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Shoulders?!

Started by CrazyDiam0nd, August 08, 2007, 04:06:38 PM

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CrazyDiam0nd

Hey, I'm sure many mtf have had worries about their obnoxiously broad shoulders pre-transition. I'm one of those people with great shoulder mass. I am short,  only 5'3-5'4 tops and I am not thick in fact I have a very slim waist and abdomen. However, my shoulders to chest area is quite built. Is there any procedures to fix this? Will hormones somewhat change anything? Actually I should say, "can" hormones somewhat change anything...?
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seldom

Much of the muscle will go away, the bone structure will not.

My shoulders are not too bad.
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Elaine

This is something I wondered and thought about a LOT pre HRT -- this is my conclusion based on experience and conversations with others:

As Amy said, muscle mass will diminish but not bones. It's really that simple. If you were muscular to begin with, HRT will reduce muscle mass. In this case, apparent shoulder width may reduce because the larger muscles tend to hold bones further apart. So as the muscles shrink, so will the spacing between the shoulder and arm.

If you don't have significant muscle mass to begin with, you won't really see a difference in shoulders width. Muscles will still shrink, but the affect on bone spacing is almost non existent.

However, the growth of breasts will make a big difference in the appearance of your shoulders and frame in general. On a male (with a flat chest), there appears to be a lot of empty space between the shoulders, which exaggerates the look of broadness. By have something fill the space between the shoulders (breasts), the appearance of broadness is greatly reduced.

Your entire self image (mental as much as physical) changes with HRT, and there's no telling what you will and will not like about your appearance after change has become apparent. I personally was always very self conscious about shoulder width, but that changed completely as I acclimated to the HRT and got used to life as a female. I became completely comfortable with my frame and now my favorite thing to wear in the summer is a tank top.

Also I should point out that there are no surgeries to fix shoulder width -- you can just imagine how invasive something like that would be.
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CrazyDiam0nd

Fortunate for me, I think the broadness of my upper body has to do mostly with muscle mass.
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melissa90299

Quote from: CrazyDiam0nd on August 08, 2007, 04:06:38 PM
Hey, I'm sure many mtf have had worries about their obnoxiously broad shoulders pre-transition. I'm one of those people with great shoulder mass. I am short,  only 5'3-5'4 tops and I am not thick in fact I have a very slim waist and abdomen. However, my shoulders to chest area is quite built. Is there any procedures to fix this? Will hormones somewhat change anything? Actually I should say, "can" hormones somewhat change anything...?

5'3" You should count your blessings as we all should.
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Berliegh

Quote from: CrazyDiam0nd on August 08, 2007, 04:06:38 PM
Hey, I'm sure many mtf have had worries about their obnoxiously broad shoulders pre-transition. I'm one of those people with great shoulder mass. I am short,  only 5'3-5'4 tops and I am not thick in fact I have a very slim waist and abdomen. However, my shoulders to chest area is quite built. Is there any procedures to fix this? Will hormones somewhat change anything? Actually I should say, "can" hormones somewhat change anything...?

It's a good question and it's like so many other siimilar questions. You could start with shoulders and then hands and then the size of your butt. It's endless and part of the dilemma of transition.....

Whichever way we look at it men are very different from women in structure and there are many give away tell tale signs. You can either loose weight and look really skinny or put on weight and hope it goes on your butt....

Since I've been on HRT I have lost some weight on my shoulders and have gradually been working down to smaller sizes (this is over a four year period) but my biggest dilemma is not losing weight around my waist (despite a lot of excercise) and not being able to put it on my butt where I need it...
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melissa90299

For me, getting the BA really did the trick. (That and working out really hard and keeping my waist down, I have slim hips so it's really important to keep the waist slim. Hip to waist ration is a MAJOR gender marker. (I notice boobs are too! LOL)
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Berliegh

Quote from: melissa90299 on August 10, 2007, 08:21:12 AM
For me, getting the BA really did the trick. (That and working out really hard and keeping my waist down, I have slim hips so it's really important to keep the waist slim. Hip to waist ration is a MAJOR gender marker. (I notice boobs are too! LOL)

BA? what's that? I try a lot of excercise but my waist is where the fat accumilates the most. I wish I could put on more fat on my face and butt.
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melissa90299

Quote from: Berliegh on August 10, 2007, 08:38:37 AM
Quote from: melissa90299 on August 10, 2007, 08:21:12 AM
For me, getting the BA really did the trick. (That and working out really hard and keeping my waist down, I have slim hips so it's really important to keep the waist slim. Hip to waist ration is a MAJOR gender marker. (I notice boobs are too! LOL)

BA? what's that? I try a lot of excercise but my waist is where the fat accumilates the most. I wish I could put on more fat on my face and butt.

