Before transitioning, I struggled with disordered eating. Hormone-replacement therapy helped me overcome it.

• Before coming out as transgender, I wrestled with bulimia and binge-eating disorder.
• The body I was chasing in the gym was unattainable because I had gender dysphoria.

When I was growing up, my whole family had a love affair with food. Grits, greens, and gumbo made regular appearances at our dining-room table. But my relationship with food seemed particularly intimate. I once realized, midway through feasting at Taco Bell, that the pop music playing over the intercom sounded better with savory carbs in my stomach. The overhead fluorescent lights shone beautifully. The lackluster day suddenly seemed full of possibility. I genuinely felt intoxicated.

Only when I caught my dining companion staring at me with concern did I realize that my expression had unwittingly devolved into something I typically reserved for bedroom partners. I reddened with embarrassment.

I then started a problematic relationship with my body, which was fueled by gender dysphoria. Once I received hormone-replacement therapy, I could finally love my curvy body.

I was always uncomfortable being the chubby kid

It's no wonder that a foodie like me gained weight during puberty. My insatiable hunger and delight in food saddled me with fat. When I lied down without a shirt, my belly rolls spilled out around me like melting ice cream. Now, looking back at pictures of those years, I see only a slightly chubby kid. But at the time, every mirror reflected an unlovable beast who had to shop in the "husky boys" section at Walmart.

I mercilessly berated myself anytime I failed to stick to a diet or exercise regimen — often daydreaming about taking a magic knife to the parts of my body that I hated most. At 16, I finally maintained a fitness and nutritional routine. Jogging and foregoing simple carbs whittled me down to a slim frame. I was more confident than ever. Yet I felt uncomfortable in my skin, and my stomach ached for old comforts.

At 16, I lost 70 pounds, but fear of regaining the weight led to disordered eating

One night after a jog, my hunger overcame me, and I binged. I tore through the creamy Oreos and brittle tortilla chips, chugged salsa straight from the jar, and washed down two bittersweet PB&Js with cool, nourishing milk. I ate until my stomach stretched painfully. I was so petrified of gaining back the weight that I made myself purge everything that I'd eaten. I began to do this regularly.

What did it matter that I enjoyed when a man complimented the way my narrow waist flared out to my hips and butt? Only women were supposed to be soft and curvy. Men should be built like bags of broken glass, I thought. So I threw myself harder into my workouts to make myself firm and angular. Ironically, it was exactly these kinds of compliments that proved seminal in accepting my womanhood.

I realized that the discomfort in my body was gender dysphoria

Countless factors contributed to my coming out, but one of the most salient was realizing what kind of body felt the most like me. As it turns out, I was dieting and working out only to draw more romantic and sexual interest.

When I came out as trans, I realized I wanted a body that was all for me. I realized my true self, my true body, was curvy, sturdy, and plump — like the nude ladies in Renaissance paintings.

Starting was the most difficult part. Within the same six-month period of beginning hormone-replacement therapy, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which made me nearly sedentary. Estrogen is notorious for causing some weight gain, a fact that was made all the more apparent now that I wasn't hitting the gym to keep my shape in check.

For the first time in half a decade, the scale rose above 140 pounds. I was terrified that I was making the wrong decision. Hormones take their sweet time changing your body, and this initial weight gain made me dislike my body more for the sole reason that I was gaining weight like a man. But as the months passed, the fat redistributed.

Hormone-replacement therapy shifted the fat in my body into a more-feminine composition

My face shape began to change, my breasts enlarged ever so slightly, and, best of all, I began to hold more weight in my thighs, hips, and butt.

Five years later, progress pictures help remind me that this imperceptibly slow change is ongoing, but my body is nearly unrecognizable today from the day I took my first dose of estrogen.

I am now at the heaviest weight I've ever been — even heavier than when I felt like an unlovable monster as a teen. But now I'm not afraid of gaining more; in fact, I wouldn't mind being curvier.

My relationship with my body is far from perfect; I still sometimes struggle with feeling unattractive. But receiving gender-affirming care has helped repair my relationship with food so that I can delight in it with unabashed joy. I am now eating more mindfully so that I dine for my body's pleasure.