How to be Successful When Eating with ADHD
Eating with ADHD can be challenging.
Learn ways to time manage, organize and gamify tasks to make eating when you have ADHD a lot easier. I am sharing ways to help you free up your time and remove the overwhelm, guilt or stress when it comes to food and eating.
ADHD also known as Attention Deficit Disorder is a condition that includes attention difficulty, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness.
According to the CDC, there are three different ways ADHD presents itself:
Predominantly Inattentive Presentation: It is hard for an individual to organize or finish a task, to pay attention to details, or to follow instructions.
Predominantly Hyperactive- Impulsive Presentation: The person fidgets and talks a lot. Someone who is impulsive, may interrupt during conversations, feels restless.
Combined Presentations: Symptoms of the above two are present.
ADHD often begins in childhood, although many folks are not diagnosed until later on in life. This seems to be especially true for women!
I was fortunate enough to get diagnosed when I was 12 years old and was immediately put on stimulant medication, which proved to be life changing for my school work. As a young teen who was already struggling in her relationship with food and her body, I was also navigating the murky waters of eating with ADHD. I was never informed of the impact ADHD had on eating patterns and habits, which often left me feeling isolated and ashamed.
My relationship to food was impacted by my ADHD in a number of ways:
I often used food for additional dopamine, especially when I was feeling antsy or bored.
I was impulsive and this impulsivity made it difficult to sit down and enjoy my meals. I would grab snacks as a way to deal with discomfort.
I found ways to distract myself during meal time, such as watching tv/ movies, going on my computer, etc. This made made it harder to get in touch with my hunger/fullness cues.
My stimulants suppressed my appetite cues, which led to years of the restrict/binge cycle.
Characteristics of ADHD that make eating challenging
Let’s go over a few of them and see if you can relate:
1) Time blindness and poor time management: skipping meals or needing to rush through a meal because you have run out of time.
2) Difficulty focusing - forgetting things at grocery store, not paying attention to the meal, hunger or fullness cues, making mistakes while cooking, getting distracted while preparing a meal or eating.
3) Emotional dysregulation - using food to soothe emotions, feeling overwhelmed by what to eat, not cooking or eating when mood