A rack of BBQ ribs, sweet potato slices sauteed with paprika, cinnamon, garlic and chillies washed down with a tall glass of ice cold beautifully crafted beer. To nearly everyone in the meat eating, beer drinking parts of the world this sounds like heaven but to some of us this is a meal straight from the devil himself. It’s tempting, it’s beautiful, it’s mouthwatering, it’s so simple but oh so fucking good. But how many calories are in the ribs? If I trim off all the fat will that help? Maybe I’ll just have half a potato instead of the whole thing. I did have a Reese’s nutrageous bar earlier, maybe I shouldn’t have the beer. I know, I’ll halve the entire thing and have the rest for lunch tomorrow. Great great great, that’ll work. And then I can go for a run after the gym tomorrow to make up for it. Perfect!

This is how my mind works with every single fucking meal. Even a salad has the potential to cause stress and regret for stuffing my face full of leaves and vegetables. I will carefully put the leaves on to my plate then put some back in the bag. Use only a small portion of each vegetable so I can have a variety of veggies without overloading. Each bite is slow and congratulatory: “This is good, no carbs, no meat, I’m getting all my nutrients, it’s great. Really wish it had some dressing though. A few bites left, I think I’m full though…”

Going out for a pizza? I’ll ask for it without cheese and then save half of it for tomorrow. I could get the meat feast because that’s full of protein. But the sausage is always wicked oily. Oh, I could get the pizza with the salad in the middle and just not eat my crusts. They’re pointless anyways, just extra bread. Or I’ll just get two side salads, saves money that way anyway. I really fancy a beer. I really shouldn’t if I’m gonna have garlic bread for a starter. I’ll just grab a vodka soda. Ugh, vodka is so gross but beer is basically a carb milkshake so I’ll stick to spirits.

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

I didn’t always use to think this way, I’m Italian-American after all, my life growing up revolved around food. It still does, the only difference is food used to bring me joy, now it delivers stress straight to my brain a thousand times a day. I used to not care at all about what I ate, a bowl of Lucky Charms was a great pre-dinner snack and a bowl of Reese’s puffs was the perfect dessert. Yeah I just finished my sandwich but it was so good I think I’ll make another…

Thing is, I was never really that big. I’ve never gone past 180 lbs (13 stone), granted I was only about 13 at that time and around 5 ft or so. Now I’m 6 ft and about 155 lbs (11 stone). These days I’m healthy-ish but it has been a long struggle that I’m still trying everyday to overcome. Around the time I was at my biggest I also finally confirmed with myself that I am gay. Double whammy for anyone trying to get through the 9 circles of hell commonly reffered to as high school. Coming to the full realisation of my sexuality (not acceptance quite yet) caused me to look at the examples of men, particularly gay men, portrayed in the media as the shining example of what we should all aspire to be. Actors, singers, models, porn stars and the like, whether straight or gay, are generally incredibly fit, well defined, adonis like creatures.

I started to look at myself with disgust for the first time in my life. Suddenly my arms looked too skinny, my stomach was huge and shapeless, I couldn’t see my cheekbones, my legs were so thin, at this angle I had a double chin. No man would ever want this tub of lard when they could get that adonis waiting for them around the corner (that’s how common it feels these “perfect people” seem to be around us when plastered all over our media). So I decided to do something about it. I joined track in the spring of my Sophomore year and stuck with it all through the rest of my high school career and sure enough I lost a fair bit of weight. I saw first hand that hard work brings great results.

Then I graduated. I took a year out between high school and college and I decided to use the time to finally get my perfect body. I joined a gym and swore to become a regular gym bunny. I started reading up on all the best meals, diet options, work-out routines, interviews by celebrity trainers about how they gave Brad Pitt his v-lines… I became a man obsessed, truly, deeply obsessed. Six days a week you could find me in the gym and I never drove the 3 miles, I ran to and from every single time. Sometimes I’d go for an 8 mile run after the gym. I looked at the nutritional value of everything I was putting in my body, making sure it was perfectly timed with my work-outs to maximise the benefit and cut out all the useless shit I was putting in my body (like bread, potatoes, dairy, you know that evil evil shit).

Obviously this is a slippery slope which I was not wearing the proper shoes for and fell right the fuck down it. My portions got smaller and smaller until I found my perfect portion size — if it can fit in the palm of your hands, that’s big enough. Three meals which maximised nutritional value at this size with snacks of fruit or yogurt in between and one treat a day (usually one Oreo or a glass of chocolate milk) combined with my efforts at the gym and I will be that adonis in no time! I had my cheat days, of course, during which I would engorge myself to a point of literal immobility and curse myself for letting myself go, punching my stomach and sticking my fingers down my throat. It was hell but I couldn’t argue with the results and once you see one part of your body change thanks to the work you’ve put in you notice the next thing you need to work on and focus on that until you’ve got it just right then it’s on to the next part of your body. But that means you’ve been neglecting another part so you’ve got the next target in mind.

At 6 ft I weighed 140 lbs (10 stone) but I was at the gym every day so I was actually quite muscly (bearing in mind that muscle weighs more than fat). But I didn’t see this, I saw a six pack that could use more definition, calves that could be beefier, arms that could be nicer, shoulders that could be more defined, it was never ending.

One moment sticks out; I got changed in front of one of my friends and I caught a glimpse of sheer horror on her face before commenting on how bony I was but I just looked in the mirror and thought about how my stomach was sticking out past my hip bones that day so I’d need to do some extra cardio tomorrow.

I was miserable. I was tired all the time, always thinking about my next meal, wishing I could eat as much as everyone else, declining invitations to go out if they involved eating, snappy, moody, bitchy. Basically I was fucking hungry but it took me a long time to realise this and actually face what I had been doing to myself. Six years on and I’m still getting used to the idea that food is not evil. It’s not as cut and dry as overcoming other evils in our lives. Recovering alcoholics will never drink again, recovering drug addicts will never use again, ex-smokers will never light up again but those recovering from eating disorders have to eat and being faced everyday with the thing that once took over your life is a never ending battle. At a young age I fell in love with food and now I am stuck in this cycle with no way out.

Men have an equal desire to “body beautiful” as women but for whatever reason, they are much quieter about their plight. Going to the gym twice a day and looking at meals as systematic nutrition rather than enjoying your life and what you eat is just as bad as replacing meals with cayenne pepper lemonade. These actions cannot be sustained without great sacrifices being made to the rest of your life and those who commit themselves to this sort of regime will burn out, returning to their old lifestyle of relaxed eating and occasional exercise. One thing these people will tell you is that they are much happier after they return to their old lifestyle, there is no need to spend our lives trying to look perfect if it means losing out on so much else of what life has to offer.

I am grateful that I have come out the other side and never had to go into a clinic or receive professional therapy because there are still far too many people who find themselves in this position and not enough help is given. My Freshman health teacher told us that men can develop eating disorders just as easily as women but there isn’t a great deal of men representing these disorders. It left me convinced for years afterwards that I was not afflicted by an eating disorder since there are very few men who come forward and admit to having an issue which makes it very likely that many more men will never realise what they are struggling with. The first step is to recognise what healthy means instead of what it looks like and all men and women fully accepting this. Big is beautiful, skinny is beautiful, bones are beautiful, muscle is beautiful, all of who we are is beautiful as long as we feel it.