Tendency towards eating disorders in FTM's?

[gilligan]

I'll admit that I'm quite obese [5'4", 18 stone on a good day], but when I eat my concern is whether my chest will shrink if I lose weight. Don't get me wrong, I HATE being the fat dude in the room. But should I lose weight and my chest doesn't shrink, I will have an extremely hard time hiding my breasts - right now I'm able to bind and pass most of the time when I don't talk, but having a DD sized chest would definitely hinder my passing should I lose weight.

[Nikolai_S]

I have weird eating habits, but not an eating disorder. I had a bad appetite pre-T, I'd go some days without eating either because I forgot to or because it seemed like too much effort in exchange for not much reward. I always wanted to gain more weight, because I have such skinny arms and a small waist, and I felt feminine when I was so small (5'4 and barely more than 110 lbs for the past 2-3 years). Now I'm closer to 120 and feeling better about it. I love the feeling of having an appetite. I do however know an FTM who is probably bulimic, and is not even close to being overweight, despite what he says.

[Adio]

After I wrote this yesterday, I got severely dysphoric and had a major binge.  Gained 2 lbs.    It's so hard not to compare myself to others.  I know that these are tales of dangerous struggles, but frankly, I was/am jealous.  I see my therapist tomorrow, but I don't think any of this matters enough to talk about.  I don't meet the criteria of any eating disorder.  Do other "normal" people have these problems?  Am I just having an "average" person's weight struggles?

I'll admit that I'm quite obese [5'4", 18 stone on a good day], but when I eat my concern is whether my chest will shrink if I lose weight. Don't get me wrong, I HATE being the fat dude in the room. But should I lose weight and my chest doesn't shrink, I will have an extremely hard time hiding my breasts - right now I'm able to bind and pass most of the time when I don't talk, but having a DD sized chest would definitely hinder my passing should I lose weight.

I had/have this fear as well.  And as I've lost weight it's been a battle against losing more to be happy and keeping it on to hide my chest.  My chest has shrunk with both binding (about 6 or so years now) and through T.  I was a D cup before and now I guess I'm a flat C?  Not sure.  But I do think that my weight loss has made them stand out just a little more.  Hasn't been enough to discourage me from continuing to lose.

[Sharky]

I used to think I was developing anorexia. There were days where I wouldn't eat. There were days where if I ate over 800 calories I would feel really ->-bleeped-<-ty and go run on the treadmill for as long as I could. Eventually I got better with it and got down to my target weight with healthy diet and exercise. However my cup size didn't change at all and that really bothered me. Even though I think my face looks more masculine when I'm thinner, when I bind it looks better now that I've gained 30 pounds. Staying at 130, which is really low for me, was extremely difficult. I'm still happy at 160. Now I think the want to be thin came from wanting to prove to myself that I could do it, that I had control over my body even though I'm trans.

[Konnor]

I wouldn't call what I have a disorder, but I do have serious problems with my food intake. Most of the time I don't feel hungry, so I actually forget to eat, the same goes for drinking. I've been to hospital a few times for other things and been kept back with a drip in my arm, not allowed to leave because the doctors said I was dangerously dehydrated. I've spent years not eating breakfast or lunch, simply because I have no desire at all to eat, only to find that late at night I become hungry and start to eat everything I can. Dinner and a slow progression of munchies afterwards is all I eat each day 

Which of course has left me a little to the heavy side of what I'd like Also, whenever I get sick I can go days, or over a week without eating anything simply because I don't feel like it. Other times, if I go out in the morning and buy some junk food (I'm horribly addicted to all bad foods) I can spend the next three days gorging myself silly.

I can't seem to do anything about it, as much as I try to eat normally. I wouldn't be surprised if my being trans had something to do with my inability to develop a regular eating patern

This describes me 100%.  In the past month or so, I've also begun counting calories and trying to eat no more than 1300. For reference, I'm about 5'5 165 lbs so I am a little overweight. I keep getting stuck and can't seem to get the weight off. I'm sure my crap diet/eating habits contribute a ton to that. Ughhh.

