I’ve never particularly hated my male body, at least until recently when the body dysphoria kicked up. But I wasn’t particularly at home in it either. Mostly I just thought of it as a meat sack to haul my brain around. Is that one reason I let it get out of shape? Probably.

But something shifted a week ago.

Part of it may be the surgical consult I’d done a few days earlier. While the surgeon wasn’t too sales-y about procedures, he did try to talk me into signing up for a medically-developed skin care program as a medically-supervised weight program. The thing was, I didn’t disagree on his critique — I don’t like the huge pores I have on my nose, and losing weight would help reduce my jowls.

Part of it may be that, while I’m not entirely at home in my body, and in fact looking to actively do some renovations, I now seem to actually care about my body, and I want to get it into better shape.

In the past, whenever I got the urge to exercise, I lay down quietly until it pasted. But for the last week I’ve gone out and walked 45 minutes a day. More importantly, it’s not something I feel I need to do, it’s something I want to do. Likewise with changing my eating habits. Would I like to lose 20 pounds? Definitely. But I’m looking at it more as focusing on doing the things that may make it possible to lose 20 pounds — eat better, eat a little less, exercise more — and that’s the important thing. Any actual weight loss will be bonus.

The detente I’ve had with my body may be thawing.