Help with depression during transition

[Tyler1]

Hi, I’m Tyler and I’m currently on testosterone but need to lose weight before I’m able to get top surgery. However as I still have female traits such as large breasts but yet I’m growing a beard, I’m finding I’m emotionally eating as I’m not what I want to look like yet but I need to lose weight for top surgery. So I’m in this vicious cycle so I just wanted to ask you all if you had any advice or tips to help with getting through this stage of my transition. 
Thanks for your time

Tyler

[Audrey]

Hi @Tyler1 welcome to TransPulse. I empathize with you about the emotional eating, it is something I struggle with as well when I'm feeling anxious or depressed. You are doing one of the very best things right now by reaching out and connecting with a community who can relate to you through shared experience. You'll find everyone here extremely supportive!

I'm pretty early in my transition, and I do experience a lot of dysphoria from things about myself that I would like to be much different than they are now. When I realize that's happening, I strive to change my thoughts in that moment to something about myself that fills me with hope and confidence instead. I find that changing my thinking often changes my feelings, which in turn helps reduce the chance I'll start eating emotionally.

What are some things about your transition that bring you hope and confidence?

Love,

~Audrey.

[Tyler1]

Hey Audrey, thank you for the welcome. Definitely need to adjust my mindset when I get in those down and emotional places wanting to binge. The things that have made me excited for the future is how deep my voice is getting and how my beard growth is going. Thanks again for your reply ?

Tyler

[TrIIIy]

Hi, @Tyler1. Do you enjoy working out at all? My therapist suggested doing push-ups or crunches when I am in a Mood. I was on a medication for a while that made me irrationally angry at weird times, and whenever that happened, I dropped and did however many push-ups I could (starting with cheat push-ups). I don’t know how well that would work for craving food, but it helped me calm down and focus on something else when I got angry.

[Jamie68]

That's awesome Trilly! I used to live to eat, now I try to eat to live. I have an elliptical in my garage with a computer hooked up to big speakers. I'd put on Brooks and Dunn "Last Rodeo" video and work out. I've been thinking about going to the gym and doing core strength training now since I read that with cardio you loose breast fat along with the rest. Dam, I'm trying to make them bigger not smaller. Cardio might be what you want though Tyler. Funny, you're trying to gain a deep voice and beard while I'm trying to do just the opposite.

Jamie

[DonkeySocks]

Hi, Tyler!

Others have mentioned exercise and self-awareness, awareness of your tendencies. Those things will definitely help. Exercise can actually make you less hungry. I might add that if you know you're going to sometimes really want to make yourself feel better with food, stock up on high-fiber foods so you have something tasty, comforting, but also healthy and filling available anytime. Low-fiber sweet foods probably aren't going to make you feel as good in the long run. High-fiber desserts can give you both a decent snack and a feelgood food. My go-to would be oatmeal cookies, but whatever works! If you make your own desserts, you can add a little less sugar than called for, to up the fiber proportionately. Cookies and brownies freeze well. I make brownies with part whole-wheat flour and flax seed.

[Margo]

I’ll start out by saying that I’m mtf so I’m uncertain as to how HRT for ftm impacts your body metabolism.  I’m also not a psychologist or psychiatrist.   I did want to give you an experience I had related to an eating disorder in which I would eat as a distractor from my responsibilities.  One day I found myself going to get something to eat even though I wasn’t hungry just to get away from something I didn’t want to do.  I forced myself to accept the reason for why I was eating and made the decision to exercise whenever I got the urge to eat when not hungry.   This broke the chain of my habit.   I’ll add that there is a danger sometimes in substituting one thing for another and becoming exercise dependent isn’t necessarily a good thing either.   

 

Bottom line, if there’s a way to understand why you want to eat, is it true hunger and your body’s need for calories or something else, and break the habit perhaps substituting an enjoyable activity.  Easier said than done but if you combine all the responses here, you may find some help to your situation.

 

Spoken from someone who still has an eating disorder

 

Margo 

[Heather Shay]

@Tyler1 first of all - congrats - second of all you are ungoing a major change and be good to yourself. It can be slow when you want it fast. I know I wanted full change like instantly but that doesn't happen, as a wise woman here told me - it is INCREMENTS. So keep taking baby steps - each day be good to yourself and keep trying and when you get discouraged come here for support. We all know it is HARD very hard and we are with you as long as it takes.