So I'm ftm transgender and unfortunately I have a short and curvy feminine body. I used to starve to keep the weight off but my mum made me recover and I gained 20lbs making me look more feminine. Right now it looks like starving is my best option to get the body I want as exercise doesn't work and I gain weight really fast.

I guess my question is if theres any other fast methods that can help me lose weight as starving isn't the most pleasant road to travel by however I'm guessing I have no other options.

there are plenty of other options. working out WILL help but you need to build up your latissimus dorsi (lats) so your upper body looks bigger than your lower body. if you lose too much weight, your hips might show more because the bone would be more prominent so putting on muscle is your best case scenario + building upper body. you should go to a personal trainer if you feel "Exercise doesn't work" because it does and they will help you figure out the best exercise routines for your goal. gaining weight can be an issue, but the fact is you need to monitor what you eat and how much of it you eat. if you do that alone you could lose weight but the exercise helps build up the body in a more masculine shape.

There's no need to starve yourself.
Consume primarily lean proteins (fish, sirloins, white meat chicken, etc) with a lot of veggies, especially cruciferous ones like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and brussels sprouts.
If you're drinking a lot of soda or excessively sugary coffee beverages, cut them out and switch to water. Lightly sweetened black coffee and tea would do just fine.
Switch to whole grains and cut out white breads and other empty sources of carbs. Another thing I would recommend is a workout regiment consisting of cardio and strength training. Work harder on cardio first (ellipticals, rowing machines, running, biking, swimming, etc) to help shed the excess fat with your new diet and introduce yourself to free weights during this time to get yourself initially acclimated.
After the fat has come off, you can focus primarily on your strength training with emphasis on your upper body. You want try to and lift heavier weights with lower reps for upper body routines and, if you're concerned with the size of your lower half, you'll want to do lighter weights (or just body weight exercises) and higher reps.

The biggest thing I can stress is that 90% of your body is made in the kitchen. Alter your diet first and let the physical components follow afterwards.

Like the other guy said exercise will help. Just doing a few reps of bicep and triceps curls; plus push ups will make your shoulders and arms look bigger; making your waist look smaller. You can also try buying straight legged jeans (try them on in the shop first) which will make your waist less apparent. Also wear tight not baggy t shirts that don't sit on your hips will also help.

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Quote from: elliot 56 on May 31, 2016, 12:48:51 PM
So I'm ftm transgender and unfortunately I have a short and curvy feminine body. I used to starve to keep the weight off but my mum made me recover and I gained 20lbs making me look more feminine. Right now it looks like starving is my best option to get the body I want as exercise doesn't work and I gain weight really fast.

I guess my question is if theres any other fast methods that can help me lose weight as starving isn't the most pleasant road to travel by however I'm guessing I have no other options.

May I ask where you are with your transition? Meaning if you bind, are in therapy, if you planning on any surgeries/hormones? (I wrote out an answer to your question...but wanted to edit with these unknowns first, apologies if you aren't comfortable with any of these questions, a simple yes/no or don't want to answer is perfectly alright).

 

Quote from: sigsi on June 01, 2016, 12:57:27 AM
May I ask where you are with your transition? Meaning if you bind, are in therapy, if you planning on any surgeries/hormones? (I wrote out an answer to your question...but wanted to edit with these unknowns first, apologies if you aren't comfortable with any of these questions, a simple yes/no or don't want to answer is perfectly alright).

I'm not anywhere in my transition to be honest. I bind on a daily basis as thats all I can do right now. In the future I plan on taking hormones and having the surgeries. I hope this answered your questions

Starving yourself will cause you to lose weight at first, then your body will go into survival mode and will hold onto any remaining fat, making it HARDER to lose weight. DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF.

I took a few supplements and got to the gym a lot for cardio, and it helped me a good bit. I've never had much body fat, but it did help me lose some of the weight I didn't like on my chest and hips, and helped me feel better in my body pre-T. I found a green tea fat burner pill that I liked, and used it with a few workout supplements that helped me push myself more at the gym. Before I knew it, I was going to the gym every other day for an hour long jog. I wore neoprene sweat belts around the areas I wanted to lose, and it helped me sweat extra in those areas.

