[Dianna1395]

I wanted to ask everyone, but the genetic males especially, if they've found a method of exercise (or specifically, what NOT to do) which will feminize the upper body, torso, shoulders.

So far, I have:
- don't lift heavy weights
- Maybe even don't LIFT weights!
- Hormones will do some over time, reducing muscle mass (but not as quickly as losing strength)
- Catabolism can be induced via exercise and nutrition (e.g., no protein drink after lifting.)

I have two major problems with the above:
1. I need to lose about 60 pounds of fat, preferrably without affecting the muscle. Muscle adds to Basal Metabolic Rate, so losing muscle before fat is a poor approach. So are catabolic methods as a result.
2. I'm not willing to wait until (say) 65 to have soemthing resembling a shape. Patience is a virtue, I am NOT patient. Especially as I noticed at the gym last night, my shoulders are notably wider than my hips. Not sure when or how that happened. But I've now got GUY hips, and while I'm drooling over the girl running on the treadmill, and as a male, she may well take an interest... I want to BE as well as HAVE.

So I've got "build the bottom", too - I've done research, need to refine the program, and need to build things up.
But is there any decent way to avoid building the upper body at the same time? Especially since, in order to burn the upper body fat, I need to be ACTIVE WRT the upper body... So I'm doing complex lifts, like a Clean to a Push Press. not using much weight, just an olympic bar. But it conflicts with Renee Reyes' advice, "Be arm conscious. Don't use them." ;-) And it's building the Pecs at the outside top, so - WRONG direction.

I want to get rid of the V-taper, without turning into a blob, or giving up on getting skinny.
Any suggestions, anecdotes, personal experience?

I'm not interested in being a "guy with breasts," I want to look feminine.

[Wannabe]

Well, I'm 5'11" tall and weigh 127. Eight years ago I weighed about 165 and had a good bit more muscle on my body. My figure is enough like a fashion model's to look good in most any off the rack clothes. I've never even had a gym membership. For a few years I did get a lot of exercise carrying tons of merchandise I would buy at auctions then sell on eBay or at flea markets, but these days my business is more computer oriented so I get just do simple workouts at the house with very light weights for arm work. I do walk 5-10 miles every other day or so. I have a personal rule that I must carry all my groceries home from the store by foot. It's amazing how that disciplines you not to buy things you don't need.

My diet is very low in animal fats. The only meats I eat are lean chicken and turkey breast-- and not much of that. I eat lots of vegetables and grains, though. I love beans and Mexican food, but I skip the lard and other fatty things often used in it. I eat a reasonable breakfast, then lunch is my main meal. I never do a big evening meal, just healthy snacking or a salad. I only eat when I'm hungry and don't feel obligated to clean my plate. If I make a lot of something I just divide it up and save half for later. I eat at a restaurant maybe once every couple months, tops. I never go to fast food places.

[Scotti]

My diet is very low in animal fats. The only meats I eat are lean chicken and turkey breast-- and not much of that. I eat lots of vegetables and grains, though. I love beans and Mexican food, but I skip the lard and other fatty things often used in it. I eat a reasonable breakfast, then lunch is my main meal. I never do a big evening meal, just healthy snacking or a salad. I only eat when I'm hungry and don't feel obligated to clean my plate. If I make a lot of something I just divide it up and save half for later. I eat at a restaurant maybe once every couple months, tops. I never go to fast food places.

Great advice for weight loss. I've been saying for about a year now that my biggest meal of the day needs to be lunch. Problem is having to cook for the family every evening when they get home from work and school.

[Dianna1395]

Well, I'm 5'11" tall and weigh 127. Eight years ago I weighed about 165 and had a good bit more muscle on my body.

I'm sorry, I can't curse you out enough.... ;-)
5'9", 225, still 37.5% BF... :-(
So a lot jealous!

My diet is very low in animal fats. The only meats I eat are lean chicken and turkey breast-- and not much of that. I eat lots of vegetables and grains, though. I love beans and Mexican food, but I skip the lard and other fatty things often used in it. I eat a reasonable breakfast, then lunch is my main meal. I never do a big evening meal, just healthy snacking or a salad. I only eat when I'm hungry and don't feel obligated to clean my plate. If I make a lot of something I just divide it up and save half for later. I eat at a restaurant maybe once every couple months, tops. I never go to fast food places.

:-( Getting worse! I like my vegetables in "pre-processed" form - MEAT. Turkey is great, steak is great, chicken can be good, veal, elk, pork... Even Tuna.

But I've got a "personal dilemma" with working out right now... Woman wants to cook in the evening, wants a culinary experience...
I want to hit the gym, and by the time I'm done there....? Protein shake is MORE than adequate!! ;-)

Guess we need to chat there, maybe I can get her on "my" side.
Then again, I can't even get her to the gym. :-( Thinking I need to trick her into a calorie deficit. If it lasts much longer, I'm realizing - she won't HAVE knees. Like the line from Batman: Dark Knight Rises: {Doctor} "I've seen worse knee cartilage." {Wayne's response} {Doctor}"That's because you don't HAVE any, Mr. Wayne."
She won't even do her PT... :-P

I figure, if I get in shape (other than round!), I can persuade her to take things seriously. Especially if I can then "grow boobies" in the process. PM and even 17b-E, even Premarin cream (Mis-match in the left/right size symmetry), and I'm determined to look for Noogle and get massaging, and leverage AbiDrew's research to get the "hammer Effect" going... And since she wants a MAN (we'll leave aside how much she ACTS LIKE A MAN...) We'll see how things sort out.

