Howdy everyone. Since so many of my google searches kept bringing me here, I decided to join.
I am a 57 yo trans girl that has just admitted that fact and started shopping and dressing as a lady in public.
Over the past several years I have experienced a progressive depression and social isolation cycle which started getting a bunch of attention with HR at work. When I admitted my desire to cross dress with the folks at the company medical clinic, I wound up with even more attention from HR wanting to coordinate my transition at work. That was this summer and so at 5'10 and 265 lb. my primary care doctor found me a good endocrinologist who suggested that I would need to lose a bunch of weight first. So here I am, 1 week into HRT and 50lb lighter.
Socially, my life has gone from staying up late playing MMORPGs or watching netflix and dramafever (Kdrama), to a new church family and lots of new friends. While on the home front, the 4 mostly grown kids are supportive and just worried about their parents being able to get along. In my wife's eyes I have left her for another woman and she can't even accuse me of infidelity. So for the time being we have an uneasy in house separation of sorts, and with all the kids still at home I somehow wound up taking over the living room. As another concession at home I've agreed to avoid wearing the various prosthesis (cranial and otherwise) at home for any longer than necessary when coming and going. However, as much as my wife misses the chest hair, I do not share that affection and will continue shaving while awaiting the expected changes thereunto with the switch to estrogen.
As one of those nerdy scientifically oriented individuals, and finding very little beyond anecdote concerning the rate at which changes to the metabolism and musculature occur upon the switch from T to E, I have become both observer and subject for my own single point experiment. While it seems that most (or at least the noisiest) of my MtF sisters, glory in the reduction of strength as a measure of feminization, it is for me the strong athletic ladies that embody what I want to become. To that end I have tailored my gym time for maximizing the fat loss while increasing the strength and stamina of the remaining muscle. Given that after losing 50 lb altogether, some of that is most assuredly muscle mass and with the replacement of T with estrogen there remains little expectation of being able to lose the next 40 lb without an even more significant reduction thereof.
It is not my intent to start an exercise and dieting discussion here but any links to discussions or articles specifically concerning the early T to E transition would be greatly appreciated. Even more specifically I would love to find discussions or articles about the mechanism by which those changes occur.
Regards
T Wanda
