I gain weight when suppressing Kristyn

[Kristyn Hill]

I guess we all go through spells of femininity. When I do not have time for Kristyn, my weight goes up and it pisses me off. It seems when I am concerned about looking and feeling great in a dress, I can curb my eating habits to being very good. I just wish I could find a balance for dressing and getting made up in order to keep my dress size desires in check.

It has been a while since I have posted and hope all of my old friends are doing well.

Kristyn

[Kate Simmons]

Personally, I think it's mind over matter. We can keep our weight down in either mode if we really want to. Having no self control in guy mode is just a matter of perspective.

[Kristyn Hill]

I hear ya for sure. I am in guy mode most of the time but when I am concerned with Kristyn, it is just easier for some reason. I am overweight but can pull off looking very good in guy mode but in Kristyn mode, the clothes are much tighter which just keeps on track. The moral of the story is to not suppress Kristyn, I guess.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Think about the future..

It's wonderful motivation ...prior to my transition I was 235+ lbs...I now weight 175..(6'2)... when I identified myself as a crossdresser I believe I gained the weight on purpose to look so crappy that I wouldn't dress
(hehe...as if that would stop any of us)....

once I got closer to realizing why I was crossdressing, I started losing weight and when I couldn't dress I kept on the program to fit into clothes I wanted in the future..!!! you can do it!!

[Kristyn Hill]

you understand exactly what I am going through. Love it. Thanks for sharing.

[Jaylyn]

Dressing does give us an incentive to keep in shape. Especially the legs and stomach area where enfemme show up more pronounced. Staying in shape though just for health reasons should be why we all want to eat right and exercise. When I turned 65 I realized I have to start taking care of my body if I want to live to a ripe old age dressed or not. Also just wanting to see my Grandkids grow up has helped me on my diet.

[Krisi]

We shouldn't need to use dressing as a motive for keeping our weight down. Our own good health should be a good enough reason.

I find that when my wife goes out of town (not often, perhaps once a year for a week) my weight goes down. That's because I don't really feel like cooking fancy meals and I only eat what I want. When she is home, I eat what she puts on my plate and it's more than I really need to eat.

[Beverley Sims]

I have made it a habit to check what I put in my mouth at all times.

I do manage to keep the weight off by walking a lot.

[Kristyn Hill]

All great responses. Just being real about my feelings. I appreciate y'alls opinions.

[Jaymees22]

Hi, I did lose weight after I started dressing because I then had something better to do than eating to make myself calm. I lost about 20 lbs and went from size 10 to size 8. I too find myself eating more if I don't have an opportunity to dress for a while. Jaymee

[Robin777]

I think you eat because you are somewhat depressed because you don't have the time to dress. I know I eat when I get depressed because of the seasons. This year I have dropped over 10 lbs since winter and I am determined not to put it back on. That will take a considerable amount of self control on my part. For you maybe if you can make some time for Kristyn it will help you keep from eating. Just a thought. It helps with me. Since I dropped the weight, I can fit into some of my favorite clothes better. I look at the portion size and say to myself,if I eat this will it keep me from getting into that dress? Maybe it will work for you.

[sometimes_miss]

Stress. Freud developed the defense mechanism theory, Maslow contributed the hierarchy of needs theory. Put the two together. Our minds use higher priority thought processes to suppress those we don't want to deal with. So, top priority thought processes? breathing (smokers use this to 'relax' by suppressing thoughts they don't want to deal with), drinking and eating, which you are using, safety, which thrill seakers and adrenaline junkies like me use to suppress out thoughts we don't want. Pain. Girls who cut themselves use that one to avoid thinking about their problems. And so it goes. I used to use food, still do unless i catch mysef doing it. I just started cutting out all carbs so I didn't gain weight when under stress.

[Charla McBee]

I never broke 200lbs before I went to college and tried my best to not be a crossdresser and certainly not trans. Turns out suppressing my inner identity makes me either drink heavily or stress eat. Since coming out to myself a few months ago I've finally dropped below that 200 mark for the first time in years. Since getting married last year I have also acknowledged my gluten allergy and excessive consumption of crap which has also helped. It's a combination of self-acceptance and having someone else to worry about for me.

Suppressing your feminine side probably has negative health effects for a lot of us. If you're even the tiniest bit gender dysphoric it can lead to some nasty depression and thus overeating, drinking, etc. Being yourself is the best thing you can do.