Also found this document today.... How to train muscles SMALLER. Need to apply that to my own question!

[spoked451]

My diet is very low in animal fats. The only meats I eat are lean chicken and turkey breast-- and not much of that. I eat lots of vegetables and grains, though. I love beans and Mexican food, but I skip the lard and other fatty things often used in it.

Unfortunately fat doesn't make you fat. It's the insulin released in response to intake of simple carbs & sugars that makes people fat. I highly recommend Gary Taubes "Why We Get Fat & What to do about it." Just like everything else, high quantities of insulin does all kinds of bad things.

It's a book that's well worth the read, even though it does tell you to cut back on things we all love. Except bacon.

[Misty0732]

I need to lose about 60 pounds of fat, preferrably without affecting the muscle. Muscle adds to Basal Metabolic Rate, so losing muscle before fat is a poor approach. So are catabolic methods as a result.

You sound tailor-made for a low (and I mean very low) carb diet. Eliminating carbs will cause your body to burn stored fat. Light exercise will keep your muscle mass in place.

The biggest difficulty people have staying on low carb diets is they grow tired of the food options. The key to avoiding that is to get some gourmet cookbooks designed for low carb diets. Check out some cookbooks by George Stella, for instance.

Misty

[Naomiko]

I've been trying to lose muscle mass in my back, shoulders and arms as well. The advice I get is lots of cardio (most runners are pretty lean) and lots of stretching type exercises (yoga, pilates, n such) will help lengthen the muscles to help make them appear leaner. Try to only use protein shakes for when you're working the areas you want to build. Always finish your workout with 15-20 minutes cardio -- this helps burn fat at a faster rate as well.

Fitnessblender has some great work outs, including an "hourglass ab/oblique" workout that's supposed to help give a more feminine shape. They also have a few "booty and butt" building exercises to help develop curves. The curtsy lunge and squat variety will help alot. No matter what booty workout I do, I always finish a couple rounds of side leg raises, donkey kicks, and dirty dogs to help focus the burn and blood flow to the hip/butt region.

Stairclimbers, elliptical machines, and bicycles will help in the thigh/hip department.

I also bought a slendertone bottom toner to help work muscles i cant seem to stress.

If you're trying to build pecs up a bit, try to use isolation exercises that minimise the use of other muscles (especially the arms/shoulders). I did 2 different flys for upper and middle pecs, crossovers for lower, and sometimes finish with decline pushups to encourage bloodflow. This also maintained the size in my shoulders and arms, but I'm hoping the head start in the breast development will pay off. Time will tell.

I hope this helps, if you like I can post some links on workouts or information. Take care and smile often.

[Naomiko]

Dianna, I'd be cautious with that document you found. It does offer some good points, however, 100 rep training can cause stress on joints and lead to injury. Not saying to not try it, or that it won't work. Just be careful, research and double check sources, and if you do try it out -- make sure your form is perfectly flawless, with proper warm-up, cool-down, and stretching to minimize risk of injury as much as possible.

To summarize some of the sources below, to help reduce muscle mass/size efficiently and safely, the following tips are recommended (I will be trying these as well):

* Cardio first thing in the morning -- before breakfast.
* Reduce calories to create a deficit by maybe 250 calories a day.
* High Rep/Low Weight -- recommended 30-50 reps
* No snack/meal/protein shake for 3 hours after workout.
* Post-workout cardio.

I added a few links for you to check and compare notes, I encourage you to google more on catabolizing or reducing muscle mass to help ensure safe success.

Aerobic vs HIIT to lose muscle

10 ways to lose muscle

How to reduce muscle size

Here are some links to help build your hips/booty. I'll be testing and compiling a custom workout using information and techniques from these videos. I like to warm-up with the 5 minute video plus Knee Tuck Crunch, Bicycles, and Reverse Bicycles (15-25 each) to get the TFL (front hip muscle) engaged. I finish my butt workout with Kneeling Rear Leg Raises (Donkey Kicks) and Kneeling Side Leg Raises (Dirty Dogs/Fire Hydrants) to encourage blood flow to the desired areas.

FB 5 minute Butt & Thigh workout

FB Brutal Butt & Thigh Workout

Stretches to Get Curvier Hips

FB Build a Booty Workout

Wider Curvier Hips

FB Hourglass Workout (Abs)

Hope this helps.

[Dianna1395]

Sorry, been away forever, it seems like.
I've achieved absolutely nothing in this direction, so... :-(

Haven't even been to the gym since January or so. (Until last night, which was a whole new nightmare....)

