Perhaps twice a month. Next year my goal is once a month bakery treat.

It is important for me to keep my insulin down and I do. I have not been diabetic for 5 years. My insulin was OK before that but a little high at 110 to 115 at blood tests.  I am 89 to 95 now. At age 36 not eating for 2 days my insulin was 260 and that was with medication too. Long haul different story.

I do not drink, smoke, do drugs and do edibles. I am triple X. I did mess up a bit when I did my second hair transplant in the airport and took 10 pills. The good news is I was able to stop and I keep the remaining 10 pills in my purse as a reminder. It is not about having it, it is about choosing to not take it. I have a lot of opiates from my different surgeries in the house and I choose not to take it.

Ok, high intensity exercise and time restricted feeding.

Next, I eat very clean. Nuts, blueberries, sweet potatoes, stir fry and the like. I am making a conscious effort to eat more protein. It is difficult but I need to eat 50 to 60 grams twice a day. It is important for me to have two protein intakes of 50 to 60 grams each but no more or less. I take 20 grams of hydrolyzed collagen per day at lunch. I am adding meat to lunch too. I need to add meat to dinner too. I eat basami  rice ( I cook it then freeze it. When I use it I fry it in a little peanut oil) and veggies with fermented bean curd paste. I love this and eat it almost every day.

I make 00 capsules full of my favorite things. I take 3 of each (4 of the glucoraphanini and myrosinase):
blue green algae,
chlorophyll,
astrazanthan,
glucoraphanin and myrosinase ( I make this and process this myself)
hot pepper
turmeric

Then I take purchase pills and capsules.
Resveritol*
PQQ 20 mg with 400 mg coQ10 and 300 mg ubiquinol ( this have made a huge difference in libido)*
high amount of DHA
prenatal multi
Folic acid and B12
NADH from Elysium
and about 10 or so more supplements

*great for mitochondria health and mitochondria neogenesis. Making muscle and high intensity exercise are needed with this as well as time restricted feeding and good sleeping habits and good food intake. I need to get more protein.

When young HGH and hormones make muscle and health. When older you  need to play a different tune. Simple sugar is to be avoided as it can and will overload the mitochondria. This is unless you exhaust the glycogen in the liver and muscles such as when you go very high intensity exercise. Even still it can only be done very infrequent.

I would love to participate in gene project to reduce aging and restore DNA functionality. (Different story)

[Rachel]

The only good thing about winter is the spring clothing will be out soon

Shoes, I need a low cut boot. I am on a mission.

Can you say sweater sale
______________________
My goal is to have a great body this spring for the beach. I will be going to Belmar this spring. I am rucking 1 day a week and spinning 3 to 4 days a week. I am seeing results. I hope to be in shape. I have an operation April 3, 2019 and hope to be able to work out 2 weeks later. Maybe light work outs at 2 weeks post op.
______________________

Work is very stressful. I have been thinking and I need to do things differently. I have a plan in place.
______________________

I think I will not pursue larger breast implants. I am pretty happy with what I have. Larger I think would be more proportionate to my torso but it is not anywhere the issue I had before the BA. I had 555 ml implants. So perhaps I was jealous of woman with larger breasts.
________________________________

This is something I did not expect. At spinning class I spin on the same bike each time. The people around me do too. It is becoming a little like a social gathering. It is nice. I still need to get into the main gym and so a little upper body work, perhaps tomorrow.
________________________________

My voice is progressing and my voice is much smoother now. I am pretty happy with the results. I think I will be seeing improvement for another 5 months. I am pretty excited. One thing is that to me my voice sounds completely different. When I record my voice I can hear a little of my old voice, perhaps 20% with 80% new. My head voive is 100% different.

[Northern Star Girl]

@Rachel:
Dear Rachel:
A wonderful update that you just posted.
Yes indeed, it is in the dead of winter and we will start to see the spring clothing coming out soon.
Also, with the variety of sweaters available it is easy to find ones that meet your needs,
         not too heavy,
      not too light,
         not too loose and
      not too tight.

From the sounds of your workout routines with the rucking and spinning classes...  you definitely we see results.
Perhaps you will be ready to show off your beach body in late April or May... of course we will all want to see pictures.

Regarding work being stressful... if you feel so led to share, what is your "less stress" plan?
New job perhaps?  A promotion?

Regarding larger breasts, just be very certain about your wishes and desires... and it seem that you are happy with what you have now.   For me, I am very happy with my 34B or 34C...  any larger and they might become a hindrance with my activity levels jogging, running, hiking, working out, etc.
Bigger is not always better.

Regarding your spinning class and forming a friendship group... that is so very affirming.  As you may have read in my thread that I am part of a weekly Gym-Gals group, 5 of us, all cis-women including my tooth-fairy Suitor #4 ....   we do lots of activities together other than just the gym meets....   we are all very good friends and we frequently socialize and do shopping trips together.   It also makes going to the gym and working out a lot more pleasant.

I am so very happy to hear that your voice issues are resolving themselves and things have improved dramatically for you....  keep up the good work you have been doing on your voice.

Again, thank you for posting and sharing your very positive update.
Hugs and well wishes,
Danielle