Posted on by rjonakait

Toy Retreat

(Guest Post from the the NBP–the Non-Binary Progeny)

I didn’t realize it as a child, but now I see that I was pretty angry about a lot of things in my young life. I didn’t look like my parents (other kids looked like their parents!), and besides that, I was trapped in a body that I really didn’t like—a body I came to hate, but more on that later. When confusion and anger overwhelmed me, I would go into a zombie-like meditative state and lose myself in my toys.

Several toys consumed me. Whether it was G.I. Joes or Transformers, I became transfixed. I also had an assortment of Lincoln Logs, Matchbox cars, plastic dinosaurs, and other animals for whom I created worlds for us to get lost in. Sometimes those worlds only consisted of marching the dinosaurs around and having them meet the cars and the tigers, but it was enough for me to forget about myself for a time. I loved my “boy” toys.

I hated dolls. I once had a doll my mom named Chamomile (I wouldn’t even deign to name her), given to me by a family friend. Chamomile was a Japanese doll with a porcelain face, straight jet-black hair, and a red kimono. Didn’t this couple—Japanese scholars both—know that Koreans and Japanese aren’t the same thing? Well, I didn’t at the time, so I thought I was supposed to look like this doll; I couldn’t have been more insulted! Okay, well, they couldn’t have known that this Asian (I barely knew I was Korean, only some brand of Asian) toddler despised dolls of any ethnic background. No dolls. Period. This doll was not allowed in my room. I wanted to put her six feet under because I wholly rejected any resemblance to her and flat out thought she was creepy with her piercing eyes and her perfectly puckered lips. [Shivers!] My mother consigned her to a closet, where I wouldn’t be able to see her, nor she me. Obviously, dolls were forever banned from my toy repertoire.

One Christmas—I was about five—my grandpa made me a dollhouse. Built it himself—an old man building a dollhouse. Awww, sweet. I destroyed it. Like a little ungrateful brute, I kicked it in because it screamed to me, “YOU ARE A GIRL.” I feel guilty about demolishing it, and I know my parents were upset that I had done so since it was such a nice thing my grandpa did (and, apparently, he wasn’t always the cuddliest fellow in the world), but I couldn’t stand it. In hindsight, I could’ve at least tried to use the dollhouse as a G.I. Joe headquarters.

The only other “girly” toys I remember owning were My Little Ponies. They were stupid and pink and purple and “girl” colored but ultimately accepted into the mix because they were useful as beasts of burden. All my action figures were allowed to use them as mules and horses for carry and cargo. Mwahaha.

I was a huge fan of Legos and spent hours building Lego cities, both modern and medieval. These were extravagant constructions with multiple dwellings, roads, vehicles, people. Sometimes these architectural masterpieces remained assembled for quite some time…months at least. After a while I would notice that the yellow, blue, and red blocks started looking more and more like the gray ones. Excitedly, I would go majorly OCD. Paintbrushes of all sizes would be assembled and used to dust every nook and cranny. Fan brushes were especially effective, in case you were wondering! Dusting became another therapeutic zombie activity. It required few brainwaves and at the end, when I snapped out of my dusty reverie, I would feel a sense of accomplishment. All my knights, castles, pilots, drivers, and civilians now lived in an allergen-free world! It took hours—blissful, non-thinking hours.

Talking about paintbrushes, art was another outlet for me. Not only was it easy to get lost in, but it was an activity relatively free of gender overtones. My zombie self was an abstract artist veering towards Modernism with lines, colors, patterns, and shapes plunked all over a page; we (my Zombie and I) used crayons, markers, watercolors, pastels, colored pencils, acrylics. These artistic adventures could last for hours in which I would achieve my “zombie-zone”—anger synapses asleep. Pages upon pages would pile up on my art table. Once I had a formidable stack, I would gather together as many pages as the stapler allowed, and add a cover with a clever title (e.g., “Lines and Shapes”) and my name. It amazed and impressed my parents when the zombie state came on because I’d be intent for such long periods of time that they thought it indicated a profound ability to focus on a task. They didn’t know—and neither did I—that it was really a way to unfocus and go to another, less complicated place.

Later on these drawings became distinctly warlike. Knights, axes, swords, battleships, and airplanes shooting fire, bullets, missiles, bombs, ahem all manner of projectiles, figured prominently. The knights or the soldiers were always either armed or had rippling arms themselves. These drawings required total concentration, and the time spent drawing them—images of death-inducing weapons though they might be—had a calming effect on me. Whatever the zombie and I did, it was done subconsciously to calm an inner rage, and it sort of worked.

Warrior wannabe (or disturbed child, ha. Ha. Ha?) though I may have been, I loved stuffed animals. They were cute and soft and uncomplicated (boys had them, too!). Stuffed animals were also good friends because if you felt the need to hit things or throw things against a wall, they could take it. They didn’t get upset or scream or cry. They just pleasantly smiled (hopefully without crying on the inside).

I always had one favorite, and he was never in harm’s way. The first favorite was a super soft leopard with wonderful spots named Larry. Larry had plastic whiskers great for chewing on. Then came Steven who was a tan mini-Gund bear. He loved to have his tummy rubbed and rubbed and rubbed.

Needless to say, all my animals were male, except for one pink Gund bear named Susan. Me, the blossoming little sexist, made her the bitch. Talking about sexism: Loving stuffed animals—being suckered in by cute things—seemed like a disturbingly girly thing to do. Dusting Legos also made me feel girly because neatness and cleanliness were attributes associated with girls. I tried not to think about this too much, because even if they were girly, they were necessities.

Then came William, William T. Bear (his middle name was “The” not “Teddy”). When I received William, a chocolate brown grizzly bear and held him for the first time, he felt so new and soft and was the ultimate in cuteness and comfort—100 percent ergonomic…for hugging. Oh, he even smelled good. I knew we’d have a special bond. He was a present from my father, which made him already special—even magical. I gave him a voice, and in turn, he gave me one. I manipulated and animated him like a puppet (but he’s not a puppet, damn it, he’s real!). I brought him to life by moving him: body, limbs, even ears. I gave him emotions and ascribed body movements to each feeling. I was never without William at home, and I dreaded leaving him behind when I went to school. He was a shield and a security blanket, and a rather excellent companion. William was also a useful communication conduit to my parents. My parents, not bears of small brain themselves, caught on quickly. They would ask me if William were tired, or if William were sad, and William, less guarded than I, would answer truthfully and unassumingly. I, who rarely spoke more than a word or two even at home, became quite vocal and lively when William was around. He was a bubbly bear and made even me laugh. William was who I wanted to be. He was funny and simple and innocent and silly and male. He was not evil, though naturally being a bear, he grrrred a lot. He made my anger disappear. He was the light side to my dark. (Shhh. Don’t tell, but he’s watching Top Chef next to me as I write this.)

Posted on by rjonakait

Feed the Monster (concluded)

AJ, my non-binary progeny, has had what you might call “difficulties” coming to terms with being a boy trapped in a girl’s body and has written about that on this blog. (“Toy Retreat,” October 8, 2021; “Dinner With Mom and Dad,” December 20, 2021; “Clothes Make the Man-Child,” January 14, 2022; and “Non-Binary Tennis,” August 31, 2022.) Today AJ continues to guest blog about perhaps the most difficult part of that journey–his struggle with body image, food, and the lapse in mental and physical health that made it clear that some critical life decisions were necessary. Here is the fifth and final part of AJ’s essay: 

Bulimia nervosa: An eating disorder, “mostly in women” (says Merriam Webster) in which excessive concern with weight and body shape leads to binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors such as self-induced vomiting or the excessive use of laxatives of diuretics. According to the Mayo clinic there are two types of bulimia: purging bulimia where one regularly self-induces vomiting or misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas after binging, and non-purging bulimia where one uses other methods to rid oneself of calories and prevent weight gain, such as fasting, strict dieting, or excessive exercise.

So, I’m now eating almost nothing. I binge eat, skulk around in grocery stores and steal candy because I’m HUNGRY. Apparently, my body needs those binges in order to, you know, make my heart beat and keep my diaphragm moving. After a binge, I don’t eat anything for a few days. I’ve lost tons of weight, but I am HUNGRY! I no longer have the energy to exercise away those binge calories. I am angry at my body because it’s HUNGRY! It’s trying to make me eat, trying to make me more of a woman; my own body, that bitch! Exercise no longer suffices to balance the binges. I come up with a new strategy: I start to purge. ME! The one who was puke-a-phobic throughout my entire life. I must have thrown up when I was a kid (doesn’t everybody?), which must’ve felt so bad or scared me so much that I refused ever to do it again. Then as a teenager I threw up three times from drinking and stopped drinking altogether for ages because everything surrounding the upchuck process was horrifying. This is the me who now started to stick my own grubby finger down my own grubby throat.