Eating healthier does wonders, too. Cut out most unnatural sugars, and if you get hungry throughout the day, fill yourself up with an apple or something high in fiber. In order to lose weight most effectively, you need to slowly cut down on your calories every few weeks. Slowly doing it over time will keep your body losing weight. Also, if you want to get serious about feeling better about yourself, start doing weight training as you lose weight. The muscles will give you masculine confidence as you start to lose weight.

Unfortunately, you can't lose just where you want to, but losing overall, especially if you go about it as healthy as possible, will make a huge impact on how you feel and see yourself in the mirror.

It's harder to get the results you want pre-T, but that's when I started, and it helped me a lot when there was nothing else I could do while I waited to get into this dr's office. Good luck with whatever you do. I hope you can find enjoyment in your weight loss routine!

Also know that you have the changes that T will cause to look forward to.  I know you're not in hormone therapy transition right now, but it seems you have plans for taking T in the future, and if nothing else it will make your shoulders explode in size which will make your curves look smaller.  I was hardcore pear shape with majorly big hips, but after taking T they are the same size as my shoulders and I only work out at the gym once a week.  So while it may seem impossible now, exercise WILL help, and you can also look forward to the future when T will help you, too!

Try a ketogenic diet, you'll be eating healthy foods (so you won't have to starve) and it'll help you lose body fat quickly.

Quote from: elliot 56 on June 01, 2016, 04:47:42 AM
I'm not anywhere in my transition to be honest. I bind on a daily basis as thats all I can do right now. In the future I plan on taking hormones and having the surgeries. I hope this answered your questions

Thanks, it did. I won't have much advice besides the experience I had, because I'm in a situation similar to yours. I'm neutrois/agender if that makes a difference. Apologies in advance for the length.

Backstory (so you know where my viewpoint is from): Before binding, my eating disorder was really bad in high school. My goal was to starve/exercise away any feminine part of my body or destroy myself trying. Binding constantly since has helped me to eat mostly normal, and accomplished more for me in 2 seconds compared to 2 years of starving to my lowest weight. Now at 22, I've reached a point of wanting to starve again and am currently afraid to exercise due to a potential relapse. I'm trying to get into therapy/on anxiety meds so I don't relapse, and hope to start making progress with my transition.

Logically, I will say that starving will not help in the long run. But everyone told me that and I didn't listen, I needed a reason that mattered to me in order to actually care. All I cared about was short term, my future mentally didn't exist because I couldn't see a future.
The way I see it now, top surgery is my priority. I'm not sure about hormones yet.
1) In order for insurance, I need a letter from a therapist. This therapist will have to say if I am mentally stable enough for an operation. A therapist isn't going to write me a letter if I am not eating.
2) Starving could also affect my body's general health, which make surgery harder or even impossible in the future. I would rather eat food and be miserable with it's feminine side affects for a little while than starve and be miserable with a female body forever.

I still have my crap to deal with, so any advice I have might not mean much. I just wanted to say that I understand and sympathize. My overall advice would be to get into therapy if you can, whether it be to help you with your transition or to help you become mentally ready for when you can start your transition.
Good luck, I hope this somehow helped. Just try to keep your end goals in focus (and keep typing on here, it helps).

Quote from: elliot 56 on May 31, 2016, 12:48:51 PM
So I'm ftm transgender and unfortunately I have a short and curvy feminine body. I used to starve to keep the weight off but my mum made me recover and I gained 20lbs making me look more feminine. Right now it looks like starving is my best option to get the body I want as exercise doesn't work and I gain weight really fast.

Emphasis mine. I have no idea what this means. Do you have some sort of underlying medical condition that makes this impossible? Or by exercise do you mean daily, excessive cardio that wears out your body?

I'm going to lay some realness on you, so strap in.

The ONLY way you are going to change your shape pre-T is to put on muscle. Okay? And you CAN'T put on muscle if you DON'T EAT. You also will sabotage any attempt to put on muscle if you obsess over fatburning, like running for hours, spinning/cycling, or other stupidity like that, which raises your stress response and causes your muscle tissue to literally break down.

You are gaining weight fast because you have kicked your metabolism into stress mode. Stress mode tells your body to store fat because Winter Is Coming.