But, in other news, we've moved twice, endured record-setting Boston snow, the MBTA still sucks (worse than ever, though), the woman lost her job, the dog's had two operations, and then come down with cancer, and will be going to sleep Friday, and the cat we had to leave in Jersey died of cancer this last weekend.... Add in various car repairs, the change in management where we're living, the high-profile projects that are in flight for WEEKS now (Long story short, go-live for one was postponed 'cause they can't get things right, and the other, go-live is Friday, and they can support a single user as of... Today. We're supposed to run 40 in parallel. And there are multiple people with their fingers in the cookie jar, so no one knows what condition ANYTHING is in. We found out today, the reason things weren't working? Someone deployed a hard-coded URL pointing to the wrong effing environment.)

Weight has been impossible to deal with, as I'm ready to either kill the boss, or slit my wrists. Maybe both at once...?

But, I finally got back to the gym last night... Did my warmup weight, it hurt. (That's the bar alone, 55 pounds as I understand.) Added my warmup WEIGHTS (25# each side)....
Squats first!
Felt like I was going to collapse after each set. Mind, just in January - I was doing 50 -75# each side for 5 sets of 5 reps.

So I may have fallen off the face of the earth, but I didn't vanish.

I'll click through the links later - I can't do it from here. (We're running Windows 7 and IE 9. That's Hi-Tech here. Can't use Firefox or Chrome, and can't install Chrome, either - wont' run. Nor can we connect to external proxies, nor AWS or similar cloud services. In fact, I had to use Firefox to get Amazon to work correctly, and our intranet? The sites don't work. WTF? So I'm also looking for someplace new to go.... Can't be worse!
BTW, we "can't" use Firefox due to corporate regs, but since it's also part of our toolbox in Loadrunner, I can squeak by if they don't look too closely. :-) It's one thing that doesn't require Admin access.... OTOH, you can't right-click and open a link, either.)


I did check my weight and body fat %, though. Weight is down to 233, BF% is up to 37.5%.
F.M.L....

ANYWAY - I'll try and get back into the swing of things from home. Might be a miracle, the woman seems to need me joined at the hip if I'm home. But cant' stand the boobs.
Me, I wish I had a woman who (a) had breasts larger than her belly (she's heavier than I, and refuses to either work out of learn nutrition), and (b) had larger boobs than I did... BEFORE I did hormones.
Would help if she was feminine, too.

Which, To be honest, I couldn't much complain about, if she'd been honest from the start.
I'm finding more and more - she was a liar from the start, so WTF do I bother with her?
(house in Jersey we own "together" - guess who did the downpayment and being the breadwinner, who has been on the hook for it?)
But I made a few "sexist" comments, in context of advertising, how women are always about show, I.E., it's all about appearance.

her response? "Always has been, always will be." From a 5'7" 260# woman who, any time work gets "too hard," quits... Because I'll have to take care of her. And her attitude - given that I told her about my interest before we got "too close" (my words) - the domineering (not dominant), bitchy, nasty attitude? Nothing sweet about her, which was fine a DECADE ago when it was "temporary"... and she "would lose interest and leave"... But when talking to a new friend in our apartment complex, she's a "girly-girl" - yet I "never" see her in a dress...? ("Never," rather rarely. Occasionally if we go out to a good restaurant for dinner. She owns ... 3, I think?)

Anyway, more and more it seems I've been taken for a ride, and given the obligation to pay for it.

So, sorry to clutter the forum, I'll STFU again - but hopefully be back in the not too distant future with some RESULTS from all the links, and with any luck... Some results from one or another method of "growth."
:-)

BTW, one of the most DEPRESSING aspects...? Been going to the old bras I've worn, which fit fine December/January time frame.... They don't fit any more, and it's not an issue with the cups! :-(
Just.
Not.
Fair!

Even NOT working out, I'm growing horizontally... BUT UNDER THE EFFING ARMS????!!!!!!




{Sigh} Too much stress, I think, and that meant too much cr@p in the diet. So, here we go again!
Back to square 0, it's only a few months, that's easy to recover from. (Pity I can't recover the time itself...)

[Rayve]

Everyone is different but I will use my own personal experiences so maybe it will help you. I am 6'1 and have had issues maintaining weight my entire life. The first time I broke 200 lbs was when I was 11 years old. My highest weight ever was 678 lbs and I now weigh 240ish (about 15% body fat).

The problem is your eating patterns. I absolutely guarantee it.

1. Decrease portions but increase frequency of eating.
2. Supplement your body with protein after exercise (not that bulking protein either, get a good cutting one)
3. cardio, cardio, cardio (actually measure your heartbeat and push to achieve at least 65% of maximum heart rate and keep it there)
4. Water, water, more water .... did I mention water stay away from soda (even diet .... that crap is poison)
5. BE CONSISTENT !!!! This is actually the most important part.

That is pretty much it. Weight loss takes ages to lose and requires next to nothing to gain it. You absolutely must change your entire lifestyle and I promise it will come off.

I could post my diet regimen but you probably wouldn't do it. No one really does ... I just know my body and how it responds to things. For what it's worth my current calorie intake is about 1400/day and that is with the exercise. This helps create a multi-thousand deficit per week. And since we know 1 pound is the equivelant to 3500 calories then we know we need a minimum of a 500 calorie deficit per day to lose just ONE pound per week.