3.5 months of HRT and weight loss, in pictures

[Carrie Liz]

Well, it's now been a full week since I got my lab results back from my endo, and learned that my hormone levels were now at completely female levels after 3 months of HRT. And you know, a lot of the time it's easy to feel like nothing is changing at all, and get down on myself. But the pictures I have been taking since week 1 tell a very different story. So I thought it would be fun to post every single one of the pictures that I have taken of myself, week by week, as HRT has progressed and as I've lost weight. (I didn't want to clutter up the "before and after" topic with so many pictures, so I hope it's okay to just post them on my own topic.)

All of these pictures are just the natural me, normal "guy mode" me, with no wigs, no makeup, and never anything but a simple t-shirt, so this is completely a chronicle of how HRT changes your natural appearance, with no attempt made at looking more feminine whatsoever.


-This is me 5 years ago, at my absolute maximum weight of 286 lbs. This fake smile was, unfortunately, the norm at the time. And this picture was taken during the best vacation of my life, so I was really happy at the time, but I still hated how I looked every single time I had a picture taken, so it was hard to smile.



-Here's a picture of me from 2.5 years ago. Still grossly masculine, still a whopping 6'2" tall and in the mid-270's in terms of weight. And at the time, I really did believe that there was no hope for me to ever be able to pass as female if I did try to transition, which is why I never even tried it for so long.



-Here we go!!! This was what I looked like on the very first day that I took the girly pills! January 8th, 2013! I was at 270 lbs at the time, still totally depressed about my appearance, but smiling deeply because I knew that everything was finally about to change. I had hope!



-After 1 week of HRT: (1/16/13)



-2 weeks: (1/25/13)



-4 weeks: (2/7/13)



-5 weeks: (this was when I made my first picture post in these forums... 2/13/13):



-6 weeks: (2/22/13)



-9 weeks: (3/17/13)



-12 weeks: (4/3/13)



-15 weeks: (4/27/13)



-Most recent picture... down to 234 lbs, and seriously actually starting to like the way that I look for the first time in my ENTIRE adult life. The masculine shell that I loathed for so long is finally starting to melt away!



Admittedly, I still have a very long way to go. My ultimate hope is that one day I will look completely female with nothing but this normal unedited appearance... that I can just use my natural hair, and natural un-makeuped face, and still be gendered as female. Again, I still have a very long way to go, but looking at these pictures, and how far I've come in the last 3 months, I don't feel like it's an unreachable goal. I have something that I NEVER had before... hope.

-Carrie

[dlee]

Wow you look amazing, total change, your face is way more feminine now than it was! Just have patience and the magic pills will do there thing!

[Tristan]

Wow. It's easy to see all the changes nd I must say they are very good

[Carrie Liz]

Do you think HRT was helpful in losing weight?

Actually, on an absolute level, HRT makes it harder to lose weight (in MtF's at least,) because testosterone tends to fuel your metabolism.

Honestly, in my case, though, I don't think it's really made much of a difference. I'm losing weight at about the same rate as I did the last time I got serious about it. (Back in 2011, I dropped from 286 lbs to 246 lbs in about the same amount of time, with this same diet, before working at Walmart and being constantly surrounded by pizza rolls and Hot Pockets sabotaged me.) Honestly, right now with HRT, it's kind of a catch-22. Because while my metabolism has definitely slowed down a little bit, at the same time my appetite has dropped, so it takes much less food than it used to take to satisfy me. So in my case, it hasn't really changed anything. It's just a matter of how badly I want it, and how successful I am at avoiding snacks, pizza, and Chinese buffets. (They're what got me so overweight in the first place.)

That internal drive, however, that motivation to keep going, is something that is VERY different now. In the past, whenever I got down into the 240's, I lost my willpower and went right back to my old eating habits, because I really didn't see the point anymore. Where now, I actually have a solid motivation to keep going! Because every single pound that I lose now is coming off of "male" areas while it's mostly staying on the "female" areas, which means more and more curves with every single day!

[Shawn Sunshine]

Well this thread is really new just awesome I mean this is like losing an exact copy of my life right now I'm free hundred thirty pounds and I'm 6 feet tall and I'm pre everything and to see your changes there just so amazing I'm so proud of you I really feel like I have some hope when I see someone else I can do it too

[Anna++]

Amazing changes!  Thanks for sharing

And keep using your will power to avoid the bad food.  If you get hungry just eat an apple!

[Heather]

Carrie that's some big changes in just three months! Congratulations on the weight loss keep up the good work girl! 

[AbbyJamz]

Fantastic, girl!  Keep it up!  I'm sure you'll just get prettier and prettier with each passing day!

[Jamie D]

Well done, Carrie Liz!  You are an inspiration.

