Totally!

Before HRT I was overweight, didn't care if my clothes were looking good, was severely baldening, was wearing teeth braces and thick glasses...awfull! I hated mirrors like a vampire!

Since starting HRT getting a good look became kind of an obssession! I want to be a good-looking girl someday! I find myself losing too much time thinking about the way I am, looking myself at the mirror, testing different clothes...argh...sometimes I feel exhausted! But this is something that is not leaving my mind alone...I feel good looking at myself and now I am starting to like what I see on the other side!

Before I started officially transitioning years ago, I went low carb and dropped a bunch of fat. HRT is continuing to work its magic with my midsection and my hips. I am still low carb enough to be "obsessive" and try to eat as well as I possibly can. I put on a few pounds recently though. That's why I haven't posted in the Friday weight thread lately. 

Yep but that wouldn't have been hard.  I guess I had a vendetta against the git in the mirror.

Strangely, my appetite seems to vanish the moment my plate arrives and I can't finish meals now.  I dropped from 111 to 98 recently without any change.   I expected the opposite.  Maybe subconsciously over eating?

I think I used to worry more pre-HRT... but then again I started HRT the moment I graduated. So... I went from like a diet of dining hall food and Panda Express, to home cooked meals every night... which was to say that in college I was counting my every calorie and intentionally starving my a bit so I wouldn't develop my slightly pudgy belly any more than I already was. I also walked a ->-bleeped-<- ton... like a mile too and from the apartment every day.

I've gotten so lazy now that I'm on E x___x, although a lot of the habits I had in college are still embedded. I usually fast until like 1 PM, I eat a light lunch, only drink water/red tea/black coffee (sometimes with half and half if I want to treat myself). I never have soda unless I'm adding alcohol to it for a treat, I don't really snack, I have zero vices (I drink maybe once a week, if that?). Most of the stuff that I cook comes off of the grill instead of fried, and I rarely ever go out to eat (and when I do, if it's fast food it's usually something pretty healthy).

I've kinda dropped walking though recently, which sucks but it's really bloody hot out and I hate sweating... so most of my exercise lately is planking exercises, v-sits, and sit-ups... which is great and all, my belly is strong and fit... it just exists beneath a layer of fat :<

When my trans bell went off, I ditched body hair, looked in the mirror and was physically ill.  It was just too ugly for words.  That was thirty months ago. I've dropped 18 kg and have tried to stay fit, but even two years into HRT, I still and always will, have a shape that is marginal to barely OK.  I quit measuring myself daily about a year ago, and while I continue to step on the scale every morning there are some things that I simply have to accept.  I'm a 38C, 33, 36.  That hasn't changed in quite a while and is about as good as it is ever going to get for me.  My weight is about 5 lbs (2 kg) more than I would like, but to weigh less than I do requires more effort and more discipline than is healthy for me.  It just sucks up too much head space and keeps me from both being happy, and from living my life.  I will never be as beautiful on the outside as I would like, so it is better for me to be as beautiful on the inside as I know how to be, or can dream of becoming.

If I am not afraid to share an ice cream with a friend in order to be as slim as a young sapling, I am more accepted as a woman and certainly happier.  I hope that one day soon I will be done with the transition, and simply living my life, loving my friends, holding my lover, as a confident, productive woman.  For me a big part of transition has been acceptance.  That includes both my mind, and my body.  I have left a world of limitation and deformity for one full of color and actualization.  That is the choice I made.

I had little or no choice but to throw away my life of sadness and limitation as a man.  For me it was that or psychic death.  I do however have a choice as to the type of woman I live my life as.  So yeah, I care a lot about how I look, how I feel, and how people respond to that.  But I don't so much obsess and to stay aware.  I do my sit ups, I do my jogging, I try to eat a balanced and reasonable diet.  But I will also have an ice cream sundae, and barbecue feast from time to time (yesterday as a mater of fact).  Some balance, an occasional indulgence.  Yummmmm

j

YES I have started paying more attention to physical appearance since starting estradiol valerate and micronized progesterone 4 and a half weeks ago.

My nipples are clearly visible now if my shirt is pulled tight because they protrude now, and there seems to be a little outward growth, not much yet, but it looks like a little.  My breasts are definitely more female-shaped and rounder, now, though, so that affects what I do at the pool.

In fact, I pay attention to my figure in the sense that I am not yet quite ready to "come out" at my apartment complex yet...

Because if I were to shave my breast area clean of hairs, my nipples and areolas would be VERY obvious shirtless at the pool.  I suppose that because I am not quite ready yet to "come out" at my apartment complex, I am hiding my obviously protruding nipples with hair.

I have already been to the beach with my toenails painted bright red, both with my 6 year old daughter, and also with my genetic girlfriend I went to beach once with bright red toenails, it was fabulous I was SO happy to do that.

It was among strangers who didn't know me of course, except that I was with my genetic girlfriend.

About 3 weeks ago, I went to the beach with my genetic girlfriend, her in a great bikini (she is 26 and looks great in her bikini), and I at age 56 with my fingernails painted and polished an intense medium-dark purple color VERY feminine...
Hey, I felt fabulous!!!

It was kind of funny to my genetic girlfriend some of the "looks" I got from both men and women on the beach, with my toenails painted bright red and my fingernails painted intense medium purple.  I was quite amused, too.

I didn't feel particularly embarrassed...I felt good...but so far only my 6 year old daughter knows about this, my genetic girlfriend knows about it, and you gals here know about it.

Johanna