Hello all,

I've been dealing with an eating disorder since puberty and i've come to the realization it was pretty much due to my extreme chest/hip dysphoria. It pretty much waxes and wanes. Now I find myself forcing myself to eat some fruit so it doesn't spoil. But I think that might be the hardest thing I have to do today. Every time I eat, I know where its going to go. Some part of me that makes my figure even more hour glass, and this scares me greatly. Never fails.

Anyone else deal with this?

Fruit shouldn't cause too much trouble. Neither should vegetables. Any with B vitamins will actually aid in weight loss. Start small; eat phytoandrogens like broccoli and cauliflower, and avoid things like grapefruit, which inhibit testosterone.

I'm a food addict, which is the exact opposite of your challenge but it's related. I will binge eat because of depression and habit, and then feel disgusted with myself and become even more depressed. Or I will not eat for an entire day, feel faint and sick, and then eat everything in sight, also feeling disgusted afterward and dropping into depression.

It's a daily struggle to force myself to do what's healthy. I've lost count of how many times I've resolved to go on a healthy diet and stick to it, only to stop a week or two later. I was in denial about being trans for years and now I'm stuck with a body that's not even remotely male until I can finally dig in deep and change myself.

Quote from: Soren on July 12, 2013, 06:39:16 PM
Fruit shouldn't cause too much trouble. Neither should vegetables. Any with B vitamins will actually aid in weight loss. Start small; eat phytoandrogens like broccoli and cauliflower, and avoid things like grapefruit, which inhibit testosterone.

Extending on this, couldn't you just go with "guilt free" foods or is that kind of a grey term? Would you be okay with eating lean meats that are baked or boiled with large portions of vegetables, and things like brown rice and whole grains? Following this you would have an incredibly efficient diet and a very low fat one. Of course, that's not all you'd eat but you I'm sure other members here could offer suggestions as well as a quick internet search.

I'm pretty sure I would have had an eating disorder too if I would have been able to resist food. When I was younger, I hated my butt and hips and many a time the thought crossed my mind to starve myself to work them off. But food is just too good for me to resist, so I never managed to keep it up. Which is probably a good thing. You need to properly starve yourself if you want to lose that girly fat.

T is going to help with finally losing them. I talked to my endo yesterday, and he said that people with a normal posture do not need to diet hard to get rid of the girly fat. Over time, it should happen on its own (as in, it won't disappear, but will likely shift to the stomach).

And to add, be careful with fruits. We humans like our fruits sweet, and after many generations of selecting the sweet fruit seeds, our fruits are full of sugar. Natural sugar, yes, but it can still make you fat. Its a common mistake dieting people make.  If you would eat natural (read, non domesticated) fruits, you would find them to be a lot less sweet. Of course, fruits still beat snacks by a mile in terms of healthyness due to the vitamins.

Oh yeah, make sure to wash your fruits and veggies really well, or buy organic. Most of the pesticides used have chemical estrogens. (I think the term is xenoestrogen?)

I skipped school dinners all through the last 2 years of school from 14 to 16.Later just before realising I would have to deal with my gender problem I was missing meals all weekend and dropped from 210 pounds to 140.In early 2003 I lived on a baked potato a day apart from weekends when I did without,I was under a lot of pressure working 12 hour shifts in a strange city  and my flatmate moved his invalid mother and his psycho boyfriend in.I ended up looking after Carol after work.I lost loads of weight but it made me so depressed and miserable I started cutting again.Now I eat vegetarian,although I will eat fish and prawns,I cook with fresh vegetables and feel a lot better.I enjoy cooking

Absolutely. It's a real problem. When I was 12 or so I noticed my thighs filling out and panicked. I didn't understand what was happening. I used to tell myself I liked to stay thin to have a more "athletic" look. I didn't properly understand how weight distributes differently but something in me did not like what was happening. Even up to now, I've always been very underweight and for whatever reason none of my doctors have ever said anything even in adulthood. And I've been loosing weight recently again. I didn't even know it was a problem. If I was ever asked, I'd say that I had no problems if I gained weight and that I knew I was too thin. Which is true if I could gain weight the way im supposed to but I can't. I started taking a new medication though this year and put on 10lbs. It terrified me. So yeah, I couldn't lie to myself anymore after that lol.

It might be hard for me in particular to lose weight on that diet. Or any diet. I'll probably just maintain or gain. I'm 5'6" and 112lbs for reference (2lbs from being an underweight female bodied adult), and eventually i'd like to end up at about 95ish just so i'm sure everythings gone. I was actually just planning on killing myself today. Solves the bigger problem. Which is just my existence in general.

Quote from: Pogopopez on July 13, 2013, 02:28:21 PM
It might be hard for me in particular to lose weight on that diet. Or any diet. I'll probably just maintain or gain. I'm 5'6" and 112lbs for reference (2lbs from being an underweight female bodied adult), and eventually i'd like to end up at about 95ish just so i'm sure everythings gone. I was actually just planning on killing myself today. Solves the bigger problem. Which is just my existence in general.

Try this, it may enlighten you calculator.net/ideal-weight-calculator (dot) html

As for the suicide, do you really want to risk having your headstone read 'daughter' and having everyone use female pronouns? And do you really think suicide would actually solve anything, because I highly doubt it.
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,112671.0.html <- I recommend it if you're actually considering it.

