questions about working out.

[kariann330]

So we all know hrt works best and causes the least amount f problems if you have just the right amount of body fat but not too much. Well right now im 5'10" and weigh 210 if not more.....i don't own a scale so i don't know exactly how much i weigh.

Well im looking at doing either INSANITY or p90X but am worried about a couple of things.

1 since I'm not on hrt at this time could they end up building too much muscle mass, mostly with p90X.

2 could i end up dropping too much body fat that it doesn't leave anything for redistribution leaving me with no butt, hips or boobs?

I know no matter what i gotta loose weight, my cholesterol is too high, my pulse is too high blah blah blah lol.

So if anyone has any recommendations on which program will work the best for the goals of the average t girl im all ears.

Thanks in advance

Kari.

[A]

Don't worry about losing too much weight. Even if you do lose too much - which doesn't sound likely - it'll just go in the right place when you gain it back, whenever it happens. As for muscle, it's not like it'll permanently stay. If you put on too much muscle, it'll be an annoyance for a while, but if you just stop the exercise, it should go away gradually.

[Shantel]

Don't worry about losing too much and don't worry about muscle mass. I'm 5' 7" and was up to 235 at one time which translates into a muscular lard ass. You don't need a big workout program, just cut your intake to around 1200-1300 calories a day and eat a lean, sugar free low sodium diet and set aside time for a brisk walk and then do some crunches at home each day. Once you get on HRT your muscle mass will atrophy and your body will store plenty of fat in various places. I dropped 60 lbs over time and will probably drop another ten pounds eventually. The crunches will tighten up your abs and lats and give your waist some definition. This is a photo I took late last year, when I weighed 235 I had a huge belly in front.

[kariann330]

Thanks ladies....i guess it's just a little disheartening when you find out that your stomach (measured hip to hip not all the way around) is bigger then your best friends EE boobs....kind makes you wake up and fast. Also for a lot of people cutting calories and walking does help, but when you were extremely athletic thru high school, football, basket ball and cross country, due to muscle memory it takes a lot more to get those muscles a lot more work to get the same effect.

[misschievous]

On the other hand  I am 6'4" and weigh about 170 which is really low for Male with low muscle mass but a bit of a gut. I too have yet to start HRT but was wanting to start in on yoga. Anyone have suggestions? Will I need to actually gain weight? Should I not start yoga?

[Shantel]

Thanks ladies....i guess it's just a little disheartening when you find out that your stomach (measured hip to hip not all the way around) is bigger then your best friends EE boobs....kind makes you wake up and fast. Also for a lot of people cutting calories and walking does help, but when you were extremely athletic thru high school, football, basket ball and cross country, due to muscle memory it takes a lot more to get those muscles a lot more work to get the same effect.

I was a fullback on the HS football team, spent two enlistments in the paratroops and am responsible for pushing the planet 17 degrees off true north doing pushups, so there's no such thing as can't and don't let yourself tell you that either.

[misschievous]

responsible for pushing the planet 17 degrees off true north doing pushups

That was YOU? I thought it was the Wobble effect theory? Well thank you you saved the planet 

[Shantel]

That was YOU? I thought it was the Wobble effect theory? Well thank you you saved the planet 

Yup, it wasn't fun. Thank God that was in a former life and it's all water under my bridge now!

[kariann330]

I do Insanity every day it is required. If you want to do it, get very, very, very good crosstrainer shoes or you will have ankle and knee problems. It works well, but at your current height to weight ratio, you will have to do it at least twice to get where you want.

P90x is an annoyance.

Hahahaha get where i want......i would love to get down to 160 again....but sadly i don't see that happening tho

[AnarchoChloe]

I'm unfamiliar with either of those programs but have been involved in a very strenuous exercise since January, after  years of avoiding exercise like I was allergic to it. I am 5'10" and was 198 on Jan 1 and started with a light regimen of 1hr on the elliptical and 30min on the stairmaster every day until March, when I added in an hour of yoga every other day. Then in April I started a twice weekly class at 24hr fitness called willpower & grace which is a mix of pilates and yoga and mainly about improving balance and leg power (it has been ENORMOUSLY helpful with learning to walk in heels) and when I checked in on the scale the other day I was down to 163. Having only recently started HRT I'm hoping to drop some more weight, but I'm lightening up the exercise regimen to only running 30 min per day with 30 min on the stairmaster, as well as the 2x weekly willpower & grace class (not least because I keep finding I just don't have the endurance for it any more, though that pleases me because I know it's contributing to the atrophying of my muscle mass).

[Carrie Liz]

See, I think what people call "fat redistribution" is a bit misleading when phrased like that. It's not like you need stomach fat in order to have HRT magically take it and transfer it to the hips and butt. It doesn't quite work like that. The body puts on fat when your blood sugar is high, and then burns it off when the blood sugar drops again and it needs a continuous supply of energy. It's this constant up-and-down cycle that makes the fat seem like it is "redistributing," but really it's not. If you go on HRT and at any point have a blood sugar level that requires the body to store it as fat, it will go into the girly areas, regardless of whether there was any fat anywhere else on the body or not. And likewise, if your body always has a higher blood sugar level, and therefore doesn't need to burn off any excess body fat for energy, no matter how much fat it stores on the female areas, it won't burn it from the male areas. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. Unless you continue to diet during HRT to such a point where the body is never putting on any excess fat at all, you will put on "girl fat."