I literally ate myself sick. I would just eat and eat and eat and indulge until I hit a threshold, and then I’d eat more to push myself over the edge and be able to puke. I felt crazy and out of control while doing it, but there you have it. I wanted to eat and taste the food, but not add to my woman wombum bumpum, so I turned to bulimia. As it turned out, throwing up wasn’t all that bad, and it got easier (finally…something!). Alcohol, I learned, aided the process to an extraordinary degree because it dulled my senses, further impaired my judgment, and made me want to puke naturally if I drank too much of it…in fact, I had to puke if I drank too much. Unfortunately, it was also an appetite enhancer and stimulant. So I would eat, then purge. It was a vicious merry-go-round, but I knew not to buy a ticket too often—I didn’t want to become a bulimic for heaven’s sake. Oh, and I also abused laxatives, but only in moderation! As they say, “everything in moderation…”

I was in complete denial about my bulimia. I reasoned (ha!) that because I wasn’t puking with regularity like I thought a bulimic did, I couldn’t possibly be considered bulimic. But I didn’t want to throw up or have diarrhea all the time. Neither was much fun. I was in a quandary: I did not want to binge and I did not want to eat. Thus, I employed my third and final tool: Windex. Inspired by the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding who uses Windex as a cure-all, I used it to cure my lack of control around food. I rendered bingeable foods fresh-scented, sparkly, and inedible. My toxic condiment was used on sweets or leftovers that I deemed too calorie-laden. Without the Windex, I was doomed to endure the process of binging and purging, and that took too much energy—energy I no longer had. Spraying Windex on food was sacrilege to me because 1) I was wasting a cleaning product, and 2) I was wasting food when there were starving people in the world. Sometimes after spraying it, I dumped the food in the toilet and flushed it away. I felt guilty for that, too, but it was better than eating it, throwing it up in the toilet, and then flushing it away. Right?

A new fun game emerged: Grocery stores provided me a whole world of free buffets once again, but not from samples anymore. This time it was from their inventory turnover. I hovered on the pavement outside where stores deposited their garbage. The City is rife with unwanted or expired items, and I became fixated on them as some sort of basic instinctual survival skill. I became a character in Hatchet or contestant on Alone, except I wasn’t stranded anywhere in the middle of nature, didn’t have to live off the land or defend myself against predators, and could walk into one of those grocery stores at any time to buy and eat food. In socioeconomic terms this mania was completely unwarranted and unnecessary, and I knew it. I should have recognized that I was starving myself and going slowly mad in the process. But no. Instead I dabbled in picking stuff out of the garbage. I never ate garbage…not garbage like from a dish someone else had eaten from. I never hovered over a street corner garbage can waiting for individuals to discard bits of sandwich that I could rescue and eat. I did faux foraging. There I was in my Gap jeans and Urban Outfitters shirt rummaging through tidy bags of civilized garbage put out by local bakeries or high-end grocery stores. I was a bougie bandit: I’d slink away with loaves of multigrain baguettes. Baguettes I was terrified I was going to binge on! Everything was upside down, turned around, and backwards in my world.

There was a method to my madness (and it WAS madness): For example, I monitored a certain Citarella gourmet market because on certain days of the week they would put out their expired sushi. It was just a day expired, so I took the gamble and ate old tuna or salmon rolls. They never tasted too funky and I managed not to get sick. Another triumphant haul was at a Duane Reade that was turning over their inventory of expensive (and expired) cereal. It was Kashi Go Lean, so this was a double win because it was supposedly healthy. The Kashi lasted me for months as I parceled it out at work for lunch. It tasted horrible, which helped me not binge on it. I was probably poisoning myself because it tasted like chemically laminated bitter cardboard. Anyway, as I ate my way through it, lunch after lunch, I was happy and even proud of my resourcefulness, non-wastefulness, and “normalness.” I was finally not throwing away food, I was eating the food that was thrown away!

Even I knew that I needed help. I didn’t want to go to therapy, but I couldn’t stand myself nor could I continue living this way. Was I trying to kill myself? Passively, probably. Disappear myself? Yes. I was definitely trying to kill that feminine beast who kept trying to invade my body. And I did kill part of her because I had finally attained amenorrhea…let the choir sing! Amenorrhea is the abnormal absence of a normal monthly menstrual cycle. I had always had very regularly scheduled and very, uh, robust periods. A while before, I had noticed my periods getting less and less heavy (curious…) though still regular. But then they kind of became ghost-periods; like the first days were like the last of my “normal” periods. Then one magical month…I got NOTHING! What?! Huh?! What’s going on? (Obviously not pregnant, hahaha!) Then another month. What?! Huh?! What’s going on?

Honestly, I tried not to think about it too much for fear that even thinking about would bring it back. Like saying Voldemort’s name. But this was a magical time! Somehow, even in my non-lucid non-thinking-straight (always think gay, boys and girls! Haha.) I put two and two together…I did math! Not eating and not having enough calories to like, have thick hair and nails, also meant not having enough calories to drop eggs. Aaaaand done. I could never lay another egg again but I could also, *sob*, not maintain this. Period.

I knew I needed to get my shit together if I were to survive. To do this, I knew I had to eat again like a normal human being. But by doing that was I going to have to let the beast win? Talk about being between a rock and a hard place…or for me it was between a tampon and a pad, ugh. ­I needed help. Although I was out of my mind from caloric deficit, I was lucky enough to know that I was out of my mind and to know that I needed help if I were going to pull myself from the abyss.

I reached out to my best friend and casually told her that I kinda wanted to die, explaining only that that was the reason I had been “acting weird.” She came to my rescue by having her mother (a psychologist) refer me immediately to a psychoanalyst whom she trusted. Thank you, my friend. And my friend’s mom.

Recovery is another story. It involved the recognition that the feminine beast didn’t have to reign victorious. Did I need a tampon or pad again? Yes, but only a couple times, and things were looking up by then. I knew my paying the pink tax was moments away. Years have now gone by since I had surgery to remove my feminine “equipment” (ovaries, uterus, breasts). It has made all the difference…but I’m still kinda OCD, heh.

Posted on by rjonakait

Feed the Monster (continued)

AJ, my non-binary progeny, has had what you might call “difficulties” coming to terms with being a boy trapped in a girl’s body and has written about that on this blog. (“Toy Retreat,” October 8, 2021; “Dinner With Mom and Dad,” December 20, 2021; “Clothes Make the Man-Child,” January 14, 2022; and “Non-Binary Tennis,” August 31, 2022.) Today AJ continues to guest blog about perhaps the most difficult part of that journey–his struggle with body image, food, and the lapse in mental and physical health that made it clear that some critical life decisions were necessary. Here is the fourth part of AJ’s essay: 

My “very healthy” dieting was making me HUNGRY. I needed to be around FOOD. Going to grocery stores became a secret pastime. I ogled all the food that one could buy. I got addicted to just being in food’s presence and basking in it. There was so much…aisles and aisles to peruse and even touch. So illicit. And trust me, it did not escape me that walking around in grocery stores meant that I was actually spending calories which made this form of voyeurism doubly attractive.

There were other motives to going to grocery stores. Food at home was not safe. It was too easy to eat. But at the store, it was different. In grocery stores there were……samples! Moreover, samples were only weekend treats since stores would make the most business on those days, but that was perfect for me because it was a form of portion control right there. I quickly learned which stores had the best delicacies, so I could easily map out my weekend rounds.

Then one day I lost control and ate half a jar of Biscoff spread, many many handfuls of trail mix, cheese cubes, and finally bread with marinara sauce right in the middle of one of those stores. I walked out with my head hung in shame and my belly protruding, but I wanted more! I was afraid of being called out as a weirdo sample hoarder, but, well, I was a weirdo sample hoarder!