[Carrie Liz]

Well, okay, this topic was originally supposed to be about HRT as much as weight loss, but I guess I'm okay with it being moved. :p

Thanks for the replies, everyone! It's great to know that some are even finding it inspirational, because, well, I get down on myself a lot on here too because of how freaking skinny most of the MtF's on this site seem to be. Overweight transitioners unite!!! We can do it too!

[Caramel Prisoner]

Look at those completely natural smiles... I'm getting misty-eyed

This thread is totally inspiring as I have finally gotten back into my old exercise routine myself... Thank you so much.

You're totally doing it!!! Go, go, go!!!!

[Carrie Liz]

...and, just for fun, now that I've done a raw progression timeline of my "guy mode," I thought I'd throw in a few progression pictures of my "girl mode" as well, once again all with the same wig on, and all wearing just a basic t-shirt, for the sake of continuity and being able to compare raw data. (I don't have anywhere near as many of these "girl mode" pictures, though... because there was a long period where I felt too depressed about it to take pictures, and I've changed my wig preference like 3 times, and some of my pictures are in female clothes while others aren't, so putting together the same kind of progression is a bit difficult. But here it is anyway.)



-This was my very first EVER attempt at girl mode... my wigs had just arrived about 2 days prior, and I was full of nothing but excitement at the time. This picture was taken way back during week 3 of HRT (1/30/13). (And yes, at the time, I actually thought that this looked good... sheesh... I must have been pretty desperate to think that I looked anything like a girl at this point... )



-5 weeks of HRT: (2/13/13) This picture was the very first (again, awful) "girl mode" picture that I uploaded here, in the "Before and After" topic. Needless to say, the response was a bit lackluster... 




-9 weeks: (3/13/13)
With wig pulled back into a ponytail:

Same wig, with the hair down, also week 9: (so that there's a good comparison with the next picture...)



-16 weeks: (taken this morning, 5/2/13. And yeah, this wig is overdue for some routine maintenance. It was my very first, so I've used it to death.)




Yet again, I know I still have a very long way to go, but I'm slowly being able to see the girl in me more and more with each passing week. As the weight falls off and the girly pills work their magic, I am actually starting to (somewhat) like my appearance. And I couldn't be more excited! Sometimes I really do have to pinch myself as I think "Wow... this really is happening!" (And a majority of the other times, I just want to scream out "Damn it! Why isn't this happening faster?!" )

Whatever. I digress.

[spring0721]

Congratulations carrie, great changes!

[Angel in the Snow]

Damn! Your changes so far really are amazing! Thanks for having the confidence to share!

[Yukari-sensei]

Thank you. I want you to know that your journey in photos gives me hope. I'm in a similar position to your starting point at present but give me faith that with discipline and dedication such desired change is possible.

[Carrie Liz]

Thanks!

Since you asked, the diet that I'm on is called the "slow-carb" diet. It's based on the Tim Ferriss book "The 4-Hour Body."

The basic rules are, pretty much don't eat carbs. No grains, no pasta, no bread, no potatoes, no rice, no sugar, no corn, and nothing with starch or flour or sweeteners. Also no dairy products (with the exception of cottage cheese,) limit intake of high-GI fruits like melons and pineapples, and you can sparingly have a few beans. Base your entire diet around meat and vegetables.

The basic goal is to eat less than 50 grams of carbs per day, and to keep your blood sugar as low as possible. Because it's blood sugar that makes you put on weight. Insulin is what stores the energy in your food as fat. So if you keep your blood sugar low, your body will pretty much never put on fat no matter how much you eat, and will have to burn its fat reserves.

Also, on this diet you are allowed one "junk day" per week where you can eat whatever you want. And yes, this is a necessary step. It helps to reset your metabolism after a week of being in ketogenesis, and keep it working to burn off fat.

And before you say "OMG, all that meat! How can you eat all of that butter and bacon and unhealthy saturated fat from the red meat? You're going to destroy your cholesterol!" I just had a biometric screening done at work last Friday. My total cholesterol level was 109, which is actually down a whopping 30 points from when I was in high school and my diet mainly consisted of grains.


(Side note: I'm way overdue for a new visual update to this thread... it's been another 2 months since I originally posted it, and I've lost even more weight.)

[Allisa]

Well done carrie, you were meant to be a woman, you look great. 

Cheers allisa

[Thylacin]

Nice wig. It looks good on you.

Where is it from?

[Carrie Liz]

Nice wig. It looks good on you.

Where is it from?

It's called "Vintage Vixen," and it's made by a wig company called Forever Young. Mine is in colors 8/12/24b, which is light brown with highlights. I ordered it from Amphigory.com.

(Side note: I really need to update this thread... it's been what, like another 5 months now?)