[Sammy]

I am 5"9' and about 165 lbs now and I still feel like I could drop a bit of belly fat - it is not visible, but a bit still there. As for muscles, they will atrophy during the HRT, in fact they tend to atrophy even without it but at quite a slower rate. For example, before graduation school I was able to do 20 pullups and to push 36 kg heavy weighted ball 10 times with each hand. I cant do this anymore. I used to fool around with historical reenactment and was doing things in full-plate armor (about 15 kg or 20kg with chainmail) - now I can barely move around the bag, where my armor is stored.
My current workout is a bit chaotic, but I try to do the marathon distance within the course of week doing 7-8 km jogging about 5-6 times per week. It burns everything as hell, plus I am heavily limiting my animal protein intake (almost switching to vegetarian ), cutting down the calories (eating crisp-bread, nuts, fruits) and drinking water or juice, when I feel like I am hungry - or munching down a tomatoe or cucomber And I am only on spiro now, so there is no estrogen in me yet.

[kariann330]

Bailie, that sounds like my first week working on an oil rig.....but i did some research online along with the opinions here and I'm going with INSANITY. P90X apparently is designed for building muscle mass and burning a little fat, Insanity on the other hand builds lean muscle and burns a ton of fat and fast....but while both have you sweating, i kinda like the fact that insanity is so revved up that it leaves you gasping for air in a lake of sweat when your done lol.

[Theo]

Without wanting to derail the thread in any way, but there is a small question that's been bothering me a bit:

With respect to body fat, most modern bathroom scales have an integrated electronic measuring system that will spit out the percentage. Now in order for that value to be decently accurate, mine asks for height, age, level of fitness, and gender. The first three are quite easy, but after how many months of HRT should I be switching that fourth marker? To date I've simply measured both and keep thinking "well, it's somewhere within that range"...

[Kristen Wave]

Just focus on full body aerobics. I.e. running, biking, buy some light dumbells 5lbs or so and do quick arm lifts and holds, also try to focus on core work as well. A strong core makes everything easier and will make your waist smaller . As long as you don't do heavy duty weight training you shouldn't gain muscle mass.

[Shantel]

Without wanting to derail the thread in any way, but there is a small question that's been bothering me a bit:

With respect to body fat, most modern bathroom scales have an integrated electronic measuring system that will spit out the percentage. Now in order for that value to be decently accurate, mine asks for height, age, level of fitness, and gender. The first three are quite easy, but after how many months of HRT should I be switching that fourth marker? To date I've simply measured both and keep thinking "well, it's somewhere within that range"...

I'd change that fourth marker right away, after all that's where you are headed so you might as well get the the real scoop on where you are in relation to the female spectrum. It will give you a place to begin and a target to shoot for. Keep in mind that male bone mass which is the denser part of your anatomy will be naturally heavier than that of the average female.

[Theo]

I'd change that fourth marker right away, after all that's where you are headed so you might as well get the the real scoop on where you are in relation to the female spectrum. It will give you a place to begin and a target to shoot for. Keep in mind that male bone mass which is the denser part of your anatomy will be naturally heavier than that of the average female.

Hm. Thing is that switching the one marker (there is more than one programme slot, so I simply have P1 and P2 on male and female respectively, keeping everything else the same) supposedly increases my body fat from 9.7% to 20.4% and drops my muscle mass by 10-11%. So whatever the estimating algorithm is, there are some pretty hefty calculation changes in the background. I guess I'll just continue using both and seeing whether there are any changes between the variation over time.

[A]

I wish I had that opportunity again...

When I was deep in depression, I was put in a group therapy program. The therapy itself wasn't so useful, but the fact that every noon, we had food delivered, and could choose whatever we wanted, was so very awesome. I'm vegetarian, and there was often meat, so I rarely ate the main dish. But that didn't feel bad at all, because there were side dishes, and often those included steamed carrots. I just love steamed carrots. Sometimes I just took a whole plate of them (like, a kilo of carrots or something?) and that was my delicious lunch. Also, at the time, I was on medications that reduced my appetite as a side effect.

So with two months of that therapy and then two more months of low appetite, I lost 50 pounds easily. And 10-20 more followed in the next year. I wish I could cheat like that again. Now I'm still on similar medications, but they're not doing much. I still have a pretty big appetite most of the time, which makes me wonder how awful it'd be without them. Right now I'm trying to go back down from 135-140 to the ~130 I'd reached. Then if I'm courageous, I'll aim for 120 to hopefully forget about this belly I've had since birth forever.

[kariann330]

Without wanting to derail the thread in any way, but there is a small question that's been bothering me a bit:

With respect to body fat, most modern bathroom scales have an integrated electronic measuring system that will spit out the percentage. Now in order for that value to be decently accurate, mine asks for height, age, level of fitness, and gender. The first three are quite easy, but after how many months of HRT should I be switching that fourth marker? To date I've simply measured both and keep thinking "well, it's somewhere within that range"...

I actually don't see it as derailing or hijacking at all because the male/female BMI question is one that i have had for a while now, and it doesn't help that when ever i would ask on Laura's i would always get mixed answers, some saying go by male till post op, some saying female now and some saying male no matter what because it's how i was born.

Now tho I'm really curious as to what people here think about it.

[Joanna Dark]

You should change it after your T is suppressed. After that happens, if your taking E, you are hormonally female. I could be wrong.