[Yakshini]

In high school I dealt with a pretty nasty eating disorder. Despite the fact that my BMI never fell below average, I frequently got comments about how I was too thin. There was a point where I had friends asking each other if I had an eating problem. At the time I had severe depression and starved myself in order to feel like I had control over something in my life.

[Bahzi]

I'll admit that I'm quite obese [5'4", 18 stone on a good day], but when I eat my concern is whether my chest will shrink if I lose weight. Don't get me wrong, I HATE being the fat dude in the room. But should I lose weight and my chest doesn't shrink, I will have an extremely hard time hiding my breasts - right now I'm able to bind and pass most of the time when I don't talk, but having a DD sized chest would definitely hinder my passing should I lose weight.

I'm sure it varies from person to person, but I definitely lost a lot of size in my chest when I lost the weight.  At 245lbs, I was a D or DD, not sure exactly.  At 130lbs, I'm a small B (and some of that is just skin, if I lift up my arms, I'm an A cup).   It's harder to know if you were always very overweight.  In high school, I was a C cup and about the weight I am now, so I figured they'd shrink back to what they were then.  They're actually much smaller now for some reason, but I'm not complaining.

[RoryKoda]

I realize this topic is desolate, but I'm posting to it anyway. I'm just that badass. I'm 5 foot 2-ish and I weight about 110lbs. I guess you could say that I've struggled with anorexia on and off for about a year. I'm not fat, but I hate my curves. A few months ago I literally ate nothing for a week, but I was in school at the time. We had to wear heart-rate monitors during gym. At the end of the week I noticed that it was almost impossible to get my heart-rate above 100b/m (we needed to get to at least 135 to get credit.) I was sweating heavily after just a little exercise. I found it oddly enjoyable and I liked the feeling, but I was concerned that someone would find out what I was doing to myself because I wouldn't be able to get credit for my heart-rates in gym. I went back to eating fairly normally for a little while. During this time I started working out a lot more. After it became difficult to exercise everyday because of my schedule, I have gone back to not eating. I mean, I do eat. I eat just enough for no one to be concerned or notice. I guess that's my main goal. I want to lose at least some of my curves. I know it's impossible for a biological female to do that with only starvation and exercise, but I want my curves to be smaller so I can hide them easier. I don't want any of my family or friends to be concerned or think that I have a problem.

[aleon515]

I wouldn't call what I have a disorder, but I do have serious problems with my food intake. Most of the time I don't feel hungry, so I actually forget to eat, the same goes for drinking. I've been to hospital a few times for other things and been kept back with a drip in my arm, not allowed to leave because the doctors said I was dangerously dehydrated. I've spent years not eating breakfast or lunch, simply because I have no desire at all to eat, only to find that late at night I become hungry and start to eat everything I can. Dinner and a slow progression of munchies afterwards is all I eat each day 

Bane, are you on the autism spectrum by any chance? I don't have anywhere near that kind of severity but I do have to kind of put myself on a schedule and more or less eat because it is a certain time or drink something because I need to drink more vs feeling rather more normal hunger. T has changed the hunger thing but not the thirst. So I don't think my issues with this are severe. Just kind of curious I guess.

Don't know who said this but:
>Wow, so judging by the replies- pretty prevalent.  That doesn't surprise me, even if it's not a direct cause and effect type correlation with dysphoria, many trans people seem to have histories of anxiety and depression, and eating disorders seem to go hand in hand with that. 

I agree with this. I have a hx of consecutive hospitalizations for depression in my 20s. I seemed like I got better when my seizure disorder was controlled (stopped the hospitalizations anyway). But still dealt with that stuff. I kind of got better, and my guess is that maybe I adjusted to kind of being androgynous. I think the connecting was so far from my experiences I wasn't able to do it.


--Jay