Even I knew that I couldn’t keep this up. Grocery stores entered the category of “feared ones.” I thought about stealing from stores. In my fantasies, I wouldn’t put things in my pocket, but rather, I would just open boxes and eat stuff in the store and walk out. I thought/hoped I’d get away with it because I didn’t look homeless or criminal-like (yes, cuz I looked like a girl…I’m so sexist). I never actually built up the courage to do it. Not that I’m having a proud moment right now. I was just too afraid of getting caught. (I was always a fraidy cat about rule-breaking.)

I decided I needed to find a more inconspicuous target. And there was the answer: Target. Shamefacedly, yet electrified, I made trips to Target around the holidays when candy was on special display because kids (I assume kids) would go and bust open packages of bulk candies and eat some. I figured if they were already open, they were fair game because they couldn’t be sold damaged. So, I’d go pilfer candy. Worse, I’d go to just drive myself more insane because I knew candy was so bad for me and such a devil’s food (mmm, devil’s food cake!). I’d go and literally stare and pace around an innocent, lone, loose snack-sized KitKat bar that had been dislodged from its KitKat kolony and engage in a battle with myself about whether it was ok to pocket this mini Kat for energy and life or would it destroy me by adding to my stomach wombum bumpum? Control and rational thought were in short supply. And conveniently, it gave me more reason to hate myself.

Some epic binges (not stolen but acquired through some legitimate means): I ate an entire jar of peanut butter; six chocolate croissants and two donuts I found on the street; an entire tray of Italian cookies; a giant Tupperware full of venison (yes, venison of all things); an entire box of Russell Stover’s chocolates (duh). These were not my finest moments. Sometimes I ate leftover food that was supposed to last for days, and sometimes I ate all of these things with some chips on the side! I couldn’t even do the math anymore on the number of calories I consumed during a binge because I went into zombie mode while eating and lost count of what I ate in the blur of movement from hand to mouth.

 Even with the binging, I had lost 35 pounds in 8 months. However, it was becoming clearer that I was losing my mind, my body, and ummm, my hair. My hair—one of the few bodily aspects of myself that I was ok with.

Of course, my body cried out in other ways to tell me to end its punishment. My nails grew fragile; I was pasty white; and all of my muscles were breaking down. Though I still worked out all the time, I never gained any muscle, only lost it. My joints started cracking. I stopped being able to use the elliptical; it took too much effort. Most things took too much effort…even thinking. I was getting light-headed, and my thoughts were muddled and confused—even more so than usual. I couldn’t make decisions, but I could still muster a fake public smile, and  an inward smile when I felt my hipbones jutting out.

I was becoming very, very shaky. I felt rattled physically and mentally. All that joint clicking and clacking echoed the rattle. I had no energy. After I walked to work (3.4 miles, but who’s counting?), I would plunk down in my chair and barely be able to move. Getting up literally started to hurt. My joints were coming apart. It became a production to walk to someone else’s desk or to the bathroom. When I returned home and freed myself from my work clothes, I would wobble and wave around pretending to do my exercises (think: air dancer a.k.a wacky inflatable waving guys in front of car dealerships), and for dinner eat my ration of canned veggies or black beans. Sometimes I added ketchup because I love ketchup and I needed some extra sugar, but I justified ketchup because it contains lycopene, and I felt more grown up “seasoning” my veggies. I took a look at myself and saw that my bones were protruding. I was becoming a skeleton, weeeeeee.

(concluded October 19)

Posted on by rjonakait

Feed the Monster (continued)

AJ, my non-binary progeny, has had what you might call “difficulties” coming to terms with being a boy trapped in a girl’s body and has written about that on this blog. (“Toy Retreat,” October 8, 2021; “Dinner With Mom and Dad,” December 20, 2021; “Clothes Make the Man-Child,” January 14, 2022; and “Non-Binary Tennis,” August 31, 2022.) Today AJ continues to guest blog about perhaps the most difficult part of that journey–his struggle with body image, food, and the lapse in mental and physical health that made it clear that some critical life decisions were necessary. Here is the third part of AJ’s essay: 

Binging became a way of life, but the binging benders became menacing. Here was my M.O.: after eating, say, a 500g tub of raisins (which equals about 1.1 lbs. of those purple suckers) I’d have to punish myself by exercising excessively and skipping meals for the next three days. I’d skip meals, and when I did eat, I would only allow myself fruits or veggies—nothing more, only hopefully less—and I’d force myself to jump on the elliptical and burn off as many calories as I ingested…or, better yet, more. I started to subsist on a cycle of binges. Even I knew it wasn’t really what you’d call, ahem, healthy.

So, I figured out a new way to binge. This was known as “social engagements with parent(s) or friend(s).” I would concoct opportunities to go out with friends pretending to be all human and social-like. In the guise of broadening my palette and under the pretext of being adventurous and enjoying the foodie revolution, I allowed myself the ingestion of extra calories. Obsessing over restaurant menus became a food porn fun fixation. Once a plan was made and a date set, I would eagerly look at the restaurant’s menu online to calculate the caloric and nutritional makeup of dishes I might realistically consume. Then I would obsess over pictures of each and every dish. I wouldn’t just look at the menu once, no no no, but many times and on an increasingly frequent and frenzied scale as the time of the outing approached. I looked at the pictures of my projected dish and checked its nutritional facts for the nth time. I also perused what dishes my friends might order and got off on that, because I would probably be granted a taste of their food (everyone knows to this day to give me their leftovers).

There were strict dining rules I instituted for myself. Rule 1: never order a restaurant’s “special” because it wasn’t in the original plan, and I hadn’t been able to research its calorie count. Rule 2: never eat meat at restaurants because you never knew where the restaurant got its meat or how much butter they cooked it in—too much fat of unknown provenance. Thus, Rule 3: never eat anything fried. Rule 4: never eat pasta or pizza, or pretty much anything Italian-American or Asian noodle-y. Pasta and noodles were pure evil with no nutritional redemption. Rule 5: eat small plates and portions. Rule 6: eat only a vegetable dish or salad or a low-fat seafood dish, bivalve or crustacean preferred (!). Rule 6.5: dressings were always “on the side” (thanks, Lisa Lillien). Rule 7: eschew the bread basket and dessert menu (sob). Rule 8: drink only red wine or hard liquor; beer was too caloric and white wine had no redeeming value. Rule 9: have fun (LOL). Rule 10: remember that tomorrow you will pay for this.

I was lucid enough to realize that I was barely subsisting on my home rationing of fruits and vegetables, but this binging pattern came as something of a surprise. Why, I wondered, did I need to binge? My answer was an all-American one: I wasn’t getting enough protein, of course! Restaurants became my sole protein source, and because I was afraid of restaurant meat, I started eating seafood in all its frightening forms: bivalves and crustaceans (a.k.a. sea bugs and slugs), and regular old run-of-the-mill terrifying fish (fish have faces only their mothers could love). I ensured that none of my fish was ever cooked in butter, never ever fried, and I naturally eschewed the fatty fish skin (what a waste of nutrients). And fish, well, I could exercise him away. A leafy green salad, and I was all set. Dressing on the side, please.

It appeared to me that I was sculpting a more masculine physique, but looking back, it was only the physique of a skinny little boy or, more aptly, an anorexic pre-pubescent waif of a girl. In thinning myself out, I did decrease my womanly fat pockets, but I still saw them…big and bold. They were still there because that was how I was built. I hadn’t accomplished exercising/exorcising the girl away. She still mocked me in my inner thighs and womb bump (in latin, wombum bumpum).

Shockingly, I wasn’t able to accomplish nearly as much exercise as I previously could. All forms of my calisthenics were looking more like little twitches of movement. I was vaguely aware that I was no longer building muscle, but I didn’t think I was losing any. I was boyifying myself, you see, and that was what was important.

The problem was that I was still friggin’ hungry! Eating a real-ish meal once or even twice a week at a restaurant wasn’t cutting it. Food. Food. Food. Food, glorious food! I needed it. Virtual food wasn’t enough. I needed to see it. I needed to be around it. Mostly, I needed to EAT it, but my mission wouldn’t allow that.  So—new strategy—I became a grocery store voyeur.

