Hey guys, so i just started my journey as figuring out who i am. I am not on T, but i have short hair, i bind, i dress masculine and i never liked my female body. Now i wanna start working out again cuz i am finally able to again. For the info im in my early twenties, i am 5"3 and weight about 123ibs. even though i'm on a healthy weight i gained 11ibs in a year and my body has become more female like my thighs got bigger and my stomach is bloaded. I always wanted bigger arms and wider shoulders. Does anyone have like a working out schedule i can do to achieve this? if not, any other tips? i really wish for a more masculine build and i'm not mentally ready to start T. PS: I'm talking about work out that i can do in the gym with the equipment they have there.

I don't understand the "it gets easier" crowd.

I've been consistently working out for 3ish years now and I still absolutely hate it.

I do 30 minutes of cardio (usually on the treadmill) and 30 minutes of strength training 3 times a week.

The strength training isn't so bad, but I can't stand the cardio. No matter how long its been, I just hate it. I feel tired from the cardio despite being at the same treadmill setting for almost a year. It feels like my body is going to give out any second.

But I'm always told by others how much they love working out and how easy it gets after a while.

I hate working out. I hate it so much. I like the results, but they've been at a stand still for a year (recently switched from strength training to just tryna build even more muscle so we'll see how that goes).

Does anyone else share this feeling? Not understanding why people like working out or absolutely hating the process?

I've always wanted to build strength. I have POTS and have been pretty bedbound for the past few years, but seated/reclined strength exercises seem like something I could do pretty consistently now that I'm living somewhere with a home gym set up (with dumbbells, barbells, a bench, etc.).

However, every time I try to find information, they are either FAR too advanced for my strength and knowledge level (like the "basic" one linked in this sub's wiki) or are targeted towards people not trying to build muscle and/or a female audience, and so are entirely body-weight or using resistance bands.

It's silly - I know logically that resistance-band/body weight exercises will build far more muscle than the nothing I am currently doing!! But every time I actually try follow one, I just feel really dysphoric and miserable the whole time, which is making it an enormous battle every time I try to exercise.

The one thing I have been able to do consistently is wall and incline pushups, because they don't make me feel dysphoric. What really helped there was finding resources targeted towards people working towards lifting weights. And again, it's silly, but the fact that there were men demonstrating wall pushups as well as women really helped me not feel dysphoric about the fact that I can't currently do regular pushups.

Would love some advice (either on where to find exercises I can do that don't make me feel dysphoric, or on how to deal with the dysphoria)

I encounter a strange problem at the gym and wanted to know if it was just me😅 My fat distribution and musculature almost forms a sort of divot in my lower back running along my spine. This spot forms a pocket of air when I support my back on something (ie: hack squat) and when I brace my core and straighten my back, said air releases and sounds like an armpit fart. It’s muted a little by my shirt, but everyone at my gym probably thinks I’m constantly ripping fat ones. Is it just me?

Welcome to this week's Daily Simple Questions Thread!
Use this thread to ask simple or beginner-level questions about training, nutrition, recovery, and transition-related fitness topics.

Before posting, check our Wiki and Tips & Tricks section.

Example topics:
• “Should I cut or bulk?”
• “How to start lifting?”
• “How to work out safely after top surgery?”

Be respectful and helpful — we're all here to learn and grow!

Welcome to the Weekly Fitness Wins Thread!
Share your victories — big or small — and celebrate your progress with the community.

You can post about:
• Personal records (PRs)
• Visible progress or recomposition
• Mental health wins
• Training consistency and milestones

Keep comments supportive and positive.
We're proud of every win, no matter how small.

hi all!

so my question isn’t necessarily trans related, but i don’t like to post in other fitness communities.

i’m looking for advice on diet and nutrition as someone who

a) is an incredibly picky eater

b) is broke and scared to spend a large amount of money on groceries at once out of fear that i won’t have enough money to pay rent each month

for context, i am 23 and i’ve been on t for 1 year and 9 months. i’ve been a chubbier guy for my entire life except during covid i started working out and dieting a lot more and ended up losing about 60lbs. i’ve struggling with emotional eating and binging my entire life, and when i lost the weight, i didn’t do it in the healthiest way if im being honest.

about 3 years ago i slowly started gaining the weight back. i was dating this girl who could eat literally anything she wanted and who never worked out. i had been struggling with the mindset of being scared of food, so i was just trying to heal my relationship with food while in this relationship, but i fell back into binge eating because of it. on top of this, it was a very codependent relationship and she didn’t like the gym - she didn’t want to go to the gym and i didn’t want to be away from her. therefore i never went to the gym. (i’m not blaming any of this on her, to be clear)

fast forward a year and a half, we break up and i have gained about 40 of the 60lbs that i lost back while in that relationship. it’s been a year and a half since then and i haven’t gained anything back, but i haven’t lost any weight either. my appetite has definitely increased since starting t, but not an insane amount and Some of my weight gain is muscle (most of it isn’t, but some) and i don’t want to lose a bunch of weight again, i mainly want to grow muscle.

