Okay, so I'm sure this question has been asked before but I couldn't hunt down the answer.

Do transman possess the same body fat make up  of a bio male or of a female?

To put it into perspective, I'm starting a moderately intense   lifestyle change in regards to my physical fitness and diet.  I plan on measuring my progress via physical appearance and by calculating my body fat percentage (using calipers).

I have been on testosterone consistently and am on estrogen blockers but I haven't had any surgeries so in theory my sex organs are still kicking.  Is it feasible for me to drop down to 10-12 percent body fat?

I know women can get that low (female body builders do for competing) but that gets down to essential body fat whereas men can get closer to 3-6 percent for competitions.  I don't want to be a literal body builder so for a male body fat scale I think 10-12% isn't unreasonable.  But if my female physiology won't do that, I don't want to be horribly disappointed.

Does anyone have insight into this?

You've probably come across them already, but Buck Angel and Aydian Dowling are both FTM bodybuilders -- Aydian is on youtube and i don't know if he's ever mentioned his bodyfat percentage but you could try looking there

I have a feeling that as the distribution changes the way fat is stored might change too? But I can't tell you for sure

I've heard of Aydian but not Buck.  I'll try looking at their channels and see if he mentions.  Thanks!

I would suggest being careful of things like bmi, especially if you are using it as your only guideline. When I was tiny and had virtually no body fat I was considered "overweight", but my doctor told me I was underweight for my build. The bmi can't accommodate for different body types, in my experience. 

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

I agree on what Ayden says about BMI, it's not really that helpful.
Regarding bodyfat... better be careful. The state of transition you're in could make a huge difference as breasts are, in fact, composed of fat so losing them usually means losing BF and vice-versa. Your general shape could also play a role. It's not as easy as some people think it is, but I'd recomend to take it slowly so your organism can get used to the change.

If you're really interested....   most sports medicine hospitals will have a thing called a "bod-pod".   It will tell you what YOUR body fat pct is, within a best possible error range.

Individually, BMI is useless for anyone vaguely athletic, and should only be considered as an epidemiological/statistical tool.  eg, My BMI is quite high, and my doc has never once suggested I should lose some weight, because my bf pct is either reasonable or low depending on what I've been doing recently.

For transition, this is a tough call to figure out what it should be to be healthy; I'd personally just split the difference; maybe call 8% a minimum, and 15% as slightly high but ok for generic, athletically inclined member of the general population.   15% is a hard enough target for almost everyone anyway.

So to answer the "real" question as I see it;  at 15% you will look strong, fit, and powerful, but will not show muscle striation and vascularity should be limited to the large veins.   I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I'm currently at a body fat percentage of 22% and while I'm not yet in the overweight levels I visibly have excess fat.  When I was younger I was always on the low end of the BMI range but in very good shape as I've got a very small frame.  For that reason I'm not following the BMI scale because for my bird frame will tell me I'm a good weight when I'm not.

I figure I'll change my diet and keep track of my fat percentage until I'm happy with my figure.  I'd love to have visible abs (dream big) but I'd be okay with just getting rid of my nasty love handles and gut.

BMI isn't particularly useful, though if you're planning on surgeries you'll want to at least be aware of yours. Some surgeons are particular about it, though ideally they'd take into consideration your body fat percentage.

I honestly don't know the answer to your question. I'm currently at 20% and my goal is 16-18%. My doctor said that would be difficult, but doable. I don't know if that response was for me specifically or FTMs in general.

I wonder about surgeons though; I get a sense that to them, body weight is body weight, whether muscle or fat; it effects the things that effect them on the table, blood pressure/o2sat, the anesthesiologist's very strict protocols, stress on the heart,  even how hard it might be to shift your sleeping body on the table.

So BMI might be more meaningful to them than just a measure of fatness.

For what it's worth, I don't think ZombieDog was talking about BMI in his OP, just BF%.

On that topic, it's worth mentioning that BF% along with BMI tends to be a good combo - either on their own is kinda meh. For example, two people can have a BF% of 10% who are both the same height and similar bone structure, but one may have a BMI of only 17 and the other could have a BMI of 27. So the two together give a much better picture of a person's physique than either of them alone.

That said, BF% is really tricky to measure with good accuracey. I won't get into the different ways used and their accuracies, I'm no expert and there are plenty of sites that cover the details. But for people who are on cross-hrt, I have no idea. Unless you're lucky enough to have a DEXA scan, of course. The issue is that how fat is (generally) placed in the body is different between E and T-based systems. So at what point is your body fat mostly in a "male" type pattern?  It's going to differ a lot between people, of course. I'd love to know more about that, I couldn't find anything when I was looking into it.

But try it out, input the same numbers in the calculator, only switching the "M" or "F". Completely different result. So for that, I have no idea. Skin fold test is a little precarious to begin with, this just adds another variable that could really skew things. Using images helps to compare yourself to, like you mentioned. Maybe it's better for your body structure, but for mine, it's tricky to tell. Though it could just be because I'm skrawny with low bf and bleh muscle development xD But I do think you're on the right track with doing things that way. Ultimately, you'll be comparing yourself to you - if ya look and feel great, that's where it's at. What your body fat % is may be even more of an educated guess than it is for most cis-people, though. Again, I'd love to learn more about that!

Anywho~ about the 10-12%. This is another really good question for your pcp or endo. But as far as I can tell, I see no real reason why that would be an unrealistic goal for you. From what I've understood, the essential body fat differences between "males" and "females" has more to do with females needing the higher body fat for reproductive systems to work properly, and has a lot to do with hormones. Seeing how the body of an AFAB person on T no longer sees the need to do... the things a female needs to reproduce... (x_x´) it makes sense that the what the body sees it needs for a higher body fat are no longer relevant... or something like that. I don't actually know what I'm talking about or if that made any sense. I can ask my nurse next week when I see her and report back, but yeah.

And there I go again, the Great Wall of Text. All basically summed up in the tl;dr: "I have no clue, ask yo' doc."

I know there were some people around these forums with a medical background, perhaps one of them might pop by and help us out a little xD


Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk

Since I've gone on T my body has pushed BF from my thighs onto my belly which seems to be my body deciding it doesn't need that store of fat any more and I should shift it off. My BF% was way too high for a guy anyway so I have a lot of walking in my future. I don't want to drop weight exactly so I need to work out more.