Decrease in upper body muscle bulk?

[Thylacin]

Hey everyone,

I've been on HRT for three months and my T levels are down by 75% from where they were when I started. I was wondering how long others were on hrt before they began to see a loss of upper body muscle. I havent had any changes in muscle tone yet and my bulkiness is a source of much dysphoria.

[Ms Grace]

That will take a while. Not that I had much to begin with but it took well over six months for even that to change. If you have solid muscle mass from years of working out it will take a fair bit if time to go, certainly more than three months.

[Thylacin]

That will take a while. Not that I had much to begin with but it took well over six months for even that to change. If you have solid muscle mass from years of working out it will take a fair bit if time to go, certainly more than three months.

Yup, I understand these things take time, but I haven't seen any changes at all. So while I am not at all expecting to have lost a lot of it yet, I am anxious to start noticing at least a little bit of a decrease

[Ruth Ruthless]

I think you might be able to speed up loss of muscle mass by doing cardio exercise that develops endurance such as running...

And avoiding exercise that strains the upper body and/or involve sudden burst types of exercises, such as sprinting.

If you see runners who run long distances develop a skinny weak upper body whereas sprinters have huge chests much like body builders.

You might also want to consider building your lower body strength to take away from the upper and also help to shape a thinner waist to go from inverse triangle shape to a slight hourglass shape. (won't be amazing because of skeletal limits)

This seems to me like a good routine for building up endurance when running.
http://running.about.com/od/trainingschedules/a/3weeksto30minuterunninghabit.htm

And this worked really well to trim my waist and make my body look more like an hourglass.



It's also about what you eat, I guess. Maybe the body will tend to develop more muscle mass if you eat lots of protein. Consider trying to focus more on fresh fruits as a source of energy and lowering your protein intake if it's pretty high.

There also other options detailed here. Try searching "body feminization exercise" to see the full discussion. I'm only posting here what seems to be working for me. Again, the results are not amazing because of skeletal limits, but I think it helped get the most of what I've got.

And don't take my word for it, read what others write too. I'm still a transition noob, also 3 months on HRT. For me at least, the above exercise plan of running and "feminizing" exercises focusing on the lower body and proper eating help a lot to shape my body very quickly to the way that I personally want and my dysphoria is more focused on my face. As always, YMMV and what you want to do, what you like to eat - may vary from me - and it's very important to find something to do that's fun! I wouldn't do these exercises if they didn't make me feel good.

[Thylacin]

Thank you, that was a helpful post.

[Ms Grace]

I guess the thing is HRT alone won't reduce the bulk. I've been vegetarian for over 25 years, it meant I was a scrawny "guy" but has me in a much better shape as a woman. Following on from what Ruth said I can certainly recommend dropping animal protein from the diet but make sure you replace it with something from legumes or nuts.

[Ruth Ruthless]

Yes, I am vegan and am already used to a variety of vegan foods and since not everything I eat is laced with protein I can control my protein intake more easily than a non vegan. Not to say there aren't vegan body builders and that you can't get enough protein because there are and you can but you also have the option of reducing protein intake to exactly the amount you want or need by selecting which food to eat wheras if you eat dairy or meat on a daily basis your starting point is already one of high protein especially if you want to lose muscle mass. So yeah, cutting animal protein helps control your protein intake immensely.

[Thylacin]

I guess the thing is HRT alone won't reduce the bulk. I've been vegetarian for over 25 years, it meant I was a scrawny "guy" but has me in a much better shape as a woman. Following on from what Ruth said I can certainly recommend dropping animal protein from the diet but make sure you replace it with something from legumes or nuts.

I am a vegetarian.

[allisonsteph]

I know that everyone's results can me markedly different, but I started noticing a loss of muscle mass almost immediately. I started Spiro in January of 2014 and added Estrogen in February. I created a spread sheet and take my body measurements every two weeks.


Date                   Chest        Bust   Rib Cage   Waist    Hips     Buttocks     Left Thigh     Right Thigh   Weight
01/18/2014    43.5      43.5       41           40.5           38.50     39.5       21.5              21.74           187.0
03/29/2014        39.0          43.5     38        35.5         39.25    40.0       20.0                20.50            177.0

As you can see my bust is exactly the same size is was when I started, but I have lost 4.5 inches in my upper chest and 3 inches below my bust. This was mostly muscle mass. My collar bone is substantially more prominent than it was before I began HRT. I am finding that I have less strength in my upper body that I used to. One glaring example was I can no longer pick up my Lodge cast-iron skillet with one hand.

I've made minimal changes to my diet and added 30 minutes of walking every day and 20 minutes of riding a stationary bike three days a week.

[Lady_Oracle]

Its tough to wait but as others have said in time it will decrease!

Just want to point out that if you're looking in the mirror everyday. It makes it tough to really know if there have been any changes. Slight changes have probably happened, you can't really seem them just yet. Unless of course you've been consistent about measuring and haven't seen any changes in your numbers.

I looked in the mirror all of the time, obsessively at the start of hrt. I couldn't really tell if my muscle mass had changed at all until I started measuring myself. I was pretty skinny to begin with, so that's what made it even harder to figure out if changes had occurred.

Happy to say that after two years of hrt. I have zero muscle mass. It's all melted away.

[Ruth Ruthless]

That's why I don't use the mirror as a reference. I have a trusty measuring tape and a spreadsheet! All hail the scientific method!

[Thylacin]

That's why I don't use the mirror as a reference. I have a trusty measuring tape and a spreadsheet! All hail the scientific method!

Same here. Photos and measurements.

[FrancisAnn]

I've been on HRT for about 6 months. I've had some nice changes however it does not seem that much body fat or bulk has moved much. It's very good to know that over time my body can have a nicer shape. My upper body is just too thick.

Thanks for the topic & posts.