Tips on transgender diet and weight training?

[Guest]

4 Months ago I weighed 145 lbs, now I am down to 125. I only have 5lb free weights right now, but is their a work out for female to male??? I want to start prior to HRT, since I've heard of possible weight distributions being on testosterone. Upper body, and hips are my biggest concerns.

[JJ]

Since about a year after starting transition I work out aat least 5 days a week-had to wait for a dramatic weight loss before I could exercise much and after a 200 lb weight loss and 3 years bed ridden my muscles had atrophied and disappeared. I have never seen or heard of a specific FTM workout but I tend to only work out upper body. I hike with a 20*+ lb pack and wrist weights that are 4 1/2 lbs each. I hike approximately6 to 7 miles a day cross country in the mountains and do two workout sessions with an ultra heavy resistance tube twice during the hike. I've built a lot of shoulder and arm muscle as well as pecs-the pecs are a complication because I haven't had chest surgery yet and it makes my chest dysphoria worse. After surgery this winter it'll be something I'm proud of instead I hope.

On estrogen still rather than T you can still build muscle but it is harder and your muscles won't get as large. I knew that T did that but was astonished at the difference. It never hurts to work out and get muscled up but you won't get male muscles without T and it takes a whole lot more work to get muscled. I had always heard long before transition that the female body builders you see take steroids and my research about steroids has convinced me that is true. Having seen the change for myself I can now pretty much spot whether someone has been on T or not -as can most body builders. Most say that it is impossible to compete without them in fact. The t they use is usually slightly different so they can keep from being detected in competition and therefore need shorter term esters than transmen use.

As far as diet. Male metabolism is also different and converts protein to muscle in ways female metabolism doesn't. So a male body building diet won't work. Nor any of those male supplements. In fact since they increase whatever hormone you produce they can have the opposite effect actually.

As far as the wrist weights and resistance tube I do-I worked up to those weights-starting at that level would cause injuries. But getting wrist weights and wearing them around whenever you can is an easy way to build arm muscle. Gradually you can either buy heavier ones or get the kind where you can add weight. The bands I just purchased a new stronger one as I adjusted to the old one. Body builders use ulta heavy and I've reached my max with that.

Good luck with the exercise and congratz on the weight loss!

Johnny

[Guest Kayla Grace]

Not much I can add to the vice here!

If you want specific exercises, I have a guide to both mtf and ftm on my profile. Also, a little video from Mr. Olympia himself