(continued October 17)

Posted on by rjonakait

Feed the Monster (continued)

AJ, my non-binary progeny, has had what you might call “difficulties” coming to terms with being a boy trapped in a girl’s body and has written about that on this blog. (“Toy Retreat,” October 8, 2021; “Dinner With Mom and Dad,” December 20, 2021; “Clothes Make the Man-Child,” January 14, 2022; and “Non-Binary Tennis,” August 31, 2022.) Today AJ continues to guest blog about perhaps the most difficult part of that journey–his struggle with body image, food, and the lapse in mental and physical health that made it clear that some critical life decisions were necessary. Here is the second part of AJ’s essay: 

I’m on a mission to lose the pounds that have produced this highly unwelcome feminine body. Excessive Exercising on an Elliptical (E had become the letter of the month…so Sesame Street), but I was making sure that my daily intake of calories was far less than the ones used to exercise. The Evil Elliptical had a calorie counter that I kept at a constant display. (Watts, who cares? Distance…mildly interesting. Nah, calories expended was where it was at). I wasn’t trying to get fit; I was only trying to shed flab. Another fun obsession was that I would check the calorie labels on foods, do some math (then redo it correctly), and ensure that I didn’t eat more than I would expend in a day.

Unsurprisingly, I became obsessed with calculating calories. I was a label looker and Googler of all foods and their nutrition vs. calorie payout. I collected nutrition label information like baseball stats. I watched predominantly all food shows, which was easy thanks to the Food Network, Travel Channel, and Cooking Channel. Food blogs were also a key escape and a form of foodie voyeurism…come on now, they call it food porn for a reason! And I was a dirty dirty viewer and drooler. I could literally be watching Hungry Girl, Lisa Lillien, while being on my iPad looking at local restaurant dishes on Yelp or looking at one of the many junk food, or cooking, or rating and tasting food blogs on my iPad. Food porn for the win.

Back to reality, I had a small stock of food left in my cabinets, but I managed to finish that off quickly, so I could start with a clean slate. My fridge became pretty much barren except for milk, condiments, and carrots—bonus: it was nice and tidy and just the way I liked it.

At the beginning of this “diet” I still had my wits about me, and I was intent on taking control. I also sought serious punishment: Punishment for my past bad eating behavior; punishment for spending too much money; punishment for being in a woman’s body; punishment for my mind telling me I should be a man. I sought that serious punishment by walking hours a day and ellipticalling (sure, that’s a verb now) away as many calories as I could. Working out had the double bonus of being robotic and zombie-like while also being painful…everything I could want.

I was feeling in control-ish, so I ventured back to the grocery store to buy some non-coffee related items. I went with the directive in mind to buy the “healthiest”—and cheapest—food I could find. “Healthy” meant low-cost, low-calorie, non-processed, non-fat, low-sodium, ready-to-eat foods. What does that equal? Canned vegetables. I had an affinity for cans because of their handy, portion-controlled rations and tidy uniform containers. Admittedly, they were a splurge. Canned foods were more costly than a giant sack of dry rice and beans, but they were so user-friendly and stacked so neatly (labels facing out…labels always facing out; OCD; OCD; OCD!). Frozen veggies were probably cheaper, but they were not portion controlled, and required preparation. Yes, dear reader, defrosting is preparation. No, I wouldn’t heat them on the stove or even microwave them. Yes, I’d merely set them in the fridge the night before like thawing meat, or leave them out on my counter all day so they would defrost to room temp. No, I didn’t want them hot; I actually like room temperature foods. Canned food fit the bill in all categories.

Eating at work was an issue. I figured I couldn’t just eat stuff out of a can for lunch without looking like a super weirdo sociopath. I did have some caloric leeway for lunch because it was the middle of the day, so I’d have plenty of opportunity to burn those calories away after work. I had to eat (dang it) and I was getting progressively hungrier watching coworkers go out and buy yummy food and then smelling it all around me. At first I let my wallet dictate my path and sought out the cheapest food that I could buy for the week—like 5-pound bags of tomatoes that I could store in the fridge at work and eat with mustard throughout the week. I don’t know why I thought that looked “normal.”  Somehow eating fresh produce was less embarrassing than eating canned stuff. Apples continued to be consumed for snacks. When tomatoes were unattainable, I pre-cooked kabocha squashes or sweet potatoes (both of which I could buy in bulk) and portioned those out for the week.

My plan was working! Those excess pounds started to melt away. My clothing fit differently, and I felt in control of my body and my life…slightly.

I liked the direction I was going, so I upped the ante and worked out every free moment I could. I wanted to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club, I just didn’t know how to accomplish that in a healthy way, so I went with my own version. I was aware that a woman my size and age required a basic 1,600 calorie diet to maintain organ operation and all those basic life activities like working, typing, talking, walking, and going to the bathroom. 1,600 seemed like a pretty high number to me so I took my intake down to 1,400 and then 1,200. These numbers still seemed high to me, so I took it down to 1,000. On my 1,000 calories-per-day diet, I spent at least 500 calories walking, another 300 ellipticalling, God knows how many doing pushups.

I never didn’t eat for a day. I knew fasting was a “bad” thing and would eventually kill my metabolism, and I didn’t want to be “unhealthy.” I never considered that I was moving myself into the realm of anorexia because I was always eating something, and anorexics didn’t eat anything, right?

I soon came to the realization that the only path to truly not eating was to not buy food with the intent to not eat it (triple negative word score!). Deeper down the rabbit hole I went. Pretty soon 1,000 calories a day sounded like a lot. I mean, 1,000, that’s a big number! I was still functioning, wasn’t I? So obviously I could function on fewer calories. My figure was responding nicely. I was getting my androgynous body back, but I still had my infernal breasts and tummy pouch. Needed to cut more calories.

By now my caloric intake had decreased to maybe 800 calories at best and I was in the beginning stages of starvation mode. My body began to fight back; I was really hungry! There’s a cure for that. It’s called binge eating. I started binging on “healthy” things like jars of tomato sauce or 32 oz. tubs of Greek yogurt—non-fat, of course. Anytime I got food near me, I would snarf it down like a desperate dog or a top of the line Dyson vacuum cleaner. I tried to play coy, but I was just plain friggin’ hungry. I once demolished a block of uncooked tofu standing in the kitchen, pouring soy sauce over it so that I could pretend it was sushi. Clearly, I was turning to the dark side. Only it wasn’t yet clear to me.

(Continued October 14)

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Feed the Monster

As you may know from his guest blogs, AJ has had what you might call “difficulties” coming to terms with being a boy trapped in a girl’s body. (“Toy Retreat,” October 8, 2021; “Dinner with Mom and Dad,” December 20, 2021; “Clothes Make the Man-Child,” January 14, 2022; and “Non-Binary Tennis,” August 31, 2022.) The following five guest blogs recount perhaps the most difficult part of that journey–his struggle with body image, food, and the lapse in mental and physical health that made it clear that some critical life decisions were necessary. Here is AJ: 

My eating disorders began as a child. I was always an emotional eater and lived out my hedonism via Hostess and Hershey’s and all that good stuff. I’d always eat as many cookies as the parents would allow and drank orange juice (aka, “healthy soda”) by the gallons as well as soda soda whenever I could get my grubby paws on it. Food was one of the places I could get a hit of tasty dopamine and lose myself at the same time. It was sublime to come home after school with a big bag from the bodega of a mix of sweet and savories. Junk food was a friend. I guess I had a killer metabolism at the time and was also, ahem obliged, to play tennis all the time so my activity battled all those snackies. Another metabolism booster was that I picked up the lovely habit of smoking cigarettes somewhere along the way as a teen. Ahhh, another oral fixation to take me away and out of myself. Sorry, I’m not advocating smoking but oh man, it was disgustingly amazing.

But then, as much of the population, I was dropped off at college…and LEFT! Among the very first things that first-year students are required to figure out—besides where the bathrooms are—is how they are going to handle their new independence when it comes to eating and drinking behaviors. I am now a strong advocate for requiring all entering students to take Nutrition and Eating for Oneself 101. (Oh, and also, Financial Literacy 101 in which one would learn all about money management.) It’s so easy and tempting to lose control with Frito-Lay and Froot Loops around. Realization that one no longer has to eat what they don’t want to eat is revolutionary, and potentially belt-loosening or gut-busting. Moreover, vending machines and 7-Elevens present new collegians with cornucopias of “food” laden with fat, salt, and sugar and processed beyond recognition. Also, beers can be chugged ad nauseum (literally).

