I like to say I have been every body type.

And it’s kinda true! Here’s my go to reference point, August 2006 at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire (caution: a lot of these are pre-transition).

I call this look “Fat Gandalf”

I was therabouts of 290 pounds, got winded walking up a single flight of stairs, and didn't know squat protocol to save my life.

I also had unfettered access to french fries and Mountain Dew in college, so that plus what would turn out to be undiagnosed CPTSD and an uncracked egg might have contributed.

Over the course of 2007, I began controlling portion size and actually getting my ass moving, eventually joining a local gym when just jogging around my neighborhood wasn't enough.

Here’s a generic locker room bicep flex selfie from 2012! Lookit that sad bitch, even at 195 pounds with a decent jawline and a personal training certification, she has no idea what's coming for her.

Spring of 2014, 180 pounds, running 5k every morning (rain or shine), eating only a spinach strawberry smoothie for two meals a day and a straight spinach salad for lunch. Did I look good? Well, my ex-wife-to-be thought I looked good, so I pretended that was enough!

But undiagnosed body dysphoria is a fickle bitch, and divorce is a hell of a drug, so by 2018 I was back up to 280, but this time I could leg press over a thousand pounds.

Ignoring the choice of having a bleach blonde mohawk, but do you have any idea how long it took to rack (and re-rack) one thousand two hundred pounds of plates? Entirely too long.

Here she is again in late 2020, a few scant months before the egg cracked. 280, squatting (just) over 300, please don’t make me do cardio that’s not my bicycle (that part remains true, at least).

So flash forward six years, past thr awkward first few years of transitioning and figuring out how to dress and how to do my hair. 260 pounds, focused on functionality over sheer strength….and absolutely in love with my own cleavage.

Back at the PA Ren Faire, 20 years later. Fat and gay as hell. Sometimes, things get better. Even if you have to yo-yo your body shape through the gauntlet first.

So here’s me, in approximately the same spot as Fat Ganfalf, 20 years, two months, and four days later.