Body Image & Eating Disorder Therapy - Online Across MA, NY, ME & FL
Affirming virtual therapy for gay men navigating body image & disordered eating.
You know this stopped being about fitness a while ago.
Sound like you?
For some guys, it's more of a background habit than a crisis. You'd never call it a problem. You just untag the photos where your stomach shows, keep a shirt on at the pool, and feel a pang of guilt after dessert, if you let yourself have it at all. You catch yourself comparing your body to your friends', and when someone says you look great, the lift fades within the hour.
For others, it's taken over more of your life. Maybe it's a folder of progress photos you'd never show anyone, stepping on the scale at least once a day, or a "clean" eating plan that keeps getting stricter. Maybe you've started looking into GLP-1s, SARMs, or steroids, things you once swore you'd never consider. Either way, you call it health and discipline, and some days that's true. But underneath is a different thought: if I can just fix this one thing, I'll finally feel okay. Then you fix it, and the target moves. You've hit goals you used to dream about, but you don't feel the way you thought you would.
Anyone who's spent time in gay spaces knows how much rides on a body. It decides who gets the DMs, the invitations, the second look across the room. Bodies are currency, and somewhere along the way you stopped questioning who set the rules. If you're done paying into that system, you're in the right place.
What life could feel like instead.
Healing here doesn't mean loving every inch of yourself. It means you stop needing your body to be perfect before you let yourself enjoy your life. Dinner with friends becomes about the laughter and the stories, not the numbers. You order what you're actually craving and forget about it by the time the plates are cleared. You go to the gym because it feels good to move your body, and when life gets in the way, you skip a day and nothing happens. Food and exercise stop being debts you're always paying off.
Slowly, you start to feel at home in your own skin. You catch your reflection in a window and keep walking. You take your shirt off at the beach and spend the afternoon laughing with the people you love instead of watching yourself from the outside. In bed, you're actually with him, and you can let yourself be seen. You walk into a gay bar or a locker room without sizing up every body in it, keep the parts of queer community that feel like home, and leave the ranking behind. You belong there, just as you are.
It doesn't mean every day is easy. It means the voice that's been criticizing you for years finally gets quieter, and in the space it leaves behind, there's room for joy and connection. You deserve that, and with the right support, it's within reach.
This isn't vanity. It's pain, and it deserves to be taken seriously.
Here’s what we’ll do together
A relationship with food and your body that doesn't need constant management.
My approach is grounded in Health at Every Size. In practice, that means learning to respond to your body's actual signals rather than rules, guilt, or compensation.
Together, we'll work toward:
Trusting your hunger and fullness cues again
Noticing the other signals your body sends, like emotions, energy, and stress, that diet culture taught you to override
Moving your body because it feels good and fits your life, not to earn food or chase a specific physique
Where the deeper work happens
Getting curious about what's underneath.
The parts of you working overtime to manage food, exercise, and how you look are usually protecting you from something. Instead of fighting them, we'll get curious about them and ask questions like:
Where did you first learn your body was something to be evaluated?
What messages did you grow up with about your body, your sexuality, or what made you acceptable?
What's happening right before the urge to restrict, or the compulsive check in the mirror before leaving the house?
What is that urge trying to help you cope with, and are there other ways to meet that need that might serve you better?
Take comparing yourself to other guys at the gym. As we trace it back to whose approval felt conditional on how you looked, the comparing starts to make sense. It isn't really about the guy next to you. It's an old fear of not measuring up that started somewhere specific. Once you see that, you're no longer running the pattern on autopilot, and you can choose something different.
Common Questions
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No, because the research is clear that dieting and weight-cycling - NOT body fat - are leading causes of eating disorders and health-related issues. I practice from a weight-neutral, non-diet approach, meaning I don’t treat bodies as problems to fix, but help clients build a more peaceful relationship with food and their body. While I can support clients in improving health markers in collaboration with a treatment team, I don’t provide care aimed at changing body size or appearance.
If you’re curious about why so many eating disorder professionals take this stance, I’ve written more about it here: Debunking the Myth that HAES is Anti-Healthand Why Many ED Professionals Take a Weight-Neutral Approach.
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I specialize in working with Anorexia, Atypical Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder, Orthorexia, and OSFED, as well as folks with exercise addiction, body image issues, and a history of disordered eating that has never been formally diagnosed or treated. I am not trained in working with ARFID, Pica, Rumination Disorder, or Diabulimia.
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No problem. You don't need a formal diagnosis to start therapy, and during the intake process I will conduct a thorough assessment. If it seems that you may benefit from a higher level of care, I will provide you with referrals and help you get connected.
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I am trained in several modalities, but the two I use most often when treating eating disorders are Internal Family Systems and Psychodynamic Therapy.
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Absolutely! And if you don't yet have a team, I'll be happy to provide you with referrals for a psychiatrist, registered dietitian, recovery coach, and/or primary care physician.
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Disordered eating refers to a range of irregular or harmful eating behaviors — things like chronic restriction, binge eating, compulsive calorie counting, or using exercise to compensate for food — that significantly impact your quality of life but may not meet the full clinical criteria for a diagnosed eating disorder. An eating disorder is a formal diagnosis like anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or orthorexia. The line between the two can be blurry, and the distinction matters less than whether the patterns are causing you distress. Both are worth taking seriously, and both are things I work with.
You've spent years at war with your body. Let's build something different.
Articles on Body Image, Eating Disorders & Gay Men's Mental Health
