I am currently 7 months on hrt but I have lost lik almost no mucle bulk. I was bodybuilding before I started transitioning 9 months ago.

Have anybody got advice how I can get rid of my man arms and shoulders. my chest shrunk a quite a bit but my arms and legs is a different story.

It takes a lot of time.  Diet and exercise will probably help if you include a lot of cardio type exercise.  Another thing is that women can have very strong legs with pretty big muscles.  It's mostly the upper body that does not develop large muscles.


Sapere Aude

If you were already bulked up it may take longer to lose the muscle. I've heard that doing cardio based exercises is the best way to burn it off, certainly avoid weights.

Do I have to follow a low protein and carb diet because low protein only makes sense so that you body start breaking down your own muscle to compensate lets say I cut about 30% of the protein that I need to maintain my muscle weight would I then get the rest of it from my own muscle. Combine that with marathon type of cardio? I started dieting today and I am soooo hungry I want to start biting into the people around me LOL

I can't comment on diet, it makes sense though since body builders apparently consume a lot of protein. I'd suggest you find a sensible diet that doesn't leave you starving otherwise it will fail.

The problem is most low carb diets makes you feel this way Hungry hungry hungry... So you can consume like a whole bowl of broccoli and your body will still have cravings as there is no carbs so it wants carbs while it is starting to run of your fat reserves. So there really isn't a way as far as I know of dieting without having that cravings for sugary things and cut protein then your body will want meat also while it is busy eating away at reserves to compensate for the lack that you are creating.

I don't think low protein will help much.  The hormones will take care of it over time.  Eat to be healthy.


Sapere Aude

That sort of sucks I thought I would speed it up a bit. Maybe a dietitian will be a good idea? they are just pricey

Low to no protein would work.  You would break down muscle just to keep your organs functioning.  However, it's not healthy.  It would also be a really sucky diet. 

I'm eating high protein and exercising a lot and my muscle is still fading.  Without the T they cannot remain big.  Without continued lifting they will atrophy even with T.  It just takes time.


Sapere Aude

Hi Amoré,

Just an idea but you might try 3 or 4 times a week to not eat after dinner,  skip breakfast and replace breakfast with a long cardio workout.    It seems to me your body will be in a catabolic state because you are doing a short fast.  Exercising at this time will probably cause your body to breakdown muscle.

Body builders warn people not to do this because it can have a detrimental effect on building muscle.  Anyway it won't hurt anything.  It may be worth a try.   

Good luck,
Paige

Quote from: Amoré on March 29, 2016, 07:14:39 AM
That sort of sucks I thought I would speed it up a bit. Maybe a dietitian will be a good idea? they are just pricey

Be careful with that. I've known a lot of people who billed themselves as dieticians and many of them touted fad diets. If I were you I would speak to a GP. It's an unusual issue but they're best suited to giving that kind of advice. They might even be able to recommend a responsible dietician.

Hello Love,

Just my 2 cents, continue with your low carb, high protein diet coz I heard that too much carbs i.e. simple carbs can actually be detrimental to feminization as it increases T production.

Or just keep everything in balance, I use myfitnesspal and cardio everyday for 30 mins seems to be working. Mind you, since I'm on E - my weight loss has been slow as molasses.

Hope this helps!

April

Quote from: April_TO on March 29, 2016, 09:58:43 AM
Hello Love,

Just my 2 cents, continue with your low carb, high protein diet coz I heard that too much carbs i.e. simple carbs can actually be detrimental to feminization as it increases T production.

Or just keep everything in balance, I use myfitnesspal and cardio everyday for 30 mins seems to be working. Mind you, since I'm on E - my weight loss has been slow as molasses.

Hope this helps!

April

Hey april if the avatar is your pic you are too pretty for words. I am thinking or what I worked out was 100g a day for my body and cut it to let say 50g. So my body would automatically start breaking down mucle to compensate but from what I understan hormone production is also coming from protein so I don't know if this will affect my E levels

The problem is that everyone is different, but I agree that minimal protein is best. I lost some mass fairly quickly this way. One gal told me that her doctor told her to increase her protein, because she was losing too much. She had droopy skin under her arms, but still looked great.