I, however, being a nervous wreck, ended up taking the opposite route. I still had the palate of a little kid and wanted hamburgers with fries and broccoli all the time (at least the broccoli was healthy). Sauces that weren’t fire engine red like ketchup or Prego were to be feared. I wasn’t eager to experiment with food when it was presented. Alternate versions, unfamiliar offerings, or unidentifiable foods weren’t appetizing. At this New England school, for example, there was a lot of mystery fish. I had eaten fish sticks and canned tuna fish in my previous life but that was it (not even the Fillet-O-Fish sandwich at McDonalds…not that that doesn’t count as mystery fish). Here, on the other hand, was a fish called “scrod.” Surely that was a joke. What kind of stupid fish, or stupid anything, is named “scrod”? In any event, I was overwhelmed trying to remember how to get to class and where to go to the bathroom at any given moment. So, naturally enough, I stopped eating regularly-scheduled meals.

I wasn’t playing tennis multiple times a week; I wasn’t walking around Brooklyn; I wasn’t doing anything to keep my muscles intact, so they atrophied. It was a slow process that I didn’t even notice because I didn’t know atrophy was a thing! I always had a pretty static body comp so why would it ever change? I also didn’t like to think or look at my body because as a transgender person, I HATED my body and never wanted to think or deal with it. So, I just went on smoking and drinking Coke, which, along with ramen noodles and potato chips, had become my main source of nutrition (I use the term loosely). You’d think I would have learned that basic nutrition needed attention…eventually I did when I got so unhealthy I literally got sick. Yup, I got mononucleosis and not the fun kissing kind; just the lacking nutrition kind, sigh.

Years pass.

I have graduated. I’m technically an adult. I’m working. I’m living alone, but I am trying hard to become a social being…you know, going out with friends and exploring life a bit. But my relationship with food continued to be a ticking time bomb. Restaurant food always meant larger portions, alcohol, and fried things. And at home, well, I never ate an organized plate of food, only a mishmash of whatever I had around, standing up in the kitchen, arms flailing toward a cabinet or the fridge door and back again grabbing for more and only stopping when I was beyond full and tired of eating. I might go to the trouble to cook chicken or tilapia (surprisingly healthy lean proteins)—while intermittently grazing on other items—pour ketchup on the protein, eat it and then do the process all over again because I wanted more, more, more even though I didn’t even think, know, or care if I was hungry.  Veggies were scarce and fruit was nonexistent. As they tend to do, all those calories added up, especially since everything seemed to end up doused in ketchup.

Not surprisingly, due to my Henry VIII-ian ways in food consumption, I easily packed on an additional 20 pounds. This was not good. Looking at the reflection of myself in my now too-tight clothes was not a pretty sight. And I say “pretty” because the snugness of the clothes made me more identifiable as a woman with curves and soft spots. My one body blessing had been that I didn’t have a womanly woman figure; I was not curvaceous nor endowed with a big chest. My hips weren’t noticeable, and my waist was relatively straight up and down like a guy’s. But with this added weight my womanly figure started to make herself known. Let’s face it: I was a plump, chonky female…my inner-dude was weeping. I had always liked being lean and looking as physically male as possible, but all of a sudden, I was looking doughy, soft, and…feminine.

When finally even a doctor said that my cholesterol was high and that I was not all that fit, it seemed time to stop wallowing in misery, candy, and ketchup and to take control of myself. The second ginormous shock came on the day I went down into plank position to do a pushup. I went down but couldn’t come back up no matter how I struggled. I had never not been able to do a pushup, and being able to do them always signaled self-sufficiency and masculinity to me. Men were expected to be able to do pushups, even if women were not. That I had grown too heavy and/or had become too weak to accomplish a single pushup was a blow to my masculine ego. To find that I couldn’t lift my weight off the floor made me feel like a floppy, flabby seal.

This new feminine look was simply not me. I needed my boyish figure back!

In Sesame Street-ese, my letter for the year became E. E as in “Eating” and E as in “Exercising.” In my mind now Eating was to be forever deemed E as in “Evil.” And Exercising became E as in “Extreme.” All effort went into exercise in order to mold, erase, and punish my body. Given my personality, it wasn’t hard for me to overdo it. I stopped going out with friends, and instead came home every evening after work to exercise. Not being able to do that single pushup had been emotionally distressing. But now I had a physical challenge and a goal to reach. I felt purposeful and less lost. It took quite a while for me to again be able to do a full plank pushup, but the build-up process was wonderfully satisfying. I incrementally increased the goal: do 5; now do 10; ok, do 15; 20; now do 2 sets of 20.

As exercising ramped up, eating had to be curtailed. I didn’t want to feed the hedonist anymore. She had been eating too much dough and spending too much of it, too. I wanted to put a stop to my self-indulgent eating and spending habits. Such hedonistic behavior needed to be punished. Nothing good had come of it. Pretty soon my obsession with [not] eating and [not] spending money joined my obsession with working out. So I started punishing myself on an extreme dieting and budgeting bender while working out incessantly. I was putting my life in order. Yeah, right.

Continued October 12)

Posted on by rjonakait

Dinner with Mom and Dad (Guest Post from the NBP concluded)

When dinner was over it was usually close to my bedtime and bedtime was the best time of the day! It was the ultimate kid time—catered completely to and for me—with the goal of accomplishing my favorite activity in the universe: sleep! Each of my parents would come in and say goodnight to me in their own special way, but they did it one at a time. I had each one all to myself. Snuggling down into my comfy jammies, I got to listen to stories and songs. For a while there I even got to suck my thumb.[1]

I made my parents wear out copies of many children’s books: Good Night Moon; The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Horton Hears a Who!; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (every day for me); The Mitten; Millions of Cats; Amos and Boris (one of my mom’s favorite’s); Where the Wild Things Are; Alexander and the Wind Up Mouse; Frederick; The Six Little Possums and the Babysitter (another of my mom’s faves); Ox-Cart Man; Caps for Sale; The Velveteen Rabbit (William T. Bear hated that one); Beatrix Potter, Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein. There was also Roald Dahl and the series featuring George and Martha hippopotami. I was also friendly with Lyle Crocodile, Babar, Corduroy, Frog and Toad, and the Berenstain Bears.[2]

My mom invented her own story series, which she did off the cuff. The main character was Little Green Frog, which, of course, was me, and her best friend was Myrtle the Turtle. They had lots of adventures and ate lily pads for cookies. Little Green Frog’s mom and dad were Mommy Purple Frog and Daddy Purple Frog. I loved those stories and regrettably don’t remember any of them. Mom would let me contribute to the plots, so one night I made my mom kill off Mommy Purple Frog and learned that Little Green Frog would be taken care of by Daddy Purple Frog. The next night Daddy PF instead of Mommy PF made the hit list, and Mommy PF took over. The next night I had her kill off both of them, and there was still a back-up! Aunt Orange Frog took over. So, I killed her off, too, and then I was sent to Grandma Green Frog and so on and so forth until we had run through several branches of the family tree, which seemed to blossom exuberantly, somewhat assuaging my fears of being alone and unadopted. Confusingly, I was never handed off to a reptilian babysitter….…

Little Green Frog stories were usually way cheerier than those death spirals. Also, my mom had magic mom powers, and sometimes, if I were unusually tense, she would rub my back and my head and tell me to calm my breathing. Then she might sing me a song or two or three. Sometimes my dad would take the mic and sing to me (in his own soothing, tone-deaf way). His songs were always super comforting to me, too, and I never wanted them to end.

Bedtime was kid time. Pure and simple. No thinking or action required on my part. It was when my parents came down to my level. These were the times my imagination was let out to pasture (counting sheep that could leap and leap). It was a special time completely designed for me. I remember it with great fondness.

[1] Quitting thumb-sucking is like quitting smoking; One needs to be in the right mind-frame. I became resolved to quit after a visit to the dentist where he told me and my mom that if I didn’t quit, I’d push my two front teeth out so much that I’d need braces or forever look like a beaver. That was the incentive I needed. I quit cold turkey. The worst flashbacks and slip-ups occurred watching Disney’s animated Robin Hood, because the wimpy lion of a Prince John sucks his thumb, and he makes it look soooooooo comforting. I improved on his technique though improvising on my own: when I sucked my thumb I would also curve my index finger around the tip of my nose and pet it. And zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………

[2] All these books meant so much to me that when I was in college, I went out and rebought the entire collection. Ahem, yes, a certain parent was socially responsible and into educating other children so donated the majority of my childhood stuff as it was deemed too young for me.

