Is there any chance that T alone can make you fat if it increases your appetite and you exercise regularly will you gain any fat on it?

Increased T normally helps to burn fat, from my experience. To take advantage of your T increase, doing basic, big lifts in the gym can definitely help with T production (as we all know, we all produce T and E on varying levels).

The basic lifts I'm talking about are squats, bench press, deadlifts, overhead press, and bent over rows.

And, remember that fat reduction can't be done in specified areas because it burns off evenly throughout the body, even though the body places fat in specific areas; a rather inconvenient fact.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you want any more help. 

**Edit**
I realized that I didn't really answer your question.  Fat production from increased metabolism will be minimized based on how many calories you burn during exercise. Consider your new appetite a gift from yourself for how you work out. Go with it and see some good gains. Even with some fat production, you'll be gaining strength and you can burn it off after you're happy with the gains you've made. At least, that's how it was explained to me.

Nothing but excess calories can make fat.  genetics and hormones (and possibly surgery if you get annoyed enough) determine where the fat goes.  and you can't make it come off from one spot vs another when you go into deficit.

If you intend to exercise to adjust total calorie utilization...   A couple benchmarks to keep in mind.  Resistance exercises burn very few calories, but enable longer term (months/years), higher burn rates.    Your generic human, operating at medium paced aerobic output burns 600 kcal/hr.   Short of semi-pro and up athletes, you will cap out somewhere around 900 kcal/hr under your highest sustainable, one hour output.   These numbers are VERY hard coded in our ability to store, extract, convert, and release glucose; the amount of training required to move them even a little is enormous.

Also, a lot of exercise machines are calibrated to lie, and lie big; they do this to counter an anorexic from hopping on one, and really burning what's on the meter.     

Calorie focused exercise is both small, and massive, it doesn't scale benevolently.  To an anorexic eating 1000kcal/day; a truthful exercise machine is lethal.   To a heavy ex-lifter (like me), burning calories simply adjusts my menu between 3000 and 4000 kcal / day; and two hours on the bike will do absolutely nothing harmful, no matter how often or for how many years I do it.

work hard, but be safe; when they say talk to a doc before beginning a significant change in exercise... THEY ARE NOT KIDDING.

Quote from: SiobhánF on August 11, 2016, 09:45:03 AM
Increased T normally helps to burn fat, from my experience. To take advantage of your T increase, doing basic, big lifts in the gym can definitely help with T production (as we all know, we all produce T and E on varying levels).

The basic lifts I'm talking about are squats, bench press, deadlifts, overhead press, and bent over rows.

And, remember that fat reduction can't be done in specified areas because it burns off evenly throughout the body, even though the body places fat in specific areas; a rather inconvenient fact.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you want any more help. 

**Edit**
I realized that I didn't really answer your question.  Fat production from increased metabolism will be minimized based on how many calories you burn during exercise. Consider your new appetite a gift from yourself for how you work out. Go with it and see some good gains. Even with some fat production, you'll be gaining strength and you can burn it off after you're happy with the gains you've made. At least, that's how it was explained to me.

At the only gym I have access to right now there are no barbells and weight benches, only strength training weight machines.

Quote from: rwOnnaDesuKa on August 11, 2016, 10:29:03 AM
Nothing but excess calories can make fat.  genetics and hormones (and possibly surgery if you get annoyed enough) determine where the fat goes.  and you can't make it come off from one spot vs another when you go into deficit.

If you intend to exercise to adjust total calorie utilization...   A couple benchmarks to keep in mind.  Resistance exercises burn very few calories, but enable longer term (months/years), higher burn rates.    Your generic human, operating at medium paced aerobic output burns 600 kcal/hr.   Short of semi-pro and up athletes, you will cap out somewhere around 900 kcal/hr under your highest sustainable, one hour output.   These numbers are VERY hard coded in our ability to store, extract, convert, and release glucose; the amount of training required to move them even a little is enormous.

Also, a lot of exercise machines are calibrated to lie, and lie big; they do this to counter an anorexic from hopping on one, and really burning what's on the meter.     

Calorie focused exercise is both small, and massive, it doesn't scale benevolently.  To an anorexic eating 1000kcal/day; a truthful exercise machine is lethal.   To a heavy ex-lifter (like me), burning calories simply adjusts my menu between 3000 and 4000 kcal / day; and two hours on the bike will do absolutely nothing harmful, no matter how often or for how many years I do it.

work hard, but be safe; when they say talk to a doc before beginning a significant change in exercise... THEY ARE NOT KIDDING.

How do you know the machines lie about how many calories you're burning? Where's your source of information?

VO2 max and cardiac rate proxy calculations.

You can measure these things accurately.

