When I exercise I get a euphoria after taking hormones. I just feel this effect, like the hormones are flowing through your veins. I'm just wondering.

I too feel awesome after intense exercise. I think it is the exercise but I do core work and hit the thighs pretty hard and I was thinking it must help move the E in my thigh.

Since I put e gel on and it's winter I usually exercise to keep warm while I'm half naked waiting for the gel to get under the skin. I got euphoria from exercise once recently but it took 30 min aerobics and one hour running to get that effect. Also made my tummy feel like it was sucking itself inside for hours. I should probably do that more often. I guess it took less when I could do less, the threshold keeps going up. I don't know if it helps for the transition but exercise helps my well being which counteracts some of the negative effects of dysphoria on well being.

Exercise helps your entire metabolism. Aerobic exercise is good for you.

Exercise helps with everything!

it's also addictive,  when you exercise you cause micro damage to your muscles and strain on your body systems, causing them to heal stronger ( thats how your body increases strength from exercise = the physical stress)

when you cause the micro damage your brain releases endorphins, the natural painkiller, to help out.

it also helps with the circulation of your hormones,  and helps burn off excess cholesterol that would otherwise clog your system :3

I am not a docter or anything like that,  just a massage therapist,  so I had to know about body circulation and  metabolism

In September-October I ran every 2 days, sometimes once a day. Running made me feel good but I never got addicted to it. I've been running still the past few months since then, but only once every 2 weeks. The processed foods and oil I recently commited to avoid eating were a lot more addictive than any form of exercise has been for me. In the same way, I find myself owing myself to commit to running again once every 2 days just like before as a crucial ingredient of having enough positive elements in my life to counter the negative dysphoria element and maintain my well being.

Despite how good it feels, I personally don't find exercise addicting at all, as opposed to other things I only recently got out of my life like Coca Cola.

Maybe others can get addicted to exercise, maybe one day I will, but from my experience so far the healthiest things in my life were never addictive, and the destructive things in my life at least to some extent were harmful to me because I had trouble not abusing them to excess instead of using them moderately.

So far my experience has taught me that the healthiest things in life are never addictive, you always have to commit to them, and the pay off is always bigger in the long run than the short term costs.

Just like I was afraid that if I don't have X foods in my life I will not know the joy of food and I could not have a happy life, every time I changed my food choices my taste buds adapted and I became more sensative to certain tastes and had the same overall enjoyment of food.

In the same way I have been afraid in the last few months of going out in the cold and running, but every time I ran it felt really good.

And that didn't change that all the unhealthy things in my life trigger cravings and things I have to actively apply willpower to avoid doing, and all the healthy things in my life are something I need to apply willpower to do.

In my case exercise makes me feel like I'm going to die. However I have not exercised until recently and I work a desk job. I do not move a lot during the day. My doctor begged me to get 30 minutes 5 days a week. I'm still struggling to make it past 10 minutes and will find almost any excuse to not exercise.

Quote from: awilliams1701 on January 20, 2015, 04:19:48 PM
In my case exercise makes me feel like I'm going to die. However I have not exercised until recently and I work a desk job. I do not move a lot during the day. My doctor begged me to get 30 minutes 5 days a week. I'm still struggling to make it past 10 minutes and will find almost any excuse to not exercise.

If it makes you feel like you're going to die, you're probably going for more stress than you are ready for now. There needs to be a balance between pushing yourself a little bit beyond your comfort zone but not tremendously so.  You could start from ten minute walks and add 1 minute of running. Then next week do 5 minutes, 1 minute walking, 5 minutes 1 minute walking. Or maybe you don't like running and prefer some other exercise, but whatever you do, if it feels like you're going to die you're probably overdoing it and need to start smaller and build up slowly.

When I started running I began walking with small spurts or running, gradually adding bigger and bigger spurts. After a couple of months I was doing 15 minutes straight, then 30, and within another month or two I was able to do 60-100 minute runs without stopping.

Or when I tried squats, I did 3 sets of 20 and my legs got cramped and hurt like hell for a week. So once they recovered I took it down a notch and gradually added more and more squats.

It also helps for me as a person addicted to stimuli to have lectures and blogs from YouTube to which I listen while exercising. For jogging I download the clips into my smartphone before I go out running and listen to them while running. Maybe that could help you get double enjoyment from exercise of both enriching your mind and your body at the same time like I do.

I hope these ideas help exercise seem more attractive to you.

If you could substitute exercise with a pill, that would be attractive to me. Otherwise there really isn't any way to do it. I'll stick with it, but its a huge pain in the ass.

Quote from: Jaz650 on January 17, 2015, 02:24:17 PM
When I exercise I get a euphoria after taking hormones. I just feel this effect, like the hormones are flowing through your veins. I'm just wondering.

