I need to GAIN weight!

[Bird]

Since I began transitioning I went from being a 78 kilograms (172 lbs) to 63 kilograms (138,9 lbs), I am 1,78 meters (5'84'' foot) tall and am borderline underweight at the moment. HRT redistributes fat, but there must be fat in there for the first place!

I have never done a hipercaloryc diet and matter of fact, I have developed many healthy feeding habits that I can't drop. I always drink water after lunch and dinner, never drink while eating, always eat my salad first, always eat in between 3 hours, balance each meal out, etc etc. I don't know how to come about this to do a hypercaloric diet that is healthy so I can gain a bit of weight, I hope to reach around 66kgs and then I wil be satisfied. I am still undergoing muscle loss and some of my weight loss is because of that reason, I am losing a LOT of muscle and VERY quick. I lost 1 full cm of my biceps in these 6 months and my pectorals keep reducing at a steady pace of 0,5 cm each month for 6 months.

Before I began transitioning I was an athlete. I did boxing and took it seriously,  I don't remember what was my body fat % but it was ridiculously low for someone who wans't fighting in a pro circuit. My colesterol level was excellent for a 10 year old person. So now I am losing all this muscle and need some fat in there to round out my figure and I need sugestions to have it in a somewhat healthy way.

Tonight I am having pizza for dinner, I think sticking to carbs late at night is a definite way to gain fat.

[Telyna]

I'm not really sure that 3 kilos will be enough you'll still look skinny. I'm 169 cm and about 60 kilos and look like a stick.If  you're worried about high cholesterol just drink a high cellulose shake or whatever you call them.......also cheesecake and fast food + NO EXERCISE help alot

[Bird]

But fast food + no exercise would increase my cholesterol right?

[missF]

depends the fast food I didn't got the point about the cholesterol. Is it too high nowadays??? 

[Amazon D]

Your not using your muscles so naturally they will shrink. You were in top shape and time will get you in bad shape with a bad diet. I would just allow your tone to go down to where it will disappaer. Then at that point you will start gaining is my thinking. Please keep eating healthy and know that certain muscles you want to make bigger need to be exercised and then you eat simple carbs right after to load and areas you want to reduce you exercise then wait for your muscles to eat it up by reversing the glycogen to glucose cycle and then after your body has calmed down then you can eat without loading. Glucose in the blood stream is the energy. Extra glucose gets stored in fat cells as glycogen, but the water may help move it out. When those fats cells are not worked the glycogen stays there and doesn't revert back to glucose for blood energy. so to lose in areas like waist don't eat for 2 hours then exercise then wait 2 hours before you eat, that way the glycogen goes to glucose and not the reverse. For areas where you want to get a bigger say butt execise it and then eat carbs right afterwards to load the stressed fat cells which will suck up the glucose and change it to glycogen to be stored there as muscle / fat cells. However, don't over exercise or you will burn more off than you are gaining.

Your water drinking is flushing your blood stream of the glucose which may be pushing it out before it gets a chance to be stored. experiment with that. Maybe times your loading / gaining do not drink water afterwards.

also proteins will burn more energy than you get from them. Meats will burn energy and fat so go lean there. Complex carbs won't add like simple ones.

[Bird]

Amazon: thank you!

One thing though, if I exercise butt and legs won't that stop fat from depositing there? The difference between a girly leg and a male one is also on the amount of fat, not only muscle. I don't necessarily want large hips and thighs, but round ones.

@missF

I tried to say my cholesterol levels are beyond excellent.

[Sunnynight]

One thing though, if I exercise butt and legs won't that stop fat from depositing there? The difference between a girly leg and a male one is also on the amount of fat, not only muscle. I don't necessarily want large hips and thighs, but round ones.

Your body loses weight uniformly, not from any one area, even if you are targeting it. That's why doing crunches to get a flat stomach never works, it just builds muscle under the fat.

[Bird]

But I want to gain weight, not lose it

[Princess of Hearts]

Beer, bread and other starchy sugary foods will have you piling on the pounds in now time.   I recently did a metabolic typing thing and my body thrives on fat and protein.  Carbohydrate isn't good for me.   

P.S. I like your username: Bird, it is short and sweet and pretty.   

[Sunnynight]

But I want to gain weight, not lose it

Then eat more calories than you burn and also do strength exercises on the areas you want to grow.

[missF]

Being in Brazil you can have plenty of fresh high caloric fruits that might help you gain some weight as well And what about eggs? They do a good job... Also, cut the fat free milk and go for the full one (which even tastes more like milk and not like white water ).

Those protein powder for athletes are also normally quite high caloric, so having a protein shake in between meals might help you as well.

Remember that being on estrogen and being on anti-androgen makes your metabolism to be on the female side. So in this sense getting muscle is way more difficult than before starting HRT. I know a cis-woman who really works hard to have her body like a body builder and still don't get that well due the lack of testosterone.

[Amazon D]

Your body loses weight uniformly, not from any one area, even if you are targeting it. That's why doing crunches to get a flat stomach never works, it just builds muscle under the fat.

simply google "losing weight uniformly" and you will see people DO NOT lose weight that way. They lose it in places they don't want to lose it.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HDG4JzqYk_UJ:alexbaran2.articlealley.com/losing-weight-uniformly-498364.html+losing+weight+uniformly&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


Many dieters complain about losing weight from their thighs, but not their belly. To fix this problem and lose weight uniformly, you may want to follow some of these rules:

You can work on specific areas to gain weight and to lose it. Its called LOADING to gain it.. body builders use it to gain muscle mass. Muscle can also become fat if left to atrophy. However, if you are not getting enough calories and your body is a fat burning machine being use to burning fat it will then burn muscle and that muscle can't turn to fat.

[Bird]

ok.

So, plenty of abs and some exercices for the legs and butt and a lot of sandwiches!

[Aileen]

Hi Bird,

I am having a similar problem. I only got 60 Kg vs 181 cm. In other words, I am just skin and bones and as soon as I did something, weight dropped. My way of surviving training was using things like 'SlimFast' or 'Herbalife' meal replacements to gain weight. That stuff was made to replace a meal as it got quite some calories. So I ended up with having about 7 'meals' a day and could gain 5 Kg to get back to 60 Kg...

[Rebekah with a K-A-H]

Your weight isn't unhealthy.

I was anorexic for a long time: at my thinnest, I was 5'9" (1.75 m) and only 108 pounds (49 kg).  Since then, I've grown an inch and gained twenty pounds so that I'm now at 5'10" (1.78 m) and weigh just under 130 pounds (59 kg), and that's a very healthy weight.

You shouldn't feel as if you have to put on more weight where you are, as you really aren't underweight; while you may want to for aesthetic reasons (and that's fine), don't be concerned with it for health reasons.

[Telyna]

cholesterol is good for the cell keeps them from freezing it only becomes dangerous when its in the bloodstream, cellulose (the thing contained in all vegetables and plants in general) sort of neutralize they cancel each other out  if someone here studies chemistry or  biology could explain more my english ain't very good  right now 

[Bird]

@Wonder
Yes it is more for aesthetic reasons. I think I would look better if I was 66kg than my current 63kg.

@all I think I am going to allow my body to lose more upper muscles before doing any training there and just focus on legs and butt for now.

[Devlyn]

I don't speak lightly about substance abuse. Until now! You need to develop a Haagen-Daaz addiction. It's easier than you'd think! I recommend stuffing down a pint every night until you can't see the scale anymore, then cut back to a pint every other night. Also, my guacamole recipe waaaay down in the Food section is really fattening, and addictive! Hugs, Tracey