gettin better

Had a pretty heavy workout after almost a month away from the gym. My new job has me walking miles every day yet I seem to have gained a few pounds back. I want to get back where I was when I was in school, going in at least twice a week if not more. I miss working out, it felt good. Reconciliation is not a one way street. It is up hill and constant. I’m almost 9 weeks on testosterone, and I’m 24 now. I hope you’re doing well

6 weeks on boy syrup, feelin more and more comfortable in my big body every day

3 weeks on that good good boy syrup Had a pretty intense workout yesterday, little bit of everything. I’m hoping I can get back into the groove of dividing focus areas for my workouts once I get the hang of some new exercises. My chest is developing well, and my muscles feel denser. Not sure if that’s from the training or the testosterone. It feels weird to be coming up on my one year for body reconciliation. Progress is a tricky thing. Forwards and backwards. Keep going, you know?

a touchstone vocal comparison, this was two days after my first testosterone injection. I want to record the same bit in intervals as my voice changes to track my progress. This is the first few lines from Andrea Gibson's "I Sing The Body Electric, Especially When My Power's Out"

I made this tumblr a couple years ago and started posting on it last June. When I first made it, I think it was more along the lines of wishful thinking- as if the existence of this kind of outlet would make me more likely to look after my health. I've kept it secret from friends, people who know me in person, because I didn't want to feel like I owed my fitness progress to anyone but myself. I didn't want to feel the pressure from folks around me, even if it was encouraging. I wanted to make sure that doing this, changing my lifestyle, was what I truly wanted to do, and I wanted to do it at my own pace. I've been working out consistently since June of 2017. I started because my doctor told me that losing weight would mean less health risks when I started testosterone. Today, I'm getting a letter from my therapist. On Wednesday, hopefully, I'll have my first injection. Since June, I've lost around 40 pounds. I've learned more about my body than I've ever known before, mostly because I used to regularly dissociate away from being present in my body. I think the main reason I've been more successful at getting healthier this time around is because i was absolutely opposed to doing any of the work out of hate. I spent a lot of time hating my body, I think we all kind of do, probably because we're groomed for it. But doing something, changing your body because you hate your body is not a sustainable way to health and happiness. You have to do it out of appreciation, out of love. This can be especially hard when you're transgender. So much of us is bound to our bodies and what we think our bodies need to be. I think this reconciliation with my body has not only helped me reimagine my transness, but I think it's made me more comfortable with my particular ambiguous masculinity. Of not being defined as one or the other, of letting myself breathe in this body after years of suffocating. I also think that especially for fat transfolks, it can be incredibly isolating to see a limited representation of thin transpeople. I'm fat, I've been fat all my life and doing the things transmasculine folks do is hard when you're fat. It becomes as much of an identity marker because you realize the world wasn't made to fit people like you. I can say now, with wholehearted honesty, I love my body. All of its curves, rolls, muscle. It only wants the best for me, and so I do what I can to help.

I can feel my progress the most when I see how clothes fit. This outfit used to be pretty form fitting, now it's baggy as all hell.

February (left) to this past Saturday. I'm down to 291lb. I never thought I'd get this far