Do you mind letting us know what exercise you do, how long after the exercise do you take the hormones and which method of delivery are you using? Only if you feel comfortable answering, thanks!

Quote from: Ruth Ruthless on January 20, 2015, 04:27:43 PM
If it makes you feel like you're going to die, you're probably going for more stress than you are ready for now. There needs to be a balance between pushing yourself a little bit beyond your comfort zone but not tremendously so.  You could start from ten minute walks and add 1 minute of running. Then next week do 5 minutes, 1 minute walking, 5 minutes 1 minute walking. Or maybe you don't like running and prefer some other exercise, but whatever you do, if it feels like you're going to die you're probably overdoing it and need to start smaller and build up slowly.

When I started running I began walking with small spurts or running, gradually adding bigger and bigger spurts. After a couple of months I was doing 15 minutes straight, then 30, and within another month or two I was able to do 60-100 minute runs without stopping.

Or when I tried squats, I did 3 sets of 20 and my legs got cramped and hurt like hell for a week. So once they recovered I took it down a notch and gradually added more and more squats.

It also helps for me as a person addicted to stimuli to have lectures and blogs from YouTube to which I listen while exercising. For jogging I download the clips into my smartphone before I go out running and listen to them while running. Maybe that could help you get double enjoyment from exercise of both enriching your mind and your body at the same time like I do.

I hope these ideas help exercise seem more attractive to you.

Currently I am doing 90 minutes of cardio three times a week, but I cannot listen to music or anything when exercising!! I guess my breathing is too heavy, my heartbeat as well, at least for me, and that prevents me from listening to audio.

I'm on pills. I take them at 8:30 AM, begin exercise at around 12 pm for an hour and a half, take HRT again at 8:30. My doctor did up my HRT, but I can't get into dosages here. The increase plus exercise is amazing! It should be noted that I totally have more curves too!

Ah, I see. So you don't take them right after exercise. I do my ab crunches to warm up a bit so I'm not cold without my clothes, then I put on the gel and do my squats and push ups. I apply the gel to the hands, belly and legs so it touches all the areas where I've strained myself. I wonder if that helps circulate the hormones.

Hormones enter your bloodstream and go everywhere. Exercise may facilitate spreading within the blood flow, but they quickly get everywhere anyway. Exercise helps blood flow for healing and creating new tissue, and for regaining nerve connections, which is something to keep in mind prior and after to surgeries you may have.

When you are taking an androgen suppressant and estrogen, your body is reforming as the hormones "reprogram" cells, and as the overpowered testosterone lessens and you begin to lose muscle.  Exercise, especially weight training, keeps the smaller muscles strong. Your frame determines a lot of how the muscles shape, but I found that it is true that you are breaking down and rebuilding the muscles as well, and that may affect some aspects of how you look. I find that exercise, to include BOTH cardio (running) and weight/core helped me look defined, but turned out to be much less masculine.

In a sense, it's not that the exercise helps the hormones, it's that the hormones help the result of the exercise.

I do 45 minutes a day 5 days a week of cardio at the gym at work. I may start back some light weight training.

It has certainly helped with my figure. I'm definitely getting that "coca cola bottle" shape now.

As for HRT I try not to exercise around my HRT times.

I take E 3x per day, every 8 hours - 6AM, 2PM and 10PM. I take the rest of my medicine with breakfast around 9AM (at work) including spiro. I used to just take spiro and the rest in the morning before I left the house but with food it's so much better and I don't get upset stomach. I heard it also increases bioavailability of spiro which is a good thing. I need all the help I can get.

However I'm going to get out of the work gym and join one close to home. The locker room situation is awkward. I can't really use the mens locker room because I don't like to go topless in front of a bunch of men. The women's I can't really use yet because I haven't officially switched genders at work. So I may try a local gym and get reimbursed for it instead where I can change and shower at home.

My incentive has been to control my diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol. They are back in normal ranges now and I'm happy with that. Hoping I can keep it up because I'll need to stay healthy for the surgeries I'm planning to do.

Quote from: Ruth Ruthless on January 21, 2015, 07:34:28 AM
Ah, I see. So you don't take them right after exercise. I do my ab crunches to warm up a bit so I'm not cold without my clothes, then I put on the gel and do my squats and push ups. I apply the gel to the hands, belly and legs so it touches all the areas where I've strained myself. I wonder if that helps circulate the hormones.

but won't the sweat make the gel come off??

It's so frigging cold for me that though my heart beat goes up I don't sweat unless I do twice as much exercise as I normally do at home. Running is a different story and summer is a different story.

I just weighed myself yesterday, and I lost two pounds in like a week!! Sooo happy! My breasts also feel really sensitive, but I don't want them to grow anymore..