BA = Breast Augmentation. Even with HRT, the fat tends to accumulate on our waists, just have to work it, work it.
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Keira


Not me, HRT has removed most fat from my waist (with good eating and exercise), went from 32 to 28 in 1 year, hips width haven't changed at all.
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melissa90299

I don't think Keira  understood what I meant. What I meant to say was that despite HRT, many, probably most have problems keeping weight from accumulating at the waistline. In GGs, a lot of weight goes to the hips, sometimes to the breasts. I have had quite a bit of fat distributed to the hips, some to the breast, but I credit my thinner waist to diet and exercise. I have seen very little anecdotal evidence that HRT contributes to a slim waistline. In fact, most transwomen have a hard time keeping weight off on HRT.
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Keira

I understood full well, I credit the very fast lost of weight, all from the waist, to HRT. I lost no fat and even gained some on the lower body.

Maybe its because I took hormones at 21-26 and I've kept the lower body fat cells since then, I've had much thigh fat since that time (much more than any man I know for my body weight). Anyway, in my case, I'm not gaining fat at my waist when I eat and I'm certainly losing it there when I exercise and eat better.

Atypical? Who knows?
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melissa90299

Quote from: Keira on August 10, 2007, 09:44:32 PM
I understood full well, I credit the very fast lost of weight, all from the waist, to HRT. I lost no fat and even gained some on the lower body.

Maybe its because I took hormones at 21-26 and I've kept the lower body fat cells since then, I've had much thigh fat since that time (much more than any man I know for my body weight). Anyway, in my case, I'm not gaining fat at my waist when I eat and I'm certainly losing it there when I exercise and eat better.

Atypical? Who knows?

Correlation not causality. It is pretty typical to gain fat in the lower body just not as much as most of us would like. It is also fairly typical to avoid weight gain in unwanted areas like the waist.
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Keira


Melissa, a high E and low T ratio leads to a gynoid fat distribution in the long term (female like), that's a biological fact. I've also had lots of fat go to my face in one year, which is also not typical for someone of 39. At menopause, E goes down and T stays the same and women gain fat in the middle a lot more than we do (a visit to the mall is proof enough of that).

If you don't exercise, but just diet, visceral fats (intra abdominal, not the pinchable fat) will have a tendency to stay there no matter what you T to E ratio. Only exercise is efficient at getting rid of this fat. If you let you abdomen go and you look like a kermit then you've got a lot of visceral fats.

I

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Berliegh

Quote from: Keira on August 10, 2007, 09:44:32 PM
I understood full well, I credit the very fast lost of weight, all from the waist, to HRT. I lost no fat and even gained some on the lower body.

Maybe its because I took hormones at 21-26 and I've kept the lower body fat cells since then, I've had much thigh fat since that time (much more than any man I know for my body weight). Anyway, in my case, I'm not gaining fat at my waist when I eat and I'm certainly losing it there when I exercise and eat better.

Atypical? Who knows?

Keira, I think that's the key, you took HRT at 21 when you were still not completely developed physically. I officially started HRT at 38 which is really quite old to start although I did sometimes take contraceptive pills when I was 26.

For me the fat accumilates around my waist and no matter how much excercise I take, I am not able to shift it. What is more worrying I've lost weight in my butt area which is making the ratio worse. I have lost weight from the top half but my lower body is still too small compared to the top.
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melissa90299

Berliegh, just keep working it and be patient.


Keira, why did you stop HRT?
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Keira


I was forging scripts, stealing hormones from my sister and parents, stressed out from not talking to anybody, depressed and dead broke and trying to a very hard 4 year computer engineering degree, basicly had a breakdown at the end of that period and stopped and became a zombie. I was taking a low dose but for a very long time. Got breast between A and B cup. By the time I restarted, 11 years later, it was AA. Got most of my stretch marks from that time
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melissa90299

Wow! Thanks for sharing that, glad you stopped the script writing and stealing, transitioning is rough at Leavenworth, I hear.
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