I’m an average AMAB person: 32yrs old, 180lbs, 5’9" and I carry a lot of my weight in my belly. It gives me a lot of dysphoria and I stress over my belly fat a lot. I definitely don’t have a super healthy relationship with my weight.
Last year, I didn’t drink for the majority of the year. I took about 10 months off from alcohol, but I didn’t lose any weight. I was also going to the gym ~3 times a week. I believe in CICO and so I believe I must have been eating more as well. But my body fat distribution didn’t change at all. I moved away from my gym and so I couldn’t keep going and then I lost motivation.
For context, when I was younger I weight-lifted a lot. I wasn’t the biggest person in the gym, but my PR for bench was 305lb, deadlift 455lbs, and squat 365lb and I weighed 198lbs. I learned a lot of positive and negative associations with weight and diet. Weight lifting was all about eating as much protein as possible. Now I want to lose weight, but I’ve built this body to be big. I wish I never went to the gym. I used to hover around 155lbs and my body’s “set point” never fluctuated until I started focusing heavily on working out and eating as much as I could handle. Now I can’t seem to lose the weight. And it’s basically just fat. Not much functional muscle left.
Fast forward to today and I’m starting HRT soon. But I’m super worried that my body fat distribution isn’t going to change since I’ve read that fat cells can have “memory”. I’m basically excited to start my journey in every way except I feel so dysphoric about my body shape. I hate this “beer belly”.
What should I do about this? Can anyone help me with this? I fear the simple answer is that I just need to focus more heavily on diet and exercise, but I’m so demotivated by my experience last year. With no gym nearby (< 35 minutes away) and - frankly - a superb desire to eat, I can’t believe in my ability to achieve my goals.
I just wish I could start over and be skinny - then gain weight on my HRT to hopefully gain hips and boobs. What’s the advice you’d give me? Sorry if this post is toxic. I realize I don’t have a healthy mindset about this. I’m trying to accept myself, but I also want to be able to wear woman’s clothing and feel like a woman.
I’m not suggesting this, only explaining what I’m currently doing. I’m doing what another commenter referred to as “weight cycling”. I started losing weight in December by starting a restrictive 500 calorie deficit (I calculated my daily expenditure at 1850 calories, so I ate 1350 a day). I stuck to a high protein diet to feel more full from my food. I lost from 150 to 125 over the course of 13 weeks (~2lbs/week) at 5’9". I started my HRT in January, about a month after I started my cut. About halfway through my cut, I started intermittent fasting, so 16 hours without eating each day, which helped me significantly. I did not have cheat days during my cut. I got to a point where I was fairly happy with my waist, but I still had nothing in my thighs, butt, or hips. I’d always planned to maintain for a couple weeks and start gaining again, and I have. Most of it is still going to my waist, so I will be cycling again (and probably will repeat for a long time until my body is consistently storing fat in the right places). I did start exercising halfway through; intense cardio (cycling) for 60+ minutes 4 days/week, and bodyweight abs and glutes exercises 1 day/week. After recalculating my daily expenditure, I bumped my calories up to 1800/day.
I can tell that fat distribution is going to be a struggle for awhile, but it’s hard to say how long. Though I will continue weight cycling throughout my gradual journey through HRT. The reason I’m not specifically suggesting this to you is that it is very difficult to maintain the kind of discipline I had to during my cut, especially with exactly 0 cheat days. Intermittent fasting helped me significantly (and there is lots of research to back up why that is), and I’ll most certainly be doing that during my future cuts. I’ve heard that having consistent daily calories eventually plateaus weight loss, and there is some method out there that helps you split it into different calorie limits for each day of the week that supposedly helps mitigate that? Haven’t tried that myself, so I can’t attest to it, though it may be useful depending on how much you’re looking to lose.
Regardless of what you end up doing, I wish you the best in your journey! I know firsthand how much of a struggle it is, but we’ll get there eventually!
EDIT: As a side note, I lost 5" around my waist from my cut! (Though some of that has come back now that I’m gaining again)