Okay, I'll chyme in here. This is something that I've been neck deep in for years. I've also had an eating disorder since puberty, and it's nearly put me six feet under on a few occasions. I've been in a couple of residential programs and generally I've never really been "recovered" per se. In fact, as I write this I'm on a waiting list to a couple of intensive programs, yet again 

So I'm understandably concerned that at the weight you're at (Which is by the way, underweight) you want to drop to the weight that got me hospitalized. I understand that you probably don't feel that way, but you really are very much at risk right now. Have you ever gotten treatment for your eating disorder? Because at the place you seem to be it would be extremely difficult to do this alone. I understand how much it sucks when you put on weight and it all seems to go to those places that you really don't want it. But losing more weight won't take that away it's just going to make you feel even crappier in the long run 

Oy, kid. You can't just drop an 'I was planing on killing myself today and then not reply again.

I used to have a bad eating issue when I was in my early teens. I stayed very thin up until a couple months before starting T. I basically got in the mindset of there are other ways to hide this and being skinny makes me look effeminate. Since gaining weight I look much more masculine and now work on eating healthy and getting some muscle. Maybe you could try that?

I didn't kill myself. I just got really really high, as always. And then I end up eating ridiculous crap. I'm a coward.

Good. Don't kill yourself. And if you're gonna get high and eat everything, stock your fridge up with vegetables or something like that first.

Great to hear you didn't kill yourself. I mean it. I've been there and it's not easy. You're not a coward, you're strong for dealing and having dealt with this stuff for a long time. If you kill yourself, you'll have 0 chances of ever fixing your situation. It's tough right now, but it can be fixed. You can go through with therapy. You can start hormones. You can get surgery. But you have to live to be able to do this.

Killing yourself really isn't a solution.  All it does it make that state that your body is in at the moment a permanent solution.  Not that us saying this is going to really stop you if you're determined in it, but it's all I can say.  I can't think about that topic for too long for my own sanity, that's why I've avoided this topic so far.

I just wanted to say that having problems with food and dysphoria is seemingly a common thing.  I had some messed up thoughts about my weight and food a while ago, to the point that when I had to go into the dining hall to eat lunch at school I was so shocked by the amount of noise I almost ran out in there, I'd avoided it so long I'd forgotten how loud it got.  Thankfully I got the wake up call I needed that put me back on the right track regarding eating, I had a wound on my hand and I couldn't fight the infection because my body didn't have the nutrients in it, but you shouldn't wait until that point to sort things out.

It makes sense to me that trans people would have a higher rate of eating disorders (not an actual statistic, I don't know if it's been studied) than cis people because our fat gathers in the wrong places pre-hormones.  So we look down at our thighs and see them as way too fat, when they're actually healthy for a female body.  It's just that because our mind expects to see a male fat-level there.  Dieting to try and see what we instinctively expect to see is going to land us in the back of an ambulance before we're content.  And as a secondary problem you could end up with the wrong attitude to food and have an eating disorder on top of it.

Your comment about getting high reminded me of this trans guy on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/finntheinfinncible
It might be worth watching his videos because he had problems with always running away from his problems and going on an alcohol and cannabis fueled "head holiday" as he calls it.  He's also mentioned having problems with eating disorders as well.

When I went through puberty I started eating a lot because I thought my hips and thighs looked too big compared to my waist. Getting fat seemed like the only solution. It didn't help me at all though, and when I came out trying to pass with my round face was hard to do. Then my eating shifted and I started starving myself. I only do this randomly, but I still know it's a problem. Anymore my main problem is a belief that losing weight will get rid of my butt, thighs and chest. Like it's a cure to my body and will make me a man without T. But even when I got super skinny my body still looked girly (in fact binders didn't even do the job anymore because my chest was too big compared to my stomach...and I'm already XS :/ ). Since then anytime I see myself willing to starve for a body I'll never have I remind myself that it just makes passing more difficult (binding wise) and that it will NEVER change the body I live in. Forcing myself to eat with others gets me through it though. So does looking in the mirror and telling myself I'm a "sexy beast" whether or not I believe it that day. I'll grow to believe weeks later.
I also like my fruits and veggies and eat a really healthy diet.

Quote from: Soren on July 13, 2013, 02:38:07 PM
As for the suicide, do you really want to risk having your headstone read 'daughter' and having everyone use female pronouns? And do you really think suicide would actually solve anything, because I highly doubt it.

That headstone image has kept me from suicide for a couple years now. And succulent fruits are delicious and heavenly when stoned out of your gourd. Peaches are my favorite. 

I've successfully beat drug addiction (hard drugs, I'm not talking about weed...which I don't think is a drug) and quit smoking a few years ago. That's saying something because I was a pack a day smoker from 14 to 28ish. Food addiction is the hardest one to beat in my experience and I'm just now getting a hold on it. I can quit everything else cold turkey but I always have to eat, right?

I'm on the opposite end from some of you guys. I've never had a feminine shape so I didn't worry that the weight would go to my hips or butt. It's always went to my gut. I'd eat when I was depressed, when I was lonely, when I was bored, etc. How am I beginning to get a handle on it? I've become a Vegetarian (aspiring to become Vegan but haven't gotten there yet). Cruelty free and healthy, what's not to love about that?

It's hard to eat crap when it's not in the house. Don't buy it and don't go to fast food places period. The only fast food place I'll stop is Taco Bell for a 7 layer bean burrito (hold the cheese/sour cream) or Moe's for a tofu burrito. So far so good. I've lost some weight but not sure how much. I just know all my clothes are getting bigger, lol.

Quote from: Simon on July 16, 2013, 12:14:59 AM

I'm on the opposite end from some of you guys. I've never had a feminine shape so I didn't worry that the weight would go to my hips or butt. It's always went to my gut.

Same here. But I did get close to an eating disorder during puberty. It may have had something to do with the breast developing, but mostly for me it was about needing control when my body was betraying me. I actually ended up looking more masculine heavy and I gained a lot of weight right before transition - sometimes I think that was a subconscious part of it.