Stop all the over exercising. Get enough sleep every night. Use those nasal strips or OTC meds if you're snoring and waking up tired. Learn how to weight train and do body weight exercises like pushups with GOOD FORM so you work those arm, shoulder, and ab muscles. Don't flop around and just raise your heart rate. Don't work out every single day. Rotate which muscle group you work because when you lift weights you put the muscle under stress and it takes a couple of days to fix itself. That's good, though, because you'll be able to lift more weight next time. BE PATIENT. You aren't on exogenous T so your "gains" are going to be slow. Plus you stressed yourself to hell and back making your gains slower. EAT RIGHT. Please. Lots of protein, keep your O-3 and O-6 balanced for Pete's sake, lay off the tasty junk food and replace it with crunchy raw fruits and vegetables. Raw lettuce, for example, helps your body clear toxins. No, this isn't woo, it has a chemical that helps escort stuff out of your liver and your body will thank you. Raw strawberries have vitamin C that is vital to immune function.

Take all that energy you were exerting on starving yourself and expend it on chopping up vegetables and learning new cooking techniques. Delete the pro-ana blogs out of your browser and start looking up fitness videos about good bodyweight, Pilates, stretching, and weight training form. There's even a good thread on Susan's about weight training the right way.

Look, check out Ryan Sallans if you don't believe me. He had ED too. ED did not give him a masculine body that he wanted. It just made his life miserable. He's done some videos talking about proper weight training.

One more thing, you are probably looking at lots of images of ripped dudes. These images are--stop the presses--fake. Fake because they're dehydrated when the images are taken. Fake because many of them gain all year and then starve themselves for a couple of weeks to "trim", crossing their fingers that they lose more subcutaneous fat than muscle. Fake because they are outliers and many of these pictures are pshopped to boot. Normal fitness freaks have subcutaneous fat and fat rolls (really) when they move around in different positions. You can't see their six pack until they flex it.

Do yourself a big favor, jump off this merrygoround you've put yourself on and give yourself permission to start the hell over.

You can't look masc without muscle. You can't gain muscle without gaining weight. You can't gain weight without eating over caloric maintenance.

Print that out and put it on your bedroom door.

Quote from: Stone Magnum on May 31, 2016, 01:38:46 PM
Another thing I would recommend is a workout regiment consisting of cardio and strength training. Work harder on cardio first (ellipticals, rowing machines, running, biking, swimming, etc) to help shed the excess fat with your new diet and introduce yourself to free weights during this time to get yourself initially acclimated.

I disagree with this advice (although your other advice is sound). First of all, this person clearly has an eating disorder and does not need to be encouraged to continue to try to cut calories when they are already by their own admission in stress hormone mode. Secondly, per-T I've tried cutting before lifting (gaining) and I've trying gaining weight before lifting to gain muscle. I've tested both extensively and let me tell you, only one of these approaches actually works and it is not cutting before gaining.

AnxietyDisorder is 100% right.  This is awesome advice, and true on every level.  Muscle gain is the way to look more masculine (it's how I went from pear shaped and feminine looking to like a slender young man with shoulders the same size as my hips), and you cannot gain muscle unless you eat enough.

Quote from: AnxietyDisord3r on June 03, 2016, 08:19:52 AM
I disagree with this advice (although your other advice is sound). First of all, this person clearly has an eating disorder and does not need to be encouraged to continue to try to cut calories when they are already by their own admission in stress hormone mode. Secondly, per-T I've tried cutting before lifting (gaining) and I've trying gaining weight before lifting to gain muscle. I've tested both extensively and let me tell you, only one of these approaches actually works and it is not cutting before gaining.

I hardly think that recommending healthier alternatives (high protein, whole grains, vegetables, increased water intake, etc) is encouraging him to do something counterproductive or dangerous. My advice wasn't to eat a thumbnail's worth of salmon and wash it down with the moisture in the air.
If he's an endomorph (which could be deduced from his original post as he notes his propensity for putting on weight quickly), disregarding the quantity or quality of what goes into his body is just going to further push him away from his goals. Starving is just as bad as freely consuming whatever happens to be lying around and not something I'd ever recommend; eating better options still within a normal calorie range is advantageous to anyone's goals.

