Hi!

I feel like I am getting closer and closer to making the decision to transition and I had a couple questions about what I should do about my weight.  I want to lose about 40 lbs, but I was wondering if it is something I should do before or after I would get on hormones.

I know once i am on hormones, it will be harder to lose because of the slowed metabolism, but I also wondered if I should keep some weight on for fat redistribution purposes.  When I look at women that I would like to be like, they are curvy, not super thin.  I don't want to end up with a pancake butt and no hips.  Does the fat redistribution from hormone therapy move much fat to those areas anyway or is there usually a need for cosmetic work to really make those parts look womanly?  What are your experiences?  Are there any other considerations I should be thinking about?

Thanks for any help!

Kylie

Weight-loss comes off evenly everywhere in a "last in, first out" way because of the way the fat metabolism system works. Where your body choses to put new or replenish existing fat cells might be influenced by hormone tweaking, but since you are losing weight, you aren't giving it much to work with, so results will probably be marginal.

Your best bet is to lose as much weight as you (responsibly, dont go crazy) can before starting, then when you start, eat normal with moderate exercise and your body will do what it does.

+1

I'd like to add that body fat will not literally redistribute itself. Which is to say that if you are carrying extra fat in your belly or gut area, it will not migrate to your breasts or hips or anywhere else. Once you've been on HRT long enough your body will begin to deposit new fat cells in typically female areas (hips/butt/breasts/etc).

Also, yeah, what James said for sure!

Thanks so much for the input!  I thought it did kind of migrate to the hips, butt and thighs...glad y'all set me straight!  I certainly do not want fat in the places I have it if/when I transition.  I will def be hitting the gym!

I'm four months on hormones. My body responds to what I eat and how I exercise on a pretty daily basis. I measure my body and weight daily. If I eat moderately and exercise I can wake up 1 kilo lighter and my belly a centimeter smaller. If I eat big meals it puffs up 5 centimeters and I can gain 4 kilograms in one day.

So I keep fluctuating between being able to eat moderately and losing weight and then eventually eating a lot in one or two days and getting back to square one.

And I really don't feel like there is any tendency to burn my waist fat. Actually, I don't have to feel. It shows up on the results each day. My waist does trim if I eat moderately and exercise, but very slowly compared to how fast my belly changes. The belly size also plateaus at a certain size under which it again takes longer to lose it.

Also, when I lose weight, I lose weight straight away on my butt. I don't measure my thighs. Don't care about them. That is, I lose fat from my butt before I lose weight from my tummy and I lose weight from my tummy before I lose weight from my waist. Everything else about my body is and always has been thin - which makes my belly stick out that much more whenever I do gain weight.

Basically it seems my body wants me to grow a ginormous belly before I can see fat go anywhere else and my waist fat isn't going anywhere if I do that - and my tiny breasts disappear when the belly grows. At least, that's how it is for me so far.

So for now the best strategy for me to feminize my body is to keep losing weight, since it trims my waist and allows my breast to stick out compared to my belly eventually but it takes a lot of discipline and it only takes one day of losing my discipline to lose my progress.

Just sharing my own mileage.

It takes your body some time (a couple of days IIRC) to squirrel away carbs in fat cells.  Your belly's apparent size is also how full your intestinal system is and how hydrated you are. That's why it seems to immediately swell when you eat. My weight also fluctuates by a couple of kilos over the day.  You want to take the mean average between your high and low weights and get that to trend downward.  Then you know you are making progress.  Checking the scale hourly will only annoy and discourage you.

Thanks for the input Ruth!  What I am getting from all this is to lose as much weight before hormones as possible since it will be easier and because the fat will stay where it is if I don't.

I just remembered an unfortunate fact from my A&P classes that fat cells expand, shrink and multiply, but they never decrease in number  , so I will always probably gain back in the male areas more quickly because the abundance of fat cells are already there unless i got lipo.  Wow, depressing.  I'm going to have to sell off everything I own if I choose to go down this road.  Strangely, I have a feeling that it would all be worth it if I had to.

Actually fat cells will go away, but it takes a while, 6 months to a year.

As Ruth said, and as is mentioned elsewhere,  the key is consistent, steady calorie intake reduction. Starving and then gorging is worse than useless, it is actually counter productive.

I'd recommend to lose as much weight as possible beforehand.  I've had a harder time losing weight the further into everything that I go.  It's possible and you will lose weight if you make the effort, but it's not so simple with the metabolism shift and all the other body changes. 

So before HRT, the plan should be to strip away as much "male" fat as humanely possible (safely, of course), even to well below your target weight, so that once the HRT enters the equation the weight is put back on where it's supposed to be on a female body?

Or, to put it more bluntly, if you start HRT looking like a chubby guy, you'll still look like a chubby guy months, if not years, later?

And would this mean that a skinny guy going on HRT and then trying to gain weight should have more noticeable results than a plump guy who is trying to lose weight on HRT?

It's not that simple or clear cut.  It depends on each person.  A chubby guy on HRT could become a chubby (or even fat) girl.  A skinny guy could... still look like a skinny guy if their body does not respond strongly to estrogen.