i am now in a new relationship with a girl who has similar issues to me with her relationship with food and we both want to eat healthier, but we’re both so broke and scared of spending large amounts of money at once on groceries. so what do we do instead? we buy enough groceries for a couple of days and when those couple of days are up, we just end up getting takeout from somewhere, rinse and repeat.

i feel like i’m the one that’s more motivated to try and eat healthier even though i know she wants to too. we feed off of each other with our habits, so i feel like if i take action first and am cooking for us, it will get the ball rolling and she’ll also want to do the same. but the main challenges are still at play:

i have been between jobs and just started another full time job this past week and i am barely going to be able to pay rent next month with the paycheck im going to get before then.

i’m insanely picky and she’s not. my go-to healthier meals are pretty much the same 3 meals over and over again which i don’t mind, but she will after awhile.

sorry this was so long and not entirely trans related, but im just hoping for some general advice or discussion if anyone has been through something similar.

Bit of a stupid question, bc I think I might already know the answer to it.

I’ve been working out consistently for a bit over 6 months. I focus quite a lot of back muscles, specially bc I have scoliosis, so bc of that my back has grown quite a bit (despite being pre-T). Anyways, I’ve recently noticed that I’ve been finding wearing my current binder much more uncomfortable than before. My chest and back start hurting much faster, but specially I’ve been finding it a bit harder to breath with it on (so ofc not a good sign). Bc of that I’m thinking of getting myself a new binder, that’s a size up (I currently wear an S one, so I’d get an M). My only thing is that my chest size didn’t change (specially I didn’t manage to gain much pictorial muscles yet), so I fear that if I get a size up, it will look weirdly loose in the front.

All in all, my question is, should I buy a size up now that my back has become larger?

I have listened to so many peoples advice. I have done what the trainer has told me to do but I just can't feel my pecs when it comes to chest exorcises....I feel as though I'm going to be stuck with a concaved pec area forever....

Welcome to this week's Daily Simple Questions Thread!
Use this thread to ask simple or beginner-level questions about training, nutrition, recovery, and transition-related fitness topics.

Before posting, check our Wiki and Tips & Tricks section.

Example topics:
• “Should I cut or bulk?”
• “How to start lifting?”
• “How to work out safely after top surgery?”

Be respectful and helpful — we're all here to learn and grow!

I’ve been on T for 6 years
Started with gel and 3 out of those 6 is with shots.

I’ve always had chronic pain but noticed my body is significantly more tight when I go to the gym. My muscles want to enlarge but my tendons and ligaments seem to suffer simultaneous, sitting me out the gym when I need to recover.

I’m wondering what people’s gym workouts look like. How hard you go or how long you go?
And what peoples diets tend to look like?

Hello friends.

I've never been a gym person, and I have a lot of things to consider, but I was told by multiple doctors that I must start going. So here are a few things I'm dealing with:

1. I'm 2 months post top surgery and wanna start without my chest and arms, then include them (physio therapist says at the 3 months point, but idk I'm anxious about scar stretching)

2. I have hypermobility and fibromyalgia that mainly affect my hips and lower back + possible connective tissue disorder

3. I have no idea about the gym but my doctor said to do machines only.

4. My goal is to build strength and possibly lose a bit of weight

Can someone tell me the names of machines for what uses.

And if someone can help me put them into a little 3 day plan or so

I'm going in blind bc I've mainly done home workouts before, and I'm too autistic to go without a plan, so I've been procrastinating.

Hi all, just wondering if anyone else is competing in the iatbp competition in Atlanta this year. Would love to connect in advance and chat! Please reach out if so.

Copying from other subreddits sorry if you see this twice lol

Decided to finally lock in on working out. I'm sick of feeling so small. Got a gym membership last week but honestly I've just been fucking around. Just picked up some weights and tried a bunch of machines to find ones that were fun but I feel like I'm maybe doing something wrong. You can probably tell I mainly want to build out my upper body, especially my forearms biceps and chest. Here's everything I did today (weight in kg x reps x sets):

Dumbbells / bar
incline chest fly - 5x8x3
bench press - 10x10x3
curls - 5x10x3
hammer curls - 5x10x2
tricep extensions - 5x8x3
reverse curls - 5x8x3
Wrist curls+reverse wrist curls - 5xuntil failurex2

Machines
tricep press - 20x10x3
row - 20x10x3
pulldown - 20x8x3
tricep pushdown - 11.25x8x3
chest press - 20x8x3 (failed last 2)
dual pulley row - 9.5x10x3

Should I split it into two different days ? If so what should I do when? Are these even good exercises for what I want? What should I add/change/remove?