1.) Go to a sports med clinic, pay the $200 and test your VO2 max.  (if you're old like me they'll insist a doc is present.. so you don't die. makes a cardiac stress test seem boring)
2.) Build a spreadsheet based on that, and your resting to max HR.
2a) known lean mass and birth/genetic/XY/XX gender make this more accurate;  bod-pod;  $70.
3.) get a CHEST STRAP heart rate monitor, and look up how to calibrate it to your VO2 max.
3a) garmin's for instance can be calibrated by reversing their formula that gives VO2 max est based on height, weight.
4.) redact between the two using a constant output, 75% max HR output for one hour.

You should be able to zero in the HR monitor in a week or so.    Basically the spreadsheet gives you ground truth, and the HR monitor allows you to integrate a variable output function over time once its calibrated.

Be shocked when you then get on the machine and see how much it lies.

Closest ones I found still over estimated by a full 10%; some produce absolutely insane numbers suggesting a normal human could output 2000 kcal in an hour.    Michael Phelps swimming for a full hour, in cold as heck water, may be able to hit 2000 kcal in an hour. 

All of this is available in sports medicine, peer reviewed journals.   Do not read bro-science.  Do not read magazines.  Do not read reporters talking about journals.  Do not read people selling a diet program.  Get your little pen and pad and laptop to a university library; do not be afraid of lots (and lots) of math.

They also make power meters for bicycles, another $200+ toy; that will accurately give you a calorie count; buy it from the same folks the pro athletes buy from.   Cyclists have to manage their weight down to the tiniest fraction, every ounce they can lose without power loss is a second they improve on that last sprint to the line.   When thousands (or millions) of dollars ride on the outcome, people don't screw around with bro-science.

Basically, for a forum post, I'm trying real hard here to give you enough information that you can proceed, but not so much as to provide individual medical or physical training advice which would be unethical to do without license and/or personally SEEING you.   If you can't do that, then there are real doctors who do this stuff with professional athletes all the time, they WILL see you, and they will tell you REAL numbers.   make an appointment.

I used to run a lot and count calories and monitor my weight so I got pretty good at figuring out what I was actually burning.  Nothing burns calories better than running and when I was about 178 lbs I could burn around 110 to 120 cal per mile.  That includes both the calories burned from the exercise and those you burn anyway to stay alive.  So, when I was in pretty good shape and running around 7 miles in an hour I was burning around 800 cal. 

If you weigh less, or run slower, or do almost any other exercise, you will burn less than that.

I found the high end garmins with chest strap to fairly accurate in estimating calories.  I found the Apple Watch to be accurate too.  Nearly every other device out there, including all the gym machines, vastly inflate calorie burns.

T will make you fat if you eat and don't work out, for sure.

T could cause fat gain if you are eating in excess of the calories you're burning, and aren't developing lean mass.

But if you're conscious of your activity levels and nutrition, you should be fine.

Some time ago I happened on some info that claims high T means you burn slightly more fat at rest than a person with high E. In contrast high E can mean you burn slightly more fat while working out, apparently. The higher metabolism on average in men and higher T people means there's more fat burning going on at rest, but if you eat badly and do not exercise this will make practically no difference.

The other contribution to a "fat appearance" or "moon face" can occur when starting T but this isn't fat, just water retention...

Quote from: rwOnnaDesuKa on August 12, 2016, 08:19:12 AM
VO2 max and cardiac rate proxy calculations.

You can measure these things accurately.

1.) Go to a sports med clinic, pay the $200 and test your VO2 max.  (if you're old like me they'll insist a doc is present.. so you don't die. makes a cardiac stress test seem boring)
2.) Build a spreadsheet based on that, and your resting to max HR.
2a) known lean mass and birth/genetic/XY/XX gender make this more accurate;  bod-pod;  $70.
3.) get a CHEST STRAP heart rate monitor, and look up how to calibrate it to your VO2 max.
3a) garmin's for instance can be calibrated by reversing their formula that gives VO2 max est based on height, weight.
4.) redact between the two using a constant output, 75% max HR output for one hour.

You should be able to zero in the HR monitor in a week or so.    Basically the spreadsheet gives you ground truth, and the HR monitor allows you to integrate a variable output function over time once its calibrated.

Be shocked when you then get on the machine and see how much it lies.

Closest ones I found still over estimated by a full 10%; some produce absolutely insane numbers suggesting a normal human could output 2000 kcal in an hour.    Michael Phelps swimming for a full hour, in cold as heck water, may be able to hit 2000 kcal in an hour. 

All of this is available in sports medicine, peer reviewed journals.   Do not read bro-science.  Do not read magazines.  Do not read reporters talking about journals.  Do not read people selling a diet program.  Get your little pen and pad and laptop to a university library; do not be afraid of lots (and lots) of math.