On September 1, 2021, the NBP posted “Non-Binary Tennis.” Search Results for “Non-Binary Tennis” – AJ’s Dad (ajsdad.blog). On October 8, AJ posted “Toy Retreat.” Search Results for “Toy Retreat” – AJ’s Dad (ajsdad.blog.)  They are worth reading.

Posted on by rjonakait

Feed the Monster (complete)

I have been asked by readers to post AJ’s entire essay, which has been posted in consecutive sections over the last five posts, in its entirety and in order. I am doing that today.

AJ, my non-binary progeny, has had what you might call “difficulties” coming to terms with being a boy trapped in a girl’s body and has written about that on this blog. (“Toy Retreat,” October 8, 2021; “Dinner With Mom and Dad,” December 20, 2021; “Clothes Make the Man-Child,” January 14, 2022; and “Non-Binary Tennis,” August 31, 2022.) Today AJ continues to guest blog about perhaps the most difficult part of that journey–his struggle with body image, food, and the lapse in mental and physical health that made it clear that some critical life decisions were necessary.

 Here is AJ: 

 

My eating disorders began as a child. I was always an emotional eater and lived out my hedonism via Hostess and Hershey’s and all that good stuff. I’d always eat as many cookies as the parents would allow and drank orange juice (aka, “healthy soda”) by the gallons as well as soda soda whenever I could get my grubby paws on it. Food was one of the places I could get a hit of tasty dopamine and lose myself at the same time. It was sublime to come home after school with a big bag from the bodega of a mix of sweet and savories. Junk food was a friend. I guess I had a killer metabolism at the time and was also, ahem obliged, to play tennis all the time so my activity battled all those snackies. Another metabolism booster was that I picked up the lovely habit of smoking cigarettes somewhere along the way as a teen. Ahhh, another oral fixation to take me away and out of myself. Sorry, I’m not advocating smoking but oh man, it was disgustingly amazing.

But then, as much of the population, I was dropped off at college…and LEFT! Among the very first things that first-year students are required to figure out—besides where the bathrooms are—is how they are going to handle their new independence when it comes to eating and drinking behaviors. I am now a strong advocate for requiring all entering students to take Nutrition and Eating for Oneself 101. (Oh, and also, Financial Literacy 101 in which one would learn all about money management.) It’s so easy and tempting to lose control with Frito-Lay and Froot Loops around. Realization that one no longer has to eat what they don’t want to eat is revolutionary, and potentially belt-loosening or gut-busting. Moreover, vending machines and 7-Elevens present new collegians with cornucopias of “food” laden with fat, salt, and sugar and processed beyond recognition. Also, beers can be chugged ad nauseum (literally).

I, however, being a nervous wreck, ended up taking the opposite route. I still had the palate of a little kid and wanted hamburgers with fries and broccoli all the time (at least the broccoli was healthy). Sauces that weren’t fire engine red like ketchup or Prego were to be feared. I wasn’t eager to experiment with food when it was presented. Alternate versions, unfamiliar offerings, or unidentifiable foods weren’t appetizing. At this New England school, for example, there was a lot of mystery fish. I had eaten fish sticks and canned tuna fish in my previous life but that was it (not even the Fillet-O-Fish sandwich at McDonalds…not that that doesn’t count as mystery fish). Here, on the other hand, was a fish called “scrod.” Surely that was a joke. What kind of stupid fish, or stupid anything, is named “scrod”? In any event, I was overwhelmed trying to remember how to get to class and where to go to the bathroom at any given moment. So, naturally enough, I stopped eating regularly scheduled meals.

I wasn’t playing tennis multiple times a week; I wasn’t walking around Brooklyn; I wasn’t doing anything to keep my muscles intact, so they atrophied. It was a slow process that I didn’t even notice because I didn’t know atrophy was a thing! I always had a pretty static body comp so why would it ever change? I also didn’t like to think or look at my body because as a transgender person, I HATED my body and never wanted to think or deal with it. So, I just went on smoking and drinking Coke, which, along with ramen noodles and potato chips, had become my main source of nutrition (I use the term loosely). You’d think I would have learned that basic nutrition needed attention…eventually I did when I got so unhealthy I literally got sick. Yup, I got mononucleosis and not the fun kissing kind; just the lacking nutrition kind, sigh.

Years pass.

 

I have graduated. I’m technically an adult. I’m working. I’m living alone, but I am trying hard to become a social being…you know, going out with friends and exploring life a bit. But my relationship with food continued to be a ticking time bomb. Restaurant food always meant larger portions, alcohol, and fried things. And at home, well, I never ate an organized plate of food, only a mishmash of whatever I had around, standing up in the kitchen, arms flailing toward a cabinet or the fridge door and back again grabbing for more and only stopping when I was beyond full and tired of eating. I might go to the trouble to cook chicken or tilapia (surprisingly healthy lean proteins)—while intermittently grazing on other items—pour ketchup on the protein, eat it and then do the process all over again because I wanted more, more, more even though I didn’t even think, know, or care if I was hungry.  Veggies were scarce and fruit was nonexistent. As they tend to do, all those calories added up, especially since everything seemed to end up doused in ketchup.

Not surprisingly, due to my Henry VIII-ian ways in food consumption, I easily packed on an additional 20 pounds. This was not good. Looking at the reflection of myself in my now too-tight clothes was not a pretty sight. And I say “pretty” because the snugness of the clothes made me more identifiable as a woman with curves and soft spots. My one body blessing had been that I didn’t have a womanly woman figure; I was not curvaceous nor endowed with a big chest. My hips weren’t noticeable, and my waist was relatively straight up and down like a guy’s. But with this added weight my womanly figure started to make herself known. Let’s face it: I was a plump, chonky female…my inner-dude was weeping. I had always liked being lean and looking as physically male as possible, but all of a sudden, I was looking doughy, soft, and…feminine.

When finally even a doctor said that my cholesterol was high and that I was not all that fit, it seemed time to stop wallowing in misery, candy, and ketchup and to take control of myself. The second ginormous shock came on the day I went down into plank position to do a pushup. I went down but couldn’t come back up no matter how I struggled. I had never not been able to do a pushup, and being able to do them always signaled self-sufficiency and masculinity to me. Men were expected to be able to do pushups, even if women were not. That I had grown too heavy and/or had become too weak to accomplish a single pushup was a blow to my masculine ego. To find that I couldn’t lift my weight off the floor made me feel like a floppy, flabby seal.

This new feminine look was simply not me. I needed my boyish figure back!

In Sesame Street-ese, my letter for the year became E. E as in “Eating” and E as in “Exercising.” In my mind now Eating was to be forever deemed E as in “Evil.” And Exercising became E as in “Extreme.” All effort went into exercise in order to mold, erase, and punish my body. Given my personality, it wasn’t hard for me to overdo it. I stopped going out with friends, and instead came home every evening after work to exercise. Not being able to do that single pushup had been emotionally distressing. But now I had a physical challenge and a goal to reach. I felt purposeful and less lost. It took quite a while for me to again be able to do a full plank pushup, but the build-up process was wonderfully satisfying. I incrementally increased the goal: do 5; now do 10; ok, do 15; 20; now do 2 sets of 20.

As exercising ramped up, eating had to be curtailed. I didn’t want to feed the hedonist anymore. She had been eating too much dough and spending too much of it, too. I wanted to put a stop to my self-indulgent eating and spending habits. Such hedonistic behavior needed to be punished. Nothing good had come of it. Pretty soon my obsession with [not] eating and [not] spending money joined my obsession with working out. So I started punishing myself on an extreme dieting and budgeting bender while working out incessantly. I was putting my life in order. Yeah, right.

 

I’m on a mission to lose the pounds that have produced this highly unwelcome feminine body. Excessive Exercising on an Elliptical (E had become the letter of the month…so Sesame Street), but I was making sure that my daily intake of calories was far less than the ones used to exercise. The Evil Elliptical had a calorie counter that I kept at a constant display. (Watts, who cares? Distance…mildly interesting. Nah, calories expended was where it was at). I wasn’t trying to get fit; I was only trying to shed flab. Another fun obsession was that I would check the calorie labels on foods, do some math (then redo it correctly), and ensure that I didn’t eat more than I would expend in a day.

