Closing out 2019 on a good note

My weight has been an ongoing battle over the last couple of years, but this year has had some good news on the bod front.

If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen several celebrations as I got nice lower numbers from my scale. For years in my teens and twenties I weighed in around 150 lbs., and I considered 200 lbs. to be a red line I did NOT want to cross even as it got harder to keep my weight down once I hit my 30’s. As I started 2017 I was logging my weight as part of my weekly measurements to track how my body changed with hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I’m not nearly as active as I used to be so my weight kept heading upward. Granted, that’s kind of a good thing as my body started filling out and getting feminized, but I still disliked my weight getting too high.

You can imagine my displeasure as I started 2019 at close to 235 lbs. My favorite clothes didn’t fit anymore, and I simply hated being so heavy after spending so much time in the 150s. I knew that between my metabolism changing and my HRT I’ll probably never be in the 150s again but I hoped to get back to around 185. Over the last year, I realized 185 was too big a goal to reach for at once so I set interim goals of 200 and 215 lbs.

For some reason, I tweeted that I had hit 215 lbs on 13 December but forgot to write about it here. I no longer take my weekly measurements since I’ve reached a plateau in my changes, although I do log my weight every Sunday as I log my blood sugar and blood pressure at my doctor’s suggestion. I also try to step on the scale twice a day to try to catch when I eat too much to try and get rid of it the next day, and I smiled yesterday morning when I logged 216 yesterday. I figured I might log my measurements either today or tomorrow to get the end of the year readings, depending on what my scale showed in the mornings.

Today I was so amazed when I stepped on my scale I immediately moved my laptop into the bedroom so I could log the measurements before I had a chance to forget to do it as I started my day. (It’s been known to happen.) The magic number from the scale? 214.6, a number I hadn’t seen in over two years.

I grabbed a summary of how my body changed over the course of 2019 for my trans sisters. I’ve been on HRT for over 3 years and it’s been slow going, but I’m sharing this year’s numbers to show that you should be patient. The changes are coming. All numbers are in inches.

Overall I’ve added 3.25 inches to my bust over the past 3-and-a-half years, almost an inch and a quarter to my hips and an inch to my bum. I only added an inch to my waist over that time and I’d prefer more in my hips and bum but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

I hope everyone has a fantabulous start to their 2020, and may your new year be at least a sight better than 2019 was. Goddess knows that for all the good news I’ve had there’s been a crapload of bad news too, but that’s just how the old cookie crumbes, eh?

Happy 2020! (from Bitmoji)

Success!

You may remember there were problems with my estradiol blood levels before my surgery in October, and to try to increase my estradiol absorption, and my endocrinologist moved me from an insulin syringe to a syringe with a larger, and longer, 23 gauge needle so I could inject it into muscle instead of into fat. (For some odd reason the needle gets bigger as the gauge increases, not the other way around as you’d expect.) There’s just one problem with it, though. The estradiol valerate I’m injecting is so thick it can’t get into the syringe easily through a 23 gauge needle. After looking at several things and consulting with my doctor, his nurse, and my pharmacist, we’ve changed me to an 18 gauge needle, and by Jove, we’ve got it! more “Success!”