They also make power meters for bicycles, another $200+ toy; that will accurately give you a calorie count; buy it from the same folks the pro athletes buy from.   Cyclists have to manage their weight down to the tiniest fraction, every ounce they can lose without power loss is a second they improve on that last sprint to the line.   When thousands (or millions) of dollars ride on the outcome, people don't screw around with bro-science.

Basically, for a forum post, I'm trying real hard here to give you enough information that you can proceed, but not so much as to provide individual medical or physical training advice which would be unethical to do without license and/or personally SEEING you.   If you can't do that, then there are real doctors who do this stuff with professional athletes all the time, they WILL see you, and they will tell you REAL numbers.   make an appointment.

Your medical jargon hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't understand it.

VO2 max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in to use for energy conversion per minute.  If it's high you can use fat for energy at higher energy output levels.  You also probably burn fat more efficiently at lower output levels.

To get accurate calorie burns on a heart rate monitor the VO2 max must be known or accurately estimated.  Higher end garmins and some others do a pretty decent job of estimating it over time based on recorded heart rate R-R intervals and using algorithms by Firstbeat.  https://www.firstbeat.com/en/science-and-physiology/white-papers-and-publications/

That link explains it all in excruciating detail.

These heart rate monitors are very good but also kind of expensive in the $400 range.

VO2 max is basically a test to determine your maximum possible energy output.  Its a measure of endurance athletic capability, and they'll measure it either on a bike or treadmill depending on which you prefer and generally use the most.   When your muscle burns a glucose, it'll consume O2 and produce CO2; they measure the maximum rate that your body can do that.

You've probably seen on TV occasionally some athlete running in a gym like atmosphere with a face/oxygen mask type get up on?   That's what they're doing.   Its very... not fun, but the number, is very useful.

In the end, its just a number that goes in a weird, overly complicated looking formula; which you can then use to go accurately from measured heart rate, to calories burned over time.

There are meters, in the $200-$400 range that will accurately record your heart rate over time, allowing you to know total calories burned accurately even though your HR is not held constant as in normal real world exercise.  They consist of a small transmitter/sensor that straps to your chest, and gives you hives, blisters, and abrasions for fun proof that you're super serious; and a small computer that often has a USB connector to attach to your PC.  From that you can look like you're testing a space astronaut in the process of finding out how much you burned on your morning run.

Fortunately V02 max doesn't change very rapidly, so you can use it for quite a while as long as you haven't gone from running 3 miles in 26 minutes to running 3 miles in 21 minutes. (my fastest, I'm a slug)

All that said, you don't REALLY need to know that number, or be so complicated, but it is the only way to really prove it to yourself if you're having trouble believing the estimate of the high end heart rate monitors.    Honestly though, the monitor's basic formula that makes internal estimates of all this stuff is plenty accurate for almost everyone's purpose; it'll ask your genetic sex, age, height, and weight, and that's all you generally need.

I wonder, given the audience of the forum, does a transman on T use F or M for the input. I know I lose substantial power and endurance as soon as the T is suppressed in my own body..   No idea how to answer that question.

nbedit: I hope I was nicer this time.   Thinking pink fluffy thoughts....

Also, with a high VO2 max you can burn lots of calories much easier than someone with a lower VO2 max.  Your work output can be much higher at the same or lower heart rate.  So, In running for instance, you would run further in an hour without working any harder.

Earlier this year I switched over to using F for calculating calories.  From what I can see, I'm still burning higher than the F formulas predict.  I'm not sure if it would work the same in the other direction.

Quote from: rwOnnaDesuKa on August 13, 2016, 04:12:56 PM
VO2 max is basically a test to determine your maximum possible energy output.  Its a measure of endurance athletic capability, and they'll measure it either on a bike or treadmill depending on which you prefer and generally use the most.   When your muscle burns a glucose, it'll consume O2 and produce CO2; they measure the maximum rate that your body can do that.

You've probably seen on TV occasionally some athlete running in a gym like atmosphere with a face/oxygen mask type get up on?   That's what they're doing.   Its very... not fun, but the number, is very useful.

In the end, its just a number that goes in a weird, overly complicated looking formula; which you can then use to go accurately from measured heart rate, to calories burned over time.

There are meters, in the $200-$400 range that will accurately record your heart rate over time, allowing you to know total calories burned accurately even though your HR is not held constant as in normal real world exercise.  They consist of a small transmitter/sensor that straps to your chest, and gives you hives, blisters, and abrasions for fun proof that you're super serious; and a small computer that often has a USB connector to attach to your PC.  From that you can look like you're testing a space astronaut in the process of finding out how much you burned on your morning run.