[DebbieL]

Part of this is the perception of genders. Men often try to hide their shape. A man who is too slender and has a small waistline could be seen as weak, vulnerable, or even effeminate. Men's clothes are designed to hide a multitude of sins from a beer belly or man-boobs to a tiny waist and curvy hips. I used to refer to my men's dress shirts as 'Pup tents" because I could wear almost anything underneath. Even when I had 38 B breasts, I could hide them under the pup tent for church.

In high school, I was tall, 5' 11 inches but I usually wore shoes that boosted me to 6 foot. I weighed 135 lbs soaking wet. I couldn't wear men's pants without a belt, because they would literally fall off my hips. I had big hips and a tiny waist. I'd go to unisex stores to buy jeans that were for "curvy" bodies. I'd also had a 34 inch inseam, which made the pants cut for women wearing 3 inch heels perfect for me even in flats.

Shirts were also a bit of a joke. If I wore T-shirts they hung more like a dress, hanging off my chest, which although flat, was large, even though my shoulders were not broad and I didn't have muscular arms. My muscles in my arms and legs were long, lean, like aircraft cables. I rode my bicycle everywhere and often 20-30 miles a day, to school, to work, to friends houses. i took weight lifting to avoid having to participate in team sports. We were graded based on the percentage of our weight that we could lift. When i told the teacher I didn't want big bulky muscles, he told me to do lots of repetitions of much lower rates and stop as soon as I started to feel any pain. The result was that I got my first ever A in gym class because I could lift almost 3 times my weight in squats, twice my weight in dead lift, and my entire weight in press and half my weight in curls.

I also enjoyed theater and dance, so I got even healthier there. Most people assumed that I was gay, and often did the goldfish impression when I brought a girl from another school to see one of my shows. I thought I couldn't be a girl because of my bass singing voice. My speaking voice was high and feminine, and very musical, often spanning 3 octaves, but I was afraid my voice would give me away. On the other hand, I could let my feminine side out in other ways.

I could sew, and I regularly took in the waists of shirts I purchased off the rack. With a 16 inch neck, the rest of the shirt fit like a tent, but mom would help me pin it so that I could sew in a good taper, and I'd end up with a shirt that actually looked pretty on me. I also learned how to make vests, which was a great way to show off my waist without actually wearing a corset. I often wore a dress coat as well, because I had such a large butt for a guy, tight but big.

When I got married, my wife initially pretended she was OK with the dressing, but told me she wanted me to quit smoking before she would fully accept the dressing. When I finally quit smoking a few years later, she admitted that she hated the dressing, and just used the smoking as an excuse. I was stuck in a marriage with a woman who hated Debbie, and didn't want to lose my kids.

When I stopped dressing entirely, I stopped caring about my weight. Within 18 months after I quit smoking, my weight had gone from 165 lbs to 265 lbs, my blood pressure was borderline, my triglycerides were dangerously high, and i didn't care. Even though I had quit drinking 8 years earlier, and had quit smoking for 2 years, I was becoming self destructive by overeating. We switched from stir-fry and healthy meals to meals deep fried in lard. Both Leslie and i gained weight. At that point i topped out at 275 lbs.

When the marriage had degenerated into being platonic room-mates with two children, and my wife told me that she had told all of her friends that her least favorite household chore was having sex, even worse than cleaning the toilets or cleaning up when one of the kids threw up, I knew it was over.

I took the 12 steps with a sponsee I had taken through the steps. I asked him to be my sponsor. I wrote a section about Debbie, and the pain came out. He asked me to write more inventory about Debbie, but to do it while I was dressed. Leslie and the kids went to her parents for the weekend, and I wrote about 70 pages of inventory. Then he asked me to meet him in at night in a deserted park, and to bring a skirt and heels. Then he had me read what I had written while wearing the dress. I broke down and cried. I hugged him. i didn't know it at the time, but he was dating a therapist who also knew me, and realized that i was suffering from Gender Dysphoria. The inventory only confirmed it. He asked me to give the girl a name (she didn't even have one until then), and asked when WE would get to meet Debbie. By we, he meant the people at one of the AA meetings. I offered "Halloween", and he said, OK, you can wear a costume to the dance, but I also want you to have 3 more outfits, one for Saturday night, one for Sunday night, and one for Monday night. I started to freak, but he told me that this was important.