Unsurprisingly, I became obsessed with calculating calories. I was a label looker and Googler of all foods and their nutrition vs. calorie payout. I collected nutrition label information like baseball stats. I watched predominantly all food shows, which was easy thanks to the Food Network, Travel Channel, and Cooking Channel. Food blogs were also a key escape and a form of foodie voyeurism…come on now, they call it food porn for a reason! And I was a dirty dirty viewer and drooler. I could literally be watching Hungry Girl, Lisa Lillien, while being on my iPad looking at local restaurant dishes on Yelp or looking at one of the many junk food, or cooking, or rating and tasting food blogs on my iPad. Food porn for the win.

Back to reality, I had a small stock of food left in my cabinets, but I managed to finish that off quickly, so I could start with a clean slate. My fridge became pretty much barren except for milk, condiments, and carrots—bonus: it was nice and tidy and just the way I liked it.

At the beginning of this “diet” I still had my wits about me, and I was intent on taking control. I also sought serious punishment: Punishment for my past bad eating behavior; punishment for spending too much money; punishment for being in a woman’s body; punishment for my mind telling me I should be a man. I sought that serious punishment by walking hours a day and ellipticalling (sure, that’s a verb now) away as many calories as I could. Working out had the double bonus of being robotic and zombie-like while also being painful…everything I could want.

I was feeling in control-ish, so I ventured back to the grocery store to buy some non-coffee related items. I went with the directive in mind to buy the “healthiest”—and cheapest—food I could find. “Healthy” meant low-cost, low-calorie, non-processed, non-fat, low-sodium, ready-to-eat foods. What does that equal? Canned vegetables. I had an affinity for cans because of their handy, portion-controlled rations and tidy uniform containers. Admittedly, they were a splurge. Canned foods were more costly than a giant sack of dry rice and beans, but they were so user-friendly and stacked so neatly (labels facing out…labels always facing out; OCD; OCD; OCD!). Frozen veggies were probably cheaper, but they were not portion controlled, and required preparation. Yes, dear reader, defrosting is preparation. No, I wouldn’t heat them on the stove or even microwave them. Yes, I’d merely set them in the fridge the night before like thawing meat, or leave them out on my counter all day so they would defrost to room temp. No, I didn’t want them hot; I actually like room temperature foods. Canned food fit the bill in all categories.

Eating at work was an issue. I figured I couldn’t just eat stuff out of a can for lunch without looking like a super weirdo sociopath. I did have some caloric leeway for lunch because it was the middle of the day, so I’d have plenty of opportunity to burn those calories away after work. I had to eat (dang it) and I was getting progressively hungrier watching coworkers go out and buy yummy food and then smelling it all around me. At first I let my wallet dictate my path and sought out the cheapest food that I could buy for the week—like 5-pound bags of tomatoes that I could store in the fridge at work and eat with mustard throughout the week. I don’t know why I thought that looked “normal.”  Somehow eating fresh produce was less embarrassing than eating canned stuff. Apples continued to be consumed for snacks. When tomatoes were unattainable, I pre-cooked kabocha squashes or sweet potatoes (both of which I could buy in bulk) and portioned those out for the week.

My plan was working! Those excess pounds started to melt away. My clothing fit differently, and I felt in control of my body and my life…slightly.

I liked the direction I was going, so I upped the ante and worked out every free moment I could. I wanted to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club, I just didn’t know how to accomplish that in a healthy way, so I went with my own version. I was aware that a woman my size and age required a basic 1,600 calorie diet to maintain organ operation and all those basic life activities like working, typing, talking, walking, and going to the bathroom. 1,600 seemed like a pretty high number to me so I took my intake down to 1,400 and then 1,200. These numbers still seemed high to me, so I took it down to 1,000. On my 1,000 calories-per-day diet, I spent at least 500 calories walking, another 300 ellipticalling, God knows how many doing pushups.

I never didn’t eat for a day. I knew fasting was a “bad” thing and would eventually kill my metabolism, and I didn’t want to be “unhealthy.” I never considered that I was moving myself into the realm of anorexia because I was always eating something, and anorexics didn’t eat anything, right?

I soon came to the realization that the only path to truly not eating was to not buy food with the intent to not eat it (triple negative word score!). Deeper down the rabbit hole I went. Pretty soon 1,000 calories a day sounded like a lot. I mean, 1,000, that’s a big number! I was still functioning, wasn’t I? So obviously I could function on fewer calories. My figure was responding nicely. I was getting my androgynous body back, but I still had my infernal breasts and tummy pouch. Needed to cut more calories.

By now my caloric intake had decreased to maybe 800 calories at best and I was in the beginning stages of starvation mode. My body began to fight back; I was really hungry! There’s a cure for that. It’s called binge eating. I started binging on “healthy” things like jars of tomato sauce or 32 oz. tubs of Greek yogurt—non-fat, of course. Anytime I got food near me, I would snarf it down like a desperate dog or a top of the line Dyson vacuum cleaner. I tried to play coy, but I was just plain friggin’ hungry. I once demolished a block of uncooked tofu standing in the kitchen, pouring soy sauce over it so that I could pretend it was sushi. Clearly, I was turning to the dark side. Only it wasn’t yet clear to me.

 

My “very healthy” dieting was making me HUNGRY. I needed to be around FOOD. Going to grocery stores became a secret pastime. I ogled all the food that one could buy. I got addicted to just being in food’s presence and basking in it. There was so much…aisles and aisles to peruse and even touch. So illicit. And trust me, it did not escape me that walking around in grocery stores meant that I was actually spending calories which made this form of voyeurism doubly attractive.

There were other motives to going to grocery stores. Food at home was not safe. It was too easy to eat. But at the store, it was different. In grocery stores there were……samples! Moreover, samples were only weekend treats since stores would make the most business on those days, but that was perfect for me because it was a form of portion control right there. I quickly learned which stores had the best delicacies, so I could easily map out my weekend rounds.

Then one day I lost control and ate half a jar of Biscoff spread, many many handfuls of trail mix, cheese cubes, and finally bread with marinara sauce right in the middle of one of those stores. I walked out with my head hung in shame and my belly protruding, but I wanted more! I was afraid of being called out as a weirdo sample hoarder, but, well, I was a weirdo sample hoarder!

Even I knew that I couldn’t keep this up. Grocery stores entered the category of “feared ones.” I thought about stealing from stores. In my fantasies, I wouldn’t put things in my pocket, but rather, I would just open boxes and eat stuff in the store and walk out. I thought/hoped I’d get away with it because I didn’t look homeless or criminal-like (yes, cuz I looked like a girl…I’m so sexist). I never actually built up the courage to do it. Not that I’m having a proud moment right now. I was just too afraid of getting caught. (I was always a fraidy cat about rule-breaking.)

I decided I needed to find a more inconspicuous target. And there was the answer: Target. Shamefacedly, yet electrified, I made trips to Target around the holidays when candy was on special display because kids (I assume kids) would go and bust open packages of bulk candies and eat some. I figured if they were already open, they were fair game because they couldn’t be sold damaged. So, I’d go pilfer candy. Worse, I’d go to just drive myself more insane because I knew candy was so bad for me and such a devil’s food (mmm, devil’s food cake!). I’d go and literally stare and pace around an innocent, lone, loose snack-sized KitKat bar that had been dislodged from its KitKat kolony and engage in a battle with myself about whether it was ok to pocket this mini Kat for energy and life or would it destroy me by adding to my stomach wombum bumpum? Control and rational thought were in short supply. And conveniently, it gave me more reason to hate myself.

Some epic binges (not stolen but acquired through some legitimate means): I ate an entire jar of peanut butter; six chocolate croissants and two donuts I found on the street; an entire tray of Italian cookies; a giant Tupperware full of venison (yes, venison of all things); an entire box of Russell Stover’s chocolates (duh). These were not my finest moments. Sometimes I ate leftover food that was supposed to last for days, and sometimes I ate all of these things with some chips on the side! I couldn’t even do the math anymore on the number of calories I consumed during a binge because I went into zombie mode while eating and lost count of what I ate in the blur of movement from hand to mouth.

 Even with the binging, I had lost 35 pounds in 8 months. However, it was becoming clearer that I was losing my mind, my body, and ummm, my hair. My hair—one of the few bodily aspects of myself that I was ok with.

Of course, my body cried out in other ways to tell me to end its punishment. My nails grew fragile; I was pasty white; and all of my muscles were breaking down. Though I still worked out all the time, I never gained any muscle, only lost it. My joints started cracking. I stopped being able to use the elliptical; it took too much effort. Most things took too much effort…even thinking. I was getting light-headed, and my thoughts were muddled and confused—even more so than usual. I couldn’t make decisions, but I could still muster a fake public smile, and  an inward smile when I felt my hipbones jutting out.