Fortunately V02 max doesn't change very rapidly, so you can use it for quite a while as long as you haven't gone from running 3 miles in 26 minutes to running 3 miles in 21 minutes. (my fastest, I'm a slug)

All that said, you don't REALLY need to know that number, or be so complicated, but it is the only way to really prove it to yourself if you're having trouble believing the estimate of the high end heart rate monitors.    Honestly though, the monitor's basic formula that makes internal estimates of all this stuff is plenty accurate for almost everyone's purpose; it'll ask your genetic sex, age, height, and weight, and that's all you generally need.

I wonder, given the audience of the forum, does a transman on T use F or M for the input. I know I lose substantial power and endurance as soon as the T is suppressed in my own body..   No idea how to answer that question.

nbedit: I hope I was nicer this time.   Thinking pink fluffy thoughts....

Thank you for the explanation, but I don't like to get too technical. The exercise I do for fun would become dreaded work if I got too many numbers involved in it.

That's fair enough.  I just get a little scared when folks talk about the numbers on the gym machines somewhat seriously.   As long as you aren't using the number on the machine to balance against measured/weighed food portions, then its just harmless fun.  And comparing one day to the next day on the same machine can tell you something real about whether you worked more or less.

When I was doing my last, and final attempt to be ultra-masculine (denial is strong, resisting the inevitable), I attempted to "cut" and drop my BF% to below 5%; it sorted worked (age, skin wasn't tight), and the look almost made me ill, and I quickly undid it;  but to do that final cut, I had to really nibble a tiny caloric deficit each day on a still fairly high calorie diet.  (eg, a 300 kcal deficit with a 3500 kcal/day diet); any more and you lose to much muscle mass.  Anyway, I had to measure food, weighed everything, tracked everything, and had to have accurate calorie measure of my aerobic routine (2hr on bike, 1hr steady, 1hr intervals).

I'm just trying to be helpful for those that would enjoy their bodies more with more muscle mass and less fat.  Its a tricky exercise to build muscle, then reduce the fat, and not lose what you gained...

Quote from: rwOnnaDesuKa on August 13, 2016, 05:39:59 PM
That's fair enough.  I just get a little scared when folks talk about the numbers on the gym machines somewhat seriously.   As long as you aren't using the number on the machine to balance against measured/weighed food portions, then its just harmless fun.  And comparing one day to the next day on the same machine can tell you something real about whether you worked more or less.

When I was doing my last, and final attempt to be ultra-masculine (denial is strong, resisting the inevitable), I attempted to "cut" and drop my BF% to below 5%; it sorted worked (age, skin wasn't tight), and the look almost made me ill, and I quickly undid it;  but to do that final cut, I had to really nibble a tiny caloric deficit each day on a still fairly high calorie diet.  (eg, a 300 kcal deficit with a 3500 kcal/day diet); any more and you lose to much muscle mass.  Anyway, I had to measure food, weighed everything, tracked everything, and had to have accurate calorie measure of my aerobic routine (2hr on bike, 1hr steady, 1hr intervals).

I'm just trying to be helpful for those that would enjoy their bodies more with more muscle mass and less fat.  Its a tricky exercise to build muscle, then reduce the fat, and not lose what you gained...

I hope that I don't need to use too much science to body build effectively.

non-competitive?  no, you can just enjoy the process and enjoy the results.  though do keep in mind when you compare yourself against the magazine covers, that they are leveraging both photoshop and chemistry to the absolute maximum degree they can.

don't let the covers steal your fun.

best wishes on results!

Quote from: rwOnnaDesuKa on August 13, 2016, 06:06:23 PM
non-competitive?  no, you can just enjoy the process and enjoy the results.  though do keep in mind when you compare yourself against the magazine covers, that they are leveraging both photoshop and chemistry to the absolute maximum degree they can.

don't let the covers steal your fun.

best wishes on results!

Thanks for all the information. How do you know so much?

To force 225 pounds onto the frailest 5'8", xy, frame imaginable required it.    how to get the knowledge is simple; go to university library, read sports medicine journals, take notes.

Then lift some and eat till you want to puke, then eat more.   Eventually, either your heart explodes, or your quite fem genetics surrender and begin to accumulate muscle.   At the time, I would have been content with either result, so no risk.   Doing that to my little 120lb body pretty much wrecked all my joints, I have bad arthritis at 50, and enough strength to dislocate any joint, at any time, just by grabbing something and moving it.   I'm pretty sure I exploded a tendon just a couple weeks ago, just cause I used full force on my grip... 2/3s the strength in my right hand is just gone.

In other words... my response to my dysphoria was ill advised.  (I can't believe I admit the d word...)