Halloween was interesting. I made my own French Maid costume, using bridal silk, and a size 20 pattern. i had purchased a lacing corset to wear underneath it so I could trim my waist enough to look a little feminine. The costume was a hit, I got best costume. I also got the numbers of three women who wanted to take me home with them that night, but wanted to meet me later since I had to get home. I was on top of the world.

I went to the meetings on Saturday and Sunday, wearing skirts and heels, and a blouse that was really too tight, but a pretty satin. I had purchased them at Goodwill, because Leslie had me on an allowance. I was surprised to discover that several of the women wanted to be friends, and they invited me to coffee after the meetings. My sponsor told me that I needed to go, and to my surprise, I managed to pass (sorta) at the Denny's. I learned later that there was a gay bar 2 blocks away and several drag queens came in around 2 AM, so I was just another one of the girls to them.

i started to develop a whole new circle of friends, and began dressing up most week-ends. By this time, Leslie didn't even care, as long as I wore pants when I walked out the door. I'd change into a skirt and take off my bulky coat when I got into the car, usually on a deserted road, then I'd go to the meetings. But something interesting started to happen. I started losing weight. My doctor had given me a low cholesterol diet, and I started following it. I could have read meat "when you can't remember what it tastes like", fish or chicken once a day, all the vegetables and fruits I wanted, but only 1 starch a day. I started eating a lot of salads or appetizers instead of full meals, even when I ordered nachos, I'd share them with 3 to 5 other people and have a side salad.

I also got invited to AA and NA dances, and invited to go dancing with the other girls after the meetings on week-ends. Pretty soon I was dancing every week-end, often for 4-5 hours a night, 2 nights a week. I also started riding my bike more.

Within a year I had lost over 100 lbs. I had gone from a tight size 22 to a comfortable size 14. I had gone from wearing corsets to keep my waist from spilling over my skirt to wearing one to keep my ribs from sticking out. I'd had asthma as a kid and as a result, my lower ribs had expanded significantly, to the point where it was hard to bend without crushing my rib with my large hip bone.

Of course, by this time, Leslie had decided to have an affair, and her boyfriend decided he wanted to marry her. I had asked them to wait a year, just to make sure that they would know that it really would work out together (they were married 20 years). Meanwhile, my social life had improved. I had moved to Denver, met a girl who was bisexual and LOVED Debbie, and also had some other girlfriends who wanted to "share". It was wonderful. She had a little son I loved, and was pregnant with her second before we met. We stayed together for over 2 years before a former boyfriend made her an offer worth $millions that she couldn't refuse. I was transitioning and by the time we broke up I was living as Debbie from the time I left work to the time I had to leave in the morning, and all day on weekends. My therapist had decided that i was ready for hormones.

Eventually, Leslie hit me with a new ultimatum. Either I abort the transition, or I would never see the kids again. She had a letter from a fundamentalist Christian social worker addressed to a fundamentalist Christian judge. She had spent almost a year, working in the court house, going to her new husband's church, getting everything orchestrated. She had worked it out so that I wouldn't be allowed to see the kids, but I'd still have to pay child support.

I took a consulting engagement in New York, partly to give us some space, and partly in hopes of finding out if I could fit in there. I had no legal rights in Colorado, but in New York, there were legal protections for people like me. There were also clubs where girls danced together while wearing dresses or skirts, and places for girls like me to meet. I also found out that the AA and NA meetings were very supportive, and made a whole new circle of friends.

Ultimately, however, I was forced to abort the transition. If I wanted to see my kids EVER again, Leslie told me I had to abort. She had already told the kids about Debbie, hoping my kids would hate me. instead, they loved me more than ever. However, to prove the threat was genuine, she began avoiding my weekly phone calls to the kids. Often it would be 3-4 weeks of voice mails that were never returned. I was in a leadership training program and they told me I had to "burn the dress". The combination was enough that i aborted the transition.

Unfortunately, when i stopped dressing, I stopped caring too. i started eating junk food all the time, stopped going to dances, and often went to buffet restaurants where I could eat 5,000 calories in a single sitting. Then I started doing more business travel as a consultant, where I would order a hotel meal, entre with desert, and eat everything. In less than a year, I went from 160 lbs to over 275 lbs, so i felt too fat and ugly to dress. Things spiraled out of control, and by 2001, i was over 330 lbs. I finally "woke up" when i realized that I couldn't fasten the seat belt on the airplane. Then I had a heart attack. A mild one, only a 25% blockage, but enough to be a wake-up call. By 2003, i realized that I needed Debbie if I wanted to get my health back. Sure enough, as soon as I started dressing up regularly, and going out as Debbie, my health started to improve. I lost weight. It was slow but consistent loss.

