I am stuck in the middle of passing, what gym can I use?

[JennyA]

I am doing great in my transition and now I want to start working on certain areas of my body. I don't pass 100% so I think the females in the gym would feel uncomfortable with me in the changing room, but I wouldn't feel comfortable in the male changing room.

And if ya respond give me one good tip on killing belly fat.

thanks

[kimdl93]

Jenny, my trainers always stressed that you can't selectively lose fat. If you want to reduce belly fat , you have to lose weight. Sorry...there's not easy way out of that.

[arbon]

You can ask them at the Gym if they have a private changing area you can use? at our YMCA here they have one, but don't know how common that is.

[DeeDee1974]

I always wear my workout clothes to the gym from home. When I'm done working out I go home a shower and change into regular clothes.

[Inna]

What had worked for me was total surrender to the eating regime that comprised of fist size portion at each sitting. So, eat as often as you like, obviously can not jump to few calories per day of the bat so slowly wean your self off the regular (seriously over-sized meal portions in US ) size meals. Then focus on the quality of food, selecting only nutrient rich foods which give you more vital nutrients with less calories per serving such as: Soy based, Extra Virgin olive oil, Balsamic vinegar, white skinless meats, FISH-Big time Fish but steamed or smoked instead of fried, or best YET sushi but that tends to be expensive. lOOK for omega-3 rich foods.

Once you get into the groove of things, slowly streach times between the meals, so that the time on empty stomach is longer, believe me, the feeling of an empty stomach is rather great and you feel contrary to supposed, much more energetic and light!

what ever you do DO NOT COUNT CALORIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its a trap! Society is focused on calories which is just a measurement of burning qualities of substance. Energy does not equal quality, 100 calories of chocolate isn't equal 100 calories of sashimi tuna tatar, believe me it works!

Lay off the carbs, we do need carbs to think, well, I don't need to think for I am using my heart to show my life's direction but then...lol, but all breads, breadings, sugar, sweets are loaded with carbs which only convert to substances which are toxic to us and convert to fat only giving useless short energy.


As far as exercise, we exercise while asleep, how is that? well, sleep researchers discovered that we burn quite few calories during sleep( varies on weight but average is 500). What I have done is simply quit all sorts of mechanical workouts, the reason, "while exercising we regenerate muscle tissue and burn fat" I didn't want to regenerate muscle, and frankly wanted more fat just in the different areas.

Park as far as possible from the entrance to store, office, anywhere you go, walking is the most perfect non impact exercise you can do. And walk beyond usual, outside at the park, that is if you can stand the heat!

[Badtranny]

I am finally on Inna's program. I was doing it my way for the last couple of years (exercise, eating veggies, etc) and it has been effective at burning fat, but I'm still too darn muscular. Inna and I were both pretty good sized guys, athletic and muscular, so we started from a similar place (5'11" 220lbs) and at roughly the same time. Looking at us now tells the story. I'm lean, thick and sturdy and she's lean, thin, and slinky. Sure I might win in a downhill mountain-bike race, but she would definitely win on the runway. ;-)

Last week I finally decided to hang up my bike for awhile except for easy bike path rides, and the only exercise I'm going to do will be walks and hikes. Not being active will be harder for me than eating tiny portions (have you seen my tiny fist?), but I'm hoping the Inna Plan will finally push me in the right direction to a narrow upper back.

[Melissa Jill]

100 calories of chocolate isn't equal 100 calories of sashimi tuna tatar,

Yeah it is...
Calories is just a measurement of energy in the food. 100 calories of chocolate takes the same amount of exercise to burn off as 100 calories of fruit or vegetables.

[ColleenA]

JennyA, unfortunately, I think others here are correct re: belly fat. While targeting certain muscle groups can work to build them up, it's a myth that targeting areas of the body can be used to change fat distribution.

One friend of mine, who had always been inactive and severely overweight, used walking as her primary exercise to lose most of her excess weight before beginning HRT. Reason? She didn't want to bulk up any muscles by doing more intense exercises. Not knowing what your work-out regimen is already, though, I wouldn't advise you to abandon other exercises in favor of just walking. If you're already going to the gym, you are in a different place than she was.



100 calories of chocolate isn't equal 100 calories of sashimi tuna tatar


Yeah it is... Calories is just a measurement of energy in the food. 100 calories of chocolate takes the same amount of exercise to burn off as 100 calories of fruit or vegetables.

Melissa Jill, given that Inna discussed in her first paragraph the nutrient content of food over calorie content, I took her to mean that simply keeping a tally of calories consumed (eating the same foods as before, just in smaller quantities) is not the way to truly change one's diet. An effective shift must include moving from low-nutrient foods (chocolate being her example) to high-nutrient foods, thus making calorie counting itself much less critical. So I think you are right about calories as calories, while she is right about calories in a bigger context. At least, that's my view.

