I now have 31" waist circumference, and 38" hip circumference. Interestingly, since the last time I measured, I lost exactly 1" at the waist, and gained it in the hips. This puts my Waist-to-Hip ratio at 0.82. My old masculine pot-belly is almost completely gone. I'm now wearing my pants and shorts between my hips and waist at a point where the circumference is 32".
As a male, I've well exceeded the point where I'd be considered low risk from body fat for health problems, which is 0.95. As a female, I'd be in the moderate risk category. As a male with an herbally-manipulated hormonal balance that probably is more like that of a female? I really don't know and I'm not sure anyone does. Do I go according to the female chart? The male chart? Somewhere between the two? *shrugs*
Other news regarding the changes my body is going through. First, hair. My back and chest and beard have all been being effected as well now. My beard still grows in, still just as thick, but it's slower. My back hair is all but gone, my chest hair is just doing a combination of what my arm hair and leg hair were and (I think) are still doing.
I don't know if this is related at all, but when I was young, I had a bit of an accident involving my face and a bunch of broken glass. As a result, my eyebrows had to be shaved off. Shortly after they'd finally grown back in, I had a charcoal grill backfire into my face when I was trying to light it, and burned my eyebrows clean off. They've never really grown back since. Now they finally are.
My boobs have become a lot more... responsive... after the recent blog entry. They did grow a little more, but only maybe at most between a quarter to half inch circumference at the bust. They are becoming a bit tougher to camouflage. Since my boobs have become as sensitive as they have, I have finally taken to wearing bra's, at least at work. First day, it felt really strange, and I was constantly hiding somewhere and adjusting it. Second day, similar, though I was able to fight the urge to adjust it. Third day, that's today, it felt perfectly natural and I hardly noticed I was wearing it unless I thought about it. I have a feeling the bra is going to eventually go the way of the wrist watch for me, and I'll never feel fully dressed unless I'm wearing one.
I do have to make an admission though, with the noreaster hanging in the region, I would normally go into a deep depression. Constant cloud and drizzle tends to do that to me, so yeah, I have SAD. As a preventative, on Monday, I doubled my Chasteberry dose... boy does it make me feel good. I'm concerned what effect this might have on me long-term, so I'll be going back down when the noreaster leaves the region.
I still have to warn you, my experiences are in no way indicative of what anyone else might experience. In fact, according to Amyzing from #gabyzone, according to her doctor, my experiences with progestins is quite unusual.
Please, do NOT try to do anything with HHM without at least consulting a medical professional if at all possible. Preferably, just don't do it. It's still a very untried territory.
Comments
Skinny @*!*#
Congrats you skinny Bitch. Enjoy!! I Pray you get what you want and become Who you are :)
James
Well...
I am a non-gender, really. While I don't feel a pressing need to be female, I don't feel a pressing need to be male either. I do things that would be considered masculine without much thought, and I do things that would be considered feminine, again, without much thought.
My feminizing is a consequence of diet and the interaction of herbals I am taking for other reasons that are having the side-effect of changing my hormonal balance to one more closely in line with that of a female than a male.
How strong of an interaction it will all have is sort of an experiment... with me as both the guinea pig and the mad scientist.
All of this and more has been covered in previous of my blog entries.
Abigail Drew.
oh and...
While I lost waist circumference, I gained equal hip circumference. I just weighed myself to be sure, and my overall weight has not changed, it's still 151 lbs. On a 5'5" frame, that's a bit heavy for a "girl". It's probably not too shabby on me though. I do kinda wanna push for 140 though.
Abigail Drew.
another bit about this...
When I first started working for the apt complex on grounds, they had given me 5 Men's XL uniform t-shirts. At the time, I wore a large, and while the shirt was a little baggy on me, it didn't look too bad.
Now, the effect is rather reminiscent of a girl wearing her boyfriends shirt, complete with barely-there-but-you-can-tell nubs of my boobs. I doubt when I have it on that anyone'll think much of them, after all, plenty of obese men with boobs these days... the only odd bit with me is that I'm skinny.