Minimal protein and cardiovascular exercise. Myself, I just stopped eating so much. I eat once per day most of the time.

Thanks love, yes that's me in the pic

I have been doing this eating plan for a good few months now and so far my E levels are quite high with my T on the female range. Trust me, I cannot deviate from this plan since being on E makes me so carb sensitive that whenever I ate a piece of it I crave it until kingdom comes lol I also tried the low fat, high carb diet and it made me so bloated and I was packing on weight like crazy and worst of all...I am always hungry. Honestly, I'd rather die happy than be a size 2 lol.

My normal meal would always consists of grilled meat and salad for lunch and dinner. Then omelette in the morning. I am on a 1200 calorie meal plan and you always get a bit more if you workout.  Hope you can truly find the right plan for you.

As always, if there's anything else you need - just post it here and the community will be happy to respond.

xoxo

April

Quote from: Amoré on March 29, 2016, 10:05:57 AM
Hey april if the avatar is your pic you are too pretty for words. I am thinking or what I worked out was 100g a day for my body and cut it to let say 50g. So my body would automatically start breaking down mucle to compensate but from what I understan hormone production is also coming from protein so I don't know if this will affect my E levels

Hi, Amoré,
I'm finding a few things that will help...
I'm still in the Prep stages, and 40 years, with a fair amount of gym time.  This is what's working for me, pre-hormones.
1. Foam roller, as much as you can, focusing on where you have knots, or where you need to reduce.
2. Fasted cardio, which will start to burn muscle. Morning is best time, get huffing and puffing.
3. limited protein. I'd suggest looking at the Fat Fast diet, and then tweaking it to reduce protein.
      A. Fat Fast is already low carb, < 20 g/day of Carbs
      B. Reducing the protein and replacing with fat will get you to a muscle-wasting state, I.E. Catabolism.
      C. Should still be able to BUILD the girl muscles we want (mostly gluteals)
4. Jogging would be a preferred method of moderate cardio. #2 should be HARD cardio, but this is more off days / active recovery, and it means jog for an hour or more....  T-nation listed jogging as the most effective form of non-surgical gender reassignment, let's use that for our benefit.  ;-)


After that, it's just time and dedication.
-Dianna

I'm averaging 142g protein, 286g carbs, and 81g fat per day (around 2050 cal) and steadily losing 1.5 to 2 lbs a week which is both fat and muscle.  My muscle mass has shrunk and my neck is 2 inches smaller than at the start.

So, figure out what you are burning with your daily activities and eat to support that with a deficit built in.  Keep the diet balanced for health.  You will lose muscle but it takes time.  You don't need to overthink it.


Sapere Aude

I need to refute one thing that was said above.  Fasted cardio does not burn muscle.

This is a pervasive myth in the muscle building world.  It will not burn muscle at all unless you are running around 60 miles a day for months.  Yes, there was a study done.

Fasted cardio will burn a combination of glycogen and fat, just like unfasted cardio.  If you do manage to totally exhaust your stored glycogen you "hit the wall" and either slow down a lot or stop because it sucks so bad.

I've been a long distance runner for years and there is a lot of misinformation on that subject floating around the Internet.

It also doesn't affect anyone's testosterone levels unless they start getting into an advanced level of overtraining.  That is well beyond the amount of training that most people are willing or able to do.


Sapere Aude

I did the very low protein high carb diet, did work but once I went back to my original diet the mucles cameback.

Cardio works as well but more like ''You loose fats so you need less muscles'', if you're already skinny it wont do anything.

From my experience the only thing who gave permanent results in muscle loss is estrogel. The arm I apply estrogel on is clearly a lot slimmer than the other and doesn't pop muscle when used.

It takes sometimes but will happen with effort.  Someone i know went from 250 lbs ultra muscular with 20 inch bicep   to 130 lbs skinny with 11 inch arms on a 5 year period.   She want to stay private.

From my personnal experience, i started hormones last october ( not 6 month mark yet)   . I was 178 lbs 5-7% bodyfat may 2015  with 17.5inch bicep.   I am now down to 12 inch bicep and somewhere around 160lbs at 25% bodyfat.  I lost so much muscle mass.