I was becoming very, very shaky. I felt rattled physically and mentally. All that joint clicking and clacking echoed the rattle. I had no energy. After I walked to work (3.4 miles, but who’s counting?), I would plunk down in my chair and barely be able to move. Getting up literally started to hurt. My joints were coming apart. It became a production to walk to someone else’s desk or to the bathroom. When I returned home and freed myself from my work clothes, I would wobble and wave around pretending to do my exercises (think: air dancer a.k.a wacky inflatable waving guys in front of car dealerships), and for dinner eat my ration of canned veggies or black beans. Sometimes I added ketchup because I love ketchup and I needed some extra sugar, but I justified ketchup because it contains lycopene, and I felt more grown up “seasoning” my veggies. I took a look at myself and saw that my bones were protruding. I was becoming a skeleton, weeeeeee.

Bulimia nervosa: An eating disorder, “mostly in women” (says Merriam Webster) in which excessive concern with weight and body shape leads to binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors such as self-induced vomiting or the excessive use of laxatives of diuretics. According to the Mayo clinic there are two types of bulimia: purging bulimia where one regularly self-induces vomiting or misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas after binging, and non-purging bulimia where one uses other methods to rid oneself of calories and prevent weight gain, such as fasting, strict dieting, or excessive exercise. So, I’m now eating almost nothing. I binge eat, skulk around in grocery stores and steal candy because I’m HUNGRY. Apparently, my body needs those binges in order to, you know, make my heart beat and keep my diaphragm moving. After a binge, I don’t eat anything for a few days. I’ve lost tons of weight, but I am HUNGRY! I no longer have the energy to exercise away those binge calories. I am angry at my body because it’s HUNGRY! It’s trying to make me eat, trying to make me more of a woman; my own body, that bitch! Exercise no longer suffices to balance the binges. I come up with a new strategy: I start to purge. ME! The one who was puke-a-phobic throughout my entire life. I must have thrown up when I was a kid (doesn’t everybody?), which must’ve felt so bad or scared me so much that I refused ever to do it again. Then as a teenager I threw up three times from drinking and stopped drinking altogether for ages because everything surrounding the upchuck process was horrifying. This is the me who now started to stick my own grubby finger down my own grubby throat. I literally ate myself sick. I would just eat and eat and eat and indulge until I hit a threshold, and then I’d eat more to push myself over the edge and be able to puke. I felt crazy and out of control while doing it, but there you have it. I wanted to eat and taste the food, but not add to my woman wombum bumpum, so I turned to bulimia. As it turned out, throwing up wasn’t all that bad, and it got easier (finally…something!). Alcohol, I learned, aided the process to an extraordinary degree because it dulled my senses, further impaired my judgment, and made me want to puke naturally if I drank too much of it…in fact, I had to puke if I drank too much. Unfortunately, it was also an appetite enhancer and stimulant. So I would eat, then purge. It was a vicious merry-go-round, but I knew not to buy a ticket too often—I didn’t want to become a bulimic for heaven’s sake. Oh, and I also abused laxatives, but only in moderation! As they say, “everything in moderation…” I was in complete denial about my bulimia. I reasoned (ha!) that because I wasn’t puking with regularity like I thought a bulimic did, I couldn’t possibly be considered bulimic. But I didn’t want to throw up or have diarrhea all the time. Neither was much fun. I was in a quandary: I did not want to binge and I did not want to eat. Thus, I employed my third and final tool: Windex. Inspired by the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding who uses Windex as a cure-all, I used it to cure my lack of control around food. I rendered bingeable foods fresh-scented, sparkly, and inedible. My toxic condiment was used on sweets or leftovers that I deemed too calorie-laden. Without the Windex, I was doomed to endure the process of binging and purging, and that took too much energy—energy I no longer had. Spraying Windex on food was sacrilege to me because 1) I was wasting a cleaning product, and 2) I was wasting food when there were starving people in the world. Sometimes after spraying it, I dumped the food in the toilet and flushed it away. I felt guilty for that, too, but it was better than eating it, throwing it up in the toilet, and then flushing it away. Right? A new fun game emerged: Grocery stores provided me a whole world of free buffets once again, but not from samples anymore. This time it was from their inventory turnover. I hovered on the pavement outside where stores deposited their garbage. The City is rife with unwanted or expired items, and I became fixated on them as some sort of basic instinctual survival skill. I became a character in Hatchet or contestant on Alone, except I wasn’t stranded anywhere in the middle of nature, didn’t have to live off the land or defend myself against predators, and could walk into one of those grocery stores at any time to buy and eat food. In socioeconomic terms this mania was completely unwarranted and unnecessary, and I knew it. I should have recognized that I was starving myself and going slowly mad in the process. But no. Instead I dabbled in picking stuff out of the garbage. I never ate garbage…not garbage like from a dish someone else had eaten from. I never hovered over a street corner garbage can waiting for individuals to discard bits of sandwich that I could rescue and eat. I did faux foraging. There I was in my Gap jeans and Urban Outfitters shirt rummaging through tidy bags of civilized garbage put out by local bakeries or high-end grocery stores. I was a bougie bandit: I’d slink away with loaves of multigrain baguettes. Baguettes I was terrified I was going to binge on! Everything was upside down, turned around, and backwards in my world. There was a method to my madness (and it WAS madness): For example, I monitored a certain Citarella gourmet market because on certain days of the week they would put out their expired sushi. It was just a day expired, so I took the gamble and ate old tuna or salmon rolls. They never tasted too funky and I managed not to get sick. Another triumphant haul was at a Duane Reade that was turning over their inventory of expensive (and expired) cereal. It was Kashi Go Lean, so this was a double win because it was supposedly healthy. The Kashi lasted me for months as I parceled it out at work for lunch. It tasted horrible, which helped me not binge on it. I was probably poisoning myself because it tasted like chemically laminated bitter cardboard. Anyway, as I ate my way through it, lunch after lunch, I was happy and even proud of my resourcefulness, non-wastefulness, and “normalness.” I was finally not throwing away food, I was eating the food that was thrown away! Even I knew that I needed help. I didn’t want to go to therapy, but I couldn’t stand myself nor could I continue living this way. Was I trying to kill myself? Passively, probably. Disappear myself? Yes. I was definitely trying to kill that feminine beast who kept trying to invade my body. And I did kill part of her because I had finally attained amenorrhea…let the choir sing! Amenorrhea is the abnormal absence of a normal monthly menstrual cycle. I had always had very regularly scheduled and very, uh, robust periods. A while before, I had noticed my periods getting less and less heavy (curious…) though still regular. But then they kind of became ghost-periods; like the first days were like the last of my “normal” periods. Then one magical month…I got NOTHING! What?! Huh?! What’s going on? (Obviously not pregnant, hahaha!) Then another month. What?! Huh?! What’s going on? Honestly, I tried not to think about it too much for fear that even thinking about would bring it back. Like saying Voldemort’s name. But this was a magical time! Somehow, even in my non-lucid non-thinking-straight (always think gay, boys and girls! Haha.) I put two and two together…I did math! Not eating and not having enough calories to like, have thick hair and nails, also meant not having enough calories to drop eggs. Aaaaand done. I could never lay another egg again but I could also, *sob*, not maintain this. Period. I knew I needed to get my shit together if I were to survive. To do this, I knew I had to eat again like a normal human being. But by doing that was I going to have to let the beast win? Talk about being between a rock and a hard place…or for me it was between a tampon and a pad, ugh. ­I needed help. Although I was out of my mind from caloric deficit, I was lucky enough to know that I was out of my mind and to know that I needed help if I were going to pull myself from the abyss. I reached out to my best friend and casually told her that I kinda wanted to die, explaining only that that was the reason I had been “acting weird.” She came to my rescue by having her mother (a psychologist) refer me immediately to a psychoanalyst whom she trusted. Thank you, my friend. And my friend’s mom. Recovery is another story. It involved the recognition that the feminine beast didn’t have to reign victorious. Did I need a tampon or pad again? Yes, but only a couple times, and things were looking up by then. I knew my paying the pink tax was moments away. Years have now gone by since I had surgery to remove my feminine “equipment” (ovaries, uterus, breasts). It has made all the difference…but I’m still kinda OCD, heh.