My medium shirts from pre-depression are now slightly baggy... I know for certain I now fit quite well in small undershirts, so I imagine small regular shirts would be a better fit as well.
I'm hoping to be able to keep outwardly dressing male. This is what society dictates that I am, and I don't really want to have to explain to anyone what's going on. Shoot, I'm mostly convinced that when the boobs get big enough to become nigh prominent, my parents will go ballistic and insist on taking me to a doctor to get the "problem" "corrected". Not sure how I'll deal with that.
While I'm not overly obsessed with the idea of having boobs, I don't want to have a doctor cut em off either. My parents obviously can't force me to do anything with them, but they can definitely put on the pressure, especially since I still live with them. They've already threatened to kick me out thinking it'd get me out of various of my depressions, which it didn't, though I dug myself out shortly after on my own each time, and did something along the lines of their requests to keep them appeased. Even though I'm working, dad is leaving things be, but mom is still harping at me to get back to school and how she works 2 jobs and keeps up yadda yadda, and so I should be able to work and go to school full time and yadda yadda.
After I get some debts from my previous school failure paid off, I do intend to leave the apt complex, or at least try to negotiate going down to part time, and then studying at my own pace, on my own, no school and government-stipulated minimum credits to keep my grant and loan money coming in, no moving to an apt with room-mates I won't be likely to get along with. Just me, and my computer, and books.
This would further delay me getting out on my own by at least probably a coupla years.
Maybe one of my more open-minded siblings would take me in if I do get kicked out.
Abigail Drew.
Sensitive parts
My boobs are quite sensitive as well, but I don't want to wear a bra while in man mode because the straps are likely to show through - say, if you're bending forward picking something up off the floor.
What I wear are female T-shirts with Lycra in them. In my case, I wear long-sleeved ones since the pressure from the material helps control the feelings from the incredibly-sensitive skin on my arms, but I'm sure that short-sleeved ones can be had as well. In the UK, I get these from Primark at about £3 a throw.
In the summer, I can also wear camisoles with spaghetti straps under T-shirts, or when I'm in female mode. I found some good ones in H&M at £4 each. These also have Lycra in them.
Most women's tops are too short for me, as I'm fairly tall (even though I have a stupid high waist). The garments mentioned above are long enough that they fit me comfortably and well over the hips, and in fact when in female mode I don't need a slip when wearing them, as they cover my bum.
Of course, what I've mentioned above is enough to hold in the 'girls' while they are quite small. Once they get beyond a certain size you'll need proper support, but by then you'll probably have to make the switch anyway, just to get clothes that fit properly.
Penny
my own solution...
Probably won't work forever, but I'm wearing tight undershirts over tube top bandeau style bras. They have optional clip-on straps that I'm not using.
I can set the top of the bandeau right at the neckline of my undershirt and it looks like it's all of a part unless someone looks closely. And come on, while I'm constantly bustling about at work, who's going to stop me and look closely at what I'm wearing under my work uniform?
I'm also not AS worried about it at work. OK, so sure, I'm not sure about my co-workers. LGBT came up the other day because one of my co-workers wants to take me downtown to a hooker bar for my birthday, (which is coming up this month), and when I declined, another co-worker was like "please don't tell me you're Gay" in a voice that clearly illustrated his opinion of gay people. When pressed, he claimed it didn't bother him, but yeah... He also didn't believe me when I talked academically about just because someone appears male but isn't interested in girls doesn't automatically mean he's gay, and talked about both transgenderism and asexuality. To his mind, you're either hetero, or you're not. And not being hetero is a very bad thing to his mind.
This same co-worker (the anti-gay one, which is not the one who wants to take me to a hooker bar) also noticed the first time I tried wearing a bra at work, but hadn't quite figured out the hiding it with an undershirt trick... His reaction then scared me enough that it took quite a bit of self-encouragement to try again, even with the nipple chafing.
Abigail Drew.