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I was a muscular WWE star and lost all my muscle mass when I
transitioned. Here's how I transformed my body.
Gabbi Tuft
2.2k
Updated Sat, January 13, 2024, 9:29 PM GMT+2 · 5 min read

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I was a muscular WWE star and lost all my muscle mass when I transitioned. Here's how I
transformed my body.

Gabbi Tuft before and after transitioning.Courtesy of Gabbi Tuft

When I was a WWE star, I had a lot of muscle mass, but I wanted to lose it
all when I transitioned.

I had to stop resistance training and start my version of the keto diet.

My biggest motivation was understanding my "why" — why I wanted to

transform my body.

When I was a male WWE wrestler, I weighed 280 pounds, and my body fat was
between 6% and 8%. Now, as a female fitness coach, I weigh 187 pounds, and
my body fat is about 18%.

Sculpting my body to fit my mental self-image has been extremely difficult.

Since there was no reliable guidance on how to lose muscle mass as a trans
person, I needed to figure this out myself. Ultimately, I succeeded, but it was
not an easy journey.

The challenge of shedding muscle

I learned that taking feminizing hormones does not make you lose muscle
mass; estrogen does a phenomenal job of retaining it. So, while taking
estrogen did lead to small changes — such as softening my skin and shifting
the fat deposits under my eyes — it did not drastically decrease my muscle
mass.

Early in my transition, I asked everyone I could — from trainers to competitive

bodybuilding coaches — for advice on how to lose muscle mass. They all said
the same thing: lift lighter weights and do more repetitions. They believed I
still needed to activate the muscles to make them smaller.

I followed this advice, doing lightweight high-rep sessions and cardio. As a

result, I lost fat and became lean, but I wasn't losing significant muscle mass,
which was incredibly frustrating.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and studied muscle atrophy.

To lose muscle, I had to stop resistance training

At the time, there were no studies on how transgender women could trigger
muscle atrophy. The only research I could find was geared toward preventing
muscle atrophy, so I had to consider the studies' conclusions with an eye on
my own goals.

According to the studies, patients on full bed rest lose significantly more
muscle than those on partial bed rest. Even if patients only get up to use the
restroom and shower, they maintain far more muscle mass than those on full
bed rest.

While this research didn't directly apply to my situation, it inspired me to stop

doing resistance training and hope that removing tension would create muscle
atrophy. To speed up the muscle reduction in my upper body, I stopped doing
resistance training for my lower body. Even using a machine for hamstrings
makes you tense your hands and arms as you grip the bar, so I stopped lifting
weights and doing resistance training altogether. To keep my lower body in
shape, I turned to bodyweight workouts, which worked well.

While this was a good start, my body truly started to transform when I
discovered a way to force my body to use muscle as its energy source.

Then I had to start burning off muscle mass

I needed to deprive my body of all other fuel sources to burn muscle mass.
The first place our bodies usually turn for fuel is glucose in the bloodstream,
which comes from the carbohydrates and sugars we eat. If it doesn't have any
of this, it turns to the glycogen stored in the liver. If that energy is depleted,
the body will create ketones, turning fat into energy. When every other fuel
source is gone and specific conditions are met, the body will start turning
muscle into glucose for fuel.

To deprive my body of glucose, I followed my version of a keto diet that

mostly used proteins and healthy fats. The only carbohydrates I ate were
those with high amounts of dietary fiber, such as cruciferous vegetables. I also
put myself into a calorie deficit and began intermittent fasting. This meant my
body ran entirely off of ketones, the chemicals produced when the body
begins to break down its backup energy sources — fat and muscle.

To make my body burn muscle, I did cardio on the treadmill for a minimum of
an hour daily. I would walk on an incline, holding my heart rate between 150
and 160 beats per minute. Some days, I would do this workout twice. This was
difficult and required extreme determination, but it forced my body to
convert muscle to glucose and use it as fuel.

Muscle mass started to peel away quickly once I started taking this approach.
It was incredible to watch. When I started transitioning, I wore a size 14 to 16
in pants — now I'm a 10 or smaller. I used to wear size XXL or XXXL women's
tops; now, I wear larges and mediums.

I had to understand my deepest 'why'

Losing muscle mass has been one of the most challenging parts of my
transition. To embody the feminine shape I desired, I needed to let go of that
part of myself.

The key to my success has been connecting with my deepest "why." This is the
deep emotion that was my source of motivation.

Whatever your goals are, the critical question isn't how to achieve them — it's
why you want to achieve them. Understanding your own deepest "why" will get
you across the finish line. It's what helped me in my journey.

Gabbi Tuft is an online personal fitness and nutrition coach. She has coached
over 1,500 clients to success over the past 13 years. She specializes in helping
women break cyclical behavioral patterns for long-lasting, sustainable weight
loss and physique changes. For more information, visit www.coachgabbi.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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