I lost 24 kg (53 lbs) before I started HRT, because I knew I will put on some weight and I know it is faster and easier to put directly on the right places, than to wait for a fat redistribution to do the job. I was 91 kg (200 lbs) year and a half before HRT and succesfully became 67 kg (148 lbs) on the first day of HRT. I knew, that I had to drop some more weight, but I needed to start HRT, so I had no time, because I lost too many years of waiting and preparing... Then, for 5-6 months on HRT I gained 13 kg (29 lbs) and couldn't drop any, no matter the dieting, exercising, etc... The bad thing is, that I had lot of belly fat, love handles and other typically male pattern fat, which made me pretty ugly picture at my 6th month of HRT - I was feminized to some degree, too slow metabolism, bad hair and male pattern fat... I was so desperated about the weight, that I was in constant depression... I stopped the Androcur intake and finally stopped gaining weight, but for months I still wasn't able to drop even 1 kg... After my 1st year on HRT, I started micronized progesterone and finally things started to work like they should be - new feminizing process started, I dropped some weight and my body started to shape into a feminine silhuette. I am still few kilos more, than my starting point, but now things are working and I finally start to look like a woman for real... The bad thing is that it took 14 months to reach to this point and I've been stuck several times, thinking that my feminization was ended...
Bottom line - It would be easier for me, if I dropped more weight before HRT, so don't bother later about the places I gain fat and how to reshape my body with so slowered metabolism.

Here is some very important information about how fat redistribution works:

All cells in the body that are not 'sick' will eventually 'die' and any cell which cannot or will not self-destruct is called cancer. Fat cells are just like other cells, and they will not stay on your body forever. When someone has a muffin top, it is not the same one from 20 years ago - it is in the same place, but the fat cells themselves are different.

A fat cell will never 'move' on your body, but as they break down and are re-stored, they can be stored in the thighs/butt for women or belly for men. If you wait for hormones to do this, you are waiting for all of those cells to die and then energy to be stored in different places. You can GREATLY speed things up by breaking them down through exercise!

Your body gets energy all throughout the day from one of two sources: carbs, or stored body fat. Your body cannot take the fat or protein in food and use it directly as energy - it must convert protein or fat in food into stored body fat. For that reason alone, eating the same amount of food but eating less carbs and more protein and fats (think nuts and olive oil) will cause you to burn more body fat. This will make you lose weight, because a bit of the energy in food is lost when it is converted to stored body fat, and that adds up over time.

One of the best things to do is to wake up every single morning and take a one hour walk (30 minutes if you simply cannot do one hour). Do not drink anything except water or black coffee before doing this. Remember, you're doing this because with no carbs in your stomach from the overnight fasting during sleep, your body will be forced to burn stored body fat for energy!

On your new hormone regimen, you should store all new fat in typically female places, and this way you can burn off fat on the torso. If you're taking progesterone as part of your regimen, this will accelerate the loss of stomach fat. If you're taking estrogen only, speak with your doctor about this concern and ask them to prescribe both so that you can get the female figure that you desire!

Wow!  Unbelievably helpful!  Thanks!

You're welcome Kylie

If you'd like any more information on burning fat or how and why it ends up stored differently for men and women, the Lyle MacDonald's Fat Burning Solution is an excellent book with all of this information and more.

Thanks, I will def check it out!  One last question, does it have to be walking or will any cardio do?  I would rather be burning more calories, an hour is a long time to put in for so few calories burned.  Is it something about the heart rate zone?

I've come across several people who lost lots of weight and reached an ideal weight while improving their sense of well-being on very little carb to no carb and only fat and protein, in a ratio of 70-85% fat to 15-30% protein. Fat is mostly animal fat. Their triglycerides were much improved as were their HDL, both markers of cardiovascular risk. This is not just a diet but a lifestyle change that is maintained forever. It seems to work great for some and not work as great for others. Always an option, just in case...Several traditional cultures ate that way (the Masai people in Africa, The Inuits in the Arctic, etc) and thrived on this diet, including explorers from the Western world who ate the same when living with them and even when they came back to their home country and still continued eating this way. Steffanson (Viljamur) is an example of this.

Quote from: KayXo on May 02, 2014, 01:40:01 PM
I've come across several people who lost lots of weight and reached an ideal weight while improving their sense of well-being on very little carb to no carb and only fat and protein, in a ratio of 70-85% fat to 15-30% protein. Fat is mostly animal fat.

I am actually vegan now so unfortunately I cannot reach those percentages unless all I ate were nuts.  Incidentally, I would probably love that diet!..........but I don't think it would be too healthy.

I am usually at about 55-65% carbs, 30-35% fat and 8-12% protein.  Almost all of my carbs are from unprocessed sources, and for the most part I am only taking in sugar that exists naturally in food.  I have not been sick once since I went vegan and I have never felt better in my adult life, so I don't want to fiddle with that too much. Plus it was done for ethical considerations so I wouldn't really feel right going back on it to suit my looks. 

The worst thing about it is that it makes it sooooo difficult for me to find cute shoes   I have actually considered breaking over a pair of cute riding boots, but I stayed strong!  Still think about them longingly from time to time though *sigh*

I am not worried about my long term weight as my diet and lifestyle should drop my weight down and keep it there over time.  After hearing everyone's input though, I would like to lose 40-50 lbs fast, or before October which is when I am telling myself that I need to make the decision whether or not I am going to start hormones and really do this for myself.

Quote from: KayXo on May 02, 2014, 01:40:01 PM
I've come across several people who lost lots of weight and reached an ideal weight while improving their sense of well-being on very little carb to no carb and only fat and protein, in a ratio of 70-85% fat to 15-30% protein. Fat is mostly animal fat. Their triglycerides were much improved as were their HDL, both markers of cardiovascular risk. This is not just a diet but a lifestyle change that is maintained forever. It seems to work great for some and not work as great for others. Always an option, just in case...Several traditional cultures ate that way (the Masai people in Africa, The Inuits in the Arctic, etc) and thrived on this diet, including explorers from the Western world who ate the same when living with them and even when they came back to their home country and still continued eating this way. Steffanson (Viljamur) is an example of this.

My diet is exactly the same thing and I am very happy with the results - I feel good, look good, my health state got better, also I don't need to count calories and stay hungry all the time I succeded to drop a few kilos even in my hardest period, when I was stuck after a significant weight gain due to the hormones and wasn't able to drop any weight for months, so it is the right thing for me