There are multiple guides and personal trainers alike that recommend you cut before bulking (especially if your baseline BF% is high) and I've had a lot of success with doing so. You put on fat weight when you go through a bulking cycle which, while completely normal, is just going to add to the body fat already present.

Just to clarify the intention of my post to the OP: Cutting does not mean starving or eating minuscule portions. Eat with purpose and stay within a healthy calorie range. 

I hope you don't mind me posting here.  I come from the other side of the tracks and if I could take your curves from you and slap them on me we'd have a win-win.  I just wanted to say that the guys that posted before me have the right of it. 

Starving yourself is bad.  If you want a ripped bod, that's the wrong path and really doesn't help with the curves.
You also should not do a lot of cardio as you need to avoid ketogenic activity.  You want to add mass, not remove it.

Hit the weights and eat protein.  The only cardio you need is to get your heart pumping before the weights. 
Also, very critical, stretch before your work out.  If you don't you can't exercise the full range that gets your muscle to take over.
You need to ignore that in the short term that this adds some curves but that is while your muscles replace your fat. 
Good luck. 

I've gone down the road of being too thin, and it doesn't help. It's doubly dangerous as it can really screw with your metabolism. I have a hard time controlling my weight now after years of abusing my body in that regard. I still don't eat much, but I can't lose the few pounds I want unless I stop eating altogether.

Working on your shoulders will draw attention away from having curves. My chest and shoulders are much broader now and no one notices my hourglass hips.

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Quote from: Muscle Matt on June 01, 2016, 08:55:32 AM
Starving yourself will cause you to lose weight at first, then your body will go into survival mode and will hold onto any remaining fat, making it HARDER to lose weight. DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF.

I took a few supplements and got to the gym a lot for cardio, and it helped me a good bit. I've never had much body fat, but it did help me lose some of the weight I didn't like on my chest and hips, and helped me feel better in my body pre-T. I found a green tea fat burner pill that I liked, and used it with a few workout supplements that helped me push myself more at the gym. Before I knew it, I was going to the gym every other day for an hour long jog. I wore neoprene sweat belts around the areas I wanted to lose, and it helped me sweat extra in those areas.

Eating healthier does wonders, too. Cut out most unnatural sugars, and if you get hungry throughout the day, fill yourself up with an apple or something high in fiber. In order to lose weight most effectively, you need to slowly cut down on your calories every few weeks. Slowly doing it over time will keep your body losing weight. Also, if you want to get serious about feeling better about yourself, start doing weight training as you lose weight. The muscles will give you masculine confidence as you start to lose weight.

Unfortunately, you can't lose just where you want to, but losing overall, especially if you go about it as healthy as possible, will make a huge impact on how you feel and see yourself in the mirror.

It's harder to get the results you want pre-T, but that's when I started, and it helped me a lot when there was nothing else I could do while I waited to get into this dr's office. Good luck with whatever you do. I hope you can find enjoyment in your weight loss routine!

I think this does sum it up for the most point. With the right helping hand, and also extra motivation you can get where you want to be.

Quote from: elliot 56 on May 31, 2016, 12:48:51 PM
So I'm ftm transgender and unfortunately I have a short and curvy feminine body. I used to starve to keep the weight off but my mum made me recover and I gained 20lbs making me look more feminine. Right now it looks like starving is my best option to get the body I want as exercise doesn't work and I gain weight really fast.

I guess my question is if theres any other fast methods that can help me lose weight as starving isn't the most pleasant road to travel by however I'm guessing I have no other options.

Firstly I don't see what starving yourself would do? I'm underweight and that in itself makes my bones stick out more. Although your "curves" - I assume you mean natural, good fat - will go, you'll then have your bones making an appearance. Your bones will show your femmine figure.

You could eat small, healthy portions more regularly. When you feel the need to snack, try drinking water first. If you're still hungry, then eat something small and healthy. If it's close to meal time, then try to wait a little bit. Drink water before and during a meal. Go for walks/runs when you feel up for it. I'm trying to stick to a snacking diet, which involves not snacking. It will help slowly reduce your weight.

Really, you should be having four meals a day, and that should be enough. You need to know your own proportions. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper. After some time, you might be able to go without one. For example, most days I skip lunch. When do you feel hungry the most in the day? For me it's night, that's why I include supper as a meal.  Trying fast methods will make your mother considered. Go slow.