I began to see that the more I was out as Debbie, the more I wanted to be healthy, to live, to be fit. As Debbie I'd be more physically active, eat sensibly, and take care of my health. When I stopped doing Debbie, I would go back into the weight gain. Eventually, my age caught up with me. Arthritis in my knees and pinched nerves in my spine (3 discs in Lumbar, 4 thoracic, and 3 cervical, had made dancing too painful. Even walking a few blocks was a chore. Then i had a stroke that took out my left side. It took months of rehab and Lee, my new wife, was like a drill sergeant, but I was able to recover. A year later, only a trained neurologist would know I had ever had a stroke, and even then, mostly by watching me walk down a flight of stairs.

I finally decided to take on a project "Fourteen in Fourteen", to go from a size 24 to a size 14 in 14 months. I went to weight watchers and followed the program, I started walking, at first only a few blocks or 2 laps around Walmart. Later, a mile walk, every day. I also started dressing more often, buying more clothes for Debbie, and wearing them when I was working from home. By the end of the 14 months, i was a size 16, and had lost over 85 lbs.

Ironically, when I started to transition and started hormones, I had more of a struggle with my weight. My doctor explained that the hormones had changed my metabolism to that of a woman. That meant I lost the 10 "boy points" at weight watchers. Since i couldn't lower my intake enough and still remain alert, i had to do more activity. i also had to focus more on salads and avoid the meats at the buffet lines at work. More protein, but not too much, and vitamins so that I didn't get sick. It still takes some effort to stay size 20 or smaller, but every time I am about to eat, I look at one of the women who has a body like I'd like to have, and ask "do I want the extra potatoes or a body like hers". Suddenly the 6 oz filet seems like plenty, the salad is delicious, and an appetizer sounds better than a full meal, and even desert isn't as appealing.

I think the most important thing is creating an image in my mind of what I want to look like, and believing that it will happen over time. If I don't have the image of Debbie wearing a pretty size 14 dress or a shorter skirt, it's not enough to want to make it real. A frumpy "old lady" dress, isn't a future to live into. A pair of sweats or yoga pants doesn't cut it either. I need to see the possibility of being really pretty, dressed in something I really want to wear.

The other half is knowing that I can make that real. When going down a flight of stairs is so painful that you'd rather take the elevator, or after weeks of being really good, you're up 5 lbs because of an illness, or a glitch in the hormones, It can be frustrating. It's easy to give up. On the other hand, when I go to a Zumba class and can keep working almost non-stop for 45 minutes to an hour, it starts getting real again. When you see what you want, and it becomes real that it's possible, you are more willing to take the steps needed to turn that vision into a reality.

[LaurenS]

Thanks for sharing. Many of us can relate to what you are saying.

[Kristyn Hill]

awesome comments and support. taking time for Kristyn is the key to me being the happiest. so much work and so little time for Heels.

awesome story, Debbie, thank you. Awesome responses. Thank you all.

[Melissa in SE Tn]

Kristyn, it is really really hard for a man to naturally attain a feminine figure. This Don Quixote is always on the quest for that elusive feminine figure... To dream the impossible dream. May you find & revel in your dream feminine figure. Peace,mel

[Kris Avery]

Kristyn,

I am very similar to Debbie above. I always remember what clothes I love and how I want to look *BEFORE* opening the mouth with food nearby.

I went from 340 down to 178 (about 160 loss) 5+ years ago and have kept it all off without exercise (during loss or now).
It takes dedication, willpower, and an "eye" on the prize with no distractions.
You really do have to 'eat like a girl'. I do have an indulgence from time-to-time, but it's the exception - not the norm.

An ex governor of a southern state once said "there is nothing that tastes as good - as feeling thin feels". For me, this is SO COMPLETELY true.

If I am questioned about my diet, I tell them it's the "sucks diet" because you can't have anything breaded, fried, or ethnic - or for that matter - eat out ... mostly ever.
Most stop me there and say "I could never do that" and it ends the discussion without going into details.

[Kristyn Hill]

Awesome, WendyO. I can lose weight especially when Kristyn is in my life. I am starting to eat more like a girl now as you said. Great advice on all accounts. I am working on my computer right now in a great pair of leopard heels and the cutest outfit. Krisytn is back and had a protein shake and yogurt so far this morning. I am determined to get it back together.