I want to suggest a very practical tip in your healing from crossdressing addiction. Simply put, I suggest you take time to exercise, get in shape, and lift weights. It has been really helpful for me to lift weights and do pushups and other exercises that tone and beef up my muscles. I only do about 20 minutes 3 times a week, so I’m not exactly becoming a champion weightlifter. But just this little bit of exercise, in addition to jogging, has helped me to feel more manly and has helped me in my fight against crossdressing. Let me explain.

On the one hand, being a male instead of a female doesn’t necessarily mean you will be physically strong. There are plenty of weak men and plenty of strong women. But on the other hand, it is a true biological reality that generally men are physically stronger than women. It is how our bodies naturally are. Some women are very strong because they work hard to be. Yet, even men who don’t work out at all and only sit at a desk all day may be physically stronger than some of these hard-working women just because of their natural biology. It seems unfair to women in a way, but it is just the way God made us. Each sex is biologically different, with their own advantages and disadvantages. And the biological differences are nothing to be ashamed of.

Since a muscular look, especially in the upper body and arms, is mostly a masculine look, it has helped me a lot to tone these muscles and increase very slightly in muscle mass. It has made me feel more masculine. I know we have to be a bit careful about gender stereotypes. We don’t want to shame men who are not physically strong, as I felt shamed when growing up. At the same time, for us who are tempted to run away from our true sex, building some muscle strength helps us to appear more like men and less like women. I don’t obsess about this. I don’t feel bad about myself when I don’t live up to the muscles of action heroes like James Bond, or the lifeguards on Baywatch. But I do appreciate being healthier. I do appreciate looking in the mirror and seeing myself as a strong man.

In past history, this wouldn’t have been much of an issue, but in our culture today where we don’t do much hard physical work, we need to exercise and lift weights in order to get our muscles into healthy shape.

Exercising and lifting weights has helped me fight crossdressing in two ways. 1. It helps me to feel more like a man and appreciate my body as a man more. I look in the mirror and appreciate what I see, rather than disdaining what I see and wanting to crossdress in order to be attractive. I see masculine beauty in myself rather than feminine beauty. It has helped me to live into my identity as a man more, rather than wanting to be a woman. It also is really nice when your girlfriend or wife notices your new muscles and reduction in your belly, and finds you more physically attractive!

2. It helps me to resist crossdressing temptations. The more I lift weights and increase my muscle mass, the harder it would be to fit into small female clothes. The more I get muscular and look manly, the less feminine I would look and the less convincing I would look while crossdressed. In the past years, temptations to crossdress have vastly diminished for many reasons. But one reason is that I know crossdressing would not be as pleasurable because I know that I would look less convincingly female.

Some critics may scoff at this strategy of lifting weights and increasing muscle mass. They might think it’s wrong somehow because women can be strong too. But I know this works, because it has worked for me and for friends of mine. And I’ve read enough other crossdressing blogs and websites and testimonies to know that many crossdressers are trying to eat much less than they normally would, and even trying to lose muscle mass, in order to look more like a woman. So I know this issue of muscle mass makes a real difference in how we look at ourselves. Every person should try to have a healthy and strong body. But ex-crossdressers in particular, if they want to fight their addiction, should at least put in a little bit of effort to make their bodies look more healthy and masculine. We each have a body-type that we were born with and can only change so much, so we should not obsess about being super strong, but we can at least exercise, lift a little weight, and become physically healthy.