[ReneeT]

Yeah it is...
Calories is just a measurement of energy in the food. 100 calories of chocolate takes the same amount of exercise to burn off as 100 calories of fruit or vegetables.
Actually, no it isnt. Caloric content of food is one thing, how your body responds to it is entirely another. Wood has calories- we just cannot process them. When you ingest 100 calories of chocolate, your pancreas gets the message that a huge load of simple carbs is headed its way and dumps a bunch of insulin into your bloodstream. This rapidly clears the glucose, but it typicaly ends up as fat. In addition, that rapid rise in blood glucose and the marked insulin response results in you becoming hungry shortly thereafter.

When you eat the sashimi, there is a much lower insulin response, less tendency for fat deposition, and longer lasting satiety

[ameliabee]

When I'm being a good girl, I keep my carb intake under 30g/day and that pretty much takes care of things. Walking works wonders, although not in this weather.

Seriously, sugar kills, yo. I also eliminated gluten from my diet. The combination of low carb and gluten free changed my hunger pattern from needing to eat something every three hours to being able to not need to for twelve.

I'm overweight as far as the BMI is concerned (5'11", 200lbs), but I'm also reasonably hourglassy (43-33-44), so I'm inclined to just let HRT and time finish the fat redistribution while being careful to keep my rear from getting disproportionately large. I'm not enamored with the belly fat, but as long as it looks reasonably female, I can deal with it.

[Inna]

Thank you for listening, Colleen yes that is exactly what I meant, I should also stress, that our bodies and organisms encompassing them are of different genetic origin and process metabolic rates differently! It is vital that such low portion diet, and I would go as far as not calling it a diet but rather life style, is also ENJOYED by an individual.

It will NOT work if you hate the food, hate the stress of eating less and hate to be on it! You MUST choose the ingredients which fulfill your taste buds so that you feel satisfied even with the much smaller portions.

As I have stated in the first paragraph, sleep does a body good in more ways then just relaxation, and since we burn quite a bit of calories during, the longer we sleep the further our non conscious diet goes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !

TOXINS, there are slew of foods which are massively toxic but were promoted by industries hungry for sales and fortune. MILK-alergens, diary which had been heavily processed, any foods devoid of enzymes which really means heavily processed!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Enzymes are compounds which are catalysts for digestion produced and part of only living foods.

Living foods are fresh vegetables, even though of the vine they still have natural processes occurring within them, on the other hand bread loaf left in the pantry for a month and still looking and smelling and tasting the same is as living as concrete on your driveway!

Living foods are all meats whicvh are fresh and not cooked, try to get that one into you psyche, lol, but sushi, seafood, and some lightly smoked meats are full of enzymes.

Non Frozen fruits are living!

Then comes a surprise, all sour stuff is good for ya, yeah, sour, fermented, yicky, but those such as sour pickles, sauerkraut, brie, feta, fermented milk-butter milk, yogurts, are all full of GOOD bacteria necessary for proper functioning of digestive system!

[Nicole Erin]

Keep in mind with the whole "100 calorie" thing is that junk food REALLY packs in the calories. That is why you can blow a whole day's caloric budget with ONE meal from the fast food joints. Besides with junk food calories, after eating too much, you are going to feel too groggy to burn it off anyways. So it is like you ingest too much and then cannot really move to burn it off. There is a reason it is called "junk food".

Now about what changing room to use...
I would say if you have a female name like if you changed it - maybe use the women's but try to avoid going in when it is packed. How do you present at the gym? I mean none of us are going to be going to the gym to sweat our butts off AND be dressed nice and made up.
If you are worried about legal trouble, then if you are legally male just use the men's. I mean even if someone thinks you are some woman in the men's locker, you can prove otherwise if some unlikely event like they call the cops.

It is kind of a delicate situation cause the gym owner and probably the law doesn't want to skirt on discrimination. Kind of for the same reason that the law doesn't argue with a woman falsifying a legal document when she claims to weigh 140 on her license when CLEARLY she is over 300. No one wants to touch that one.

OH with exercise - "spot reduction" doesn't work but if you train your abdominals, they will be more solid and create the illusion of a flatter belly since they won't sag as much. Either way it will look better after a while.
For all over cardio - check out the elliptical machines. Easy on the joints and you can really work hard.

[pamela_a]

Which locker room do you use? It' simple. What does your ID say? If it says female use the women's locker room. If it says male use the men's. I had my Id corrected while still pre-op and used the women's locker room without a problem. Women come in all shapes and sizes and most women change modestly (under a towel) so, unless you're not careful, it shouldn't be an issue