So I’m 19 ftm and I’ve been on T for about 6 months now. I’m about 5’8 and around 180 lbs. I don’t know anything about dieting or really going to the gym at all. I would like to lose at least 30-40 lbs while building muscle. Any advice would really be helpful. I don’t have a large income to buy food from the grocery store as I live with my mother and we are on a fixed income. Any advice would really be appreciated on how to lose weight

Welcome to this week's Daily Simple Questions Thread!
Use this thread to ask simple or beginner-level questions about training, nutrition, recovery, and transition-related fitness topics.

Before posting, check our Wiki and Tips & Tricks section.

Example topics:
• “Should I cut or bulk?”
• “How to start lifting?”
• “How to work out safely after top surgery?”

Be respectful and helpful — we're all here to learn and grow!

I’ve been curious about what muscle groups are most important for being able to lift and carry another person, whether it’s bridal style or over your shoulder. I want to work towards picking up someone special in my life, but I’ve never attempted to pick someone up before.

I've been told that losing weight is reccommended ahead of top surgery. I gained maybe an extra ten pounds after starting T, and it has made me almost feel sort of okay some days with looking more like a sort of chubby guy than looking like a stereotypical hourglass shape. I'm extremely anxious about the fear that trying to lose weight is just going put me back where I was before, and make binding to hide the shape more difficult and painful.

I already struggle with exercise and stuff like that because of the size of my chest, and the fact that there's no comfortable solution- binding makes it feel hard to breathe during working out, but if I wear a less constrictive sports bra I have to deal with horrible dysphoria. Workouts also make everything about my chest harder to ignore because of the movement and the way it gets in the way and the back pain.

I just don't know what to do. I was hoping I could finally get more exercise after top surgery but now it sounds like I need to start now, in this awful mental state, with the constant back pain.

Welcome to this week's Daily Simple Questions Thread!
Use this thread to ask simple or beginner-level questions about training, nutrition, recovery, and transition-related fitness topics.

Before posting, check our Wiki and Tips & Tricks section.

Example topics:
• “Should I cut or bulk?”
• “How to start lifting?”
• “How to work out safely after top surgery?”

Be respectful and helpful — we're all here to learn and grow!

So I know the obvious answer is to use tape but I'm still figuring out to use it correctly (last time I used it it just looked like i wasnt wearing a bra). I know not to work out in a binder.

Right now I've just used sports bras but I'm starting to pass more.

I know Spectrum says you can size up their binders or use their light binder but I don't know how well either work.

My goal isn't to be completely flat, in a perfect world they just look less "clocky"

So I'm just under 7 weeks post top surgery. Pretty much since the moment I hit the 6 week mark I've been doing a bit of strength training in the morning with 5kg dumbbells. I've been interested in powerlifting for a while since my goal is to obtain a bear-ish physique and I've heard that's good for it (I've considered and looked into PHAT recently as well, I'm still mostly undecided about which one to go with though – I'm open to advice from people who have tried either and seen results). Obviously the whole point of powerlifting is to build heavy, and you're not supposed to lift super heavy until the 3m post op mark. If anyone can weigh in on how I can get started as both a beginner and with my restrictions, or if there are any better options than powerlifting, it'd be really appreciated.

So I hate to be like, my dick is too big, but like, yeah I wear pretty thin gym shorts and my little guy is often looking a bit inappropriate when I lay down to bench.

Can someone recommend some kind of boxer shorts that vacuum packs your cock into your body but aren’t too tight on the hips? Want to stop my little man from moving around but don’t want to get the muffin top effect from real tight pants.

Cheers!

Welcome to this week's Daily Simple Questions Thread!
Use this thread to ask simple or beginner-level questions about training, nutrition, recovery, and transition-related fitness topics.

Before posting, check our Wiki and Tips & Tricks section.

Example topics:
• “Should I cut or bulk?”
• “How to start lifting?”
• “How to work out safely after top surgery?”

Be respectful and helpful — we're all here to learn and grow!

Welcome to this week's Daily Simple Questions Thread!
Use this thread to ask simple or beginner-level questions about training, nutrition, recovery, and transition-related fitness topics.

Before posting, check our Wiki and Tips & Tricks section.

Example topics:
• “Should I cut or bulk?”
• “How to start lifting?”
• “How to work out safely after top surgery?”

Be respectful and helpful — we're all here to learn and grow!