The quick answer

PARADIGM 1: Your ideal male weight minus 2 or 3 kilos.

PARADIGM 2: Or… Until everything is perfectly flat and tight.

SAFETY NET: Apart from your Mum, anyone that tells you you look too skinny is usually right. Therefore, if you start looking like a junkie and people tell you you’re too skinny, pay attention!

link: Omni ideal weight calculator (use the Peterson formula!)

link: British NHS BMI calculator

The long answer

The first assignment on True Feminization is to control your diet, initiate a regimen of exercise and reach your ideal weight.

But what is that ideal weight if you’re a biological male intending to live according to your true gender: female.

This question caused a debate in our virtual office and as I’m the only trans girl in said office, Elle has charged me with explaining our conclusion.

The dilemma

On one hand, transgirls have the body of a biological male, but on the other we are engaged in a process of feminizing our bodies.

Obviously, for reasons of self esteem, bodily aesthetics, and wardrobe choices… we want to be well under the ideal weight for a biological male our size.

However, we don’t want to start making ourselves medically underweight with grueling diets that attempt a female weight that is ultimately impossible.

So how do we balance these conflicting needs and what’s the first question we need to resolve?

Question 1: Should I use the Male or the Female weight calculator?

The male calculator…

…with modifications.

Why?

Because  we have baseline male bodies (sickening as it is…to say those words).

This means we have more muscle mass and heavier bones. And while we can reduce some of that muscle mass, we still have heavier bodies than biological women.

Some transwomen call it a myth that bio-men have heavier bones. They say the foundation of the myth is a fiction that males have greater bone density. But while this is indeed a myth, the greater weight never came from bone density… but from biological males’ bigger bones and bigger skeletons.

Biologically male bodies weigh more. Fact. (link: Gender differences in volumetric bone density)

Therefore, any attempt to reach the ideal female weight could put a biologically male body at a point that’s medically underweight. And as being underweight can cause health problems (compromised immune system, fragile bones and fatigue,) you should not attempt this target.

Also, given the difficulty of losing weight and maintaining that weight (and its effect on self esteem) you’re setting yourself up for disappointment with a brutally ideal target of female weight. Keeping up with the Kardashians is not good for your mental health.

How much muscle mass does a transgender women lose on hormone therapy?

In a study conducted by the British Medical Journal, researchers concluded that while estrogen decreases strength, size of muscles and lean body mass, all three remain higher in transgender women than in biological women. And this was even true in women on hormones for three years.

A study in  The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, states that in literal, physical size, hormone therapy reduced subjects’ muscle mass by 5%. (Anecdotally, though, I think I lost much more than 5% of my muscle mass.)

However, in terms of our central question, it’s not so relevant because most of the students on Elle’s program are pre-transition, and even if you take hormones, what you lose in muscle you’ll almost certainly gain in fat on your hips and ass.

Therefore, don’t start complicating your brain with this question when working out your ideal weight.

So how do I modify the ideal male weight?

Once you’ve worked out your ideal weight for a biological male, you then modify it because, as stated above, you don’t want the ideal weight of a guy… you wanna be a skinny bitch.

Therefore, you knock off some weight and go below your ideal weight.

But how much below?

Common sense dictates a simple answer: as many kilos as you can manage without reaching a weight that’s medically unhealthy.

How do you define a medically unhealthy weight?

The British national health service defines this as a BMI of 18.5.

However, if you’re terrible at Maths and generally a bit thick (as I am) then you really don’t understand the system of BMI.

In which case the solution is simple: start your diet, and leave it to your doctor or nurse to decide if you’re underweight.

Nobody should go for more than 6 months without a visit to their doctor. therefore, you ask your doctor to weigh you and evaluate if you are under weight. In the interim, you can also ask people you trust to tell you if they think you’re too skinny.

Conclusion

I leave you with my quick answer at the beginning.

PARADIGM 1: Your ideal male weight minus 2 or 3 kilos.

PARADIGM 2: Or… Until everything is perfectly flat and tight.

SAFETY NET: Apart from your Mum, anyone that tells you you look too skinny is usually right. Therefore, if you start looking like a junkie and people tell you you’re too skinny, start eating pasta and drinking beer and gain a couple of kilos. Or better… see a doctor.

link: Omni ideal weight calculator (use the Peterson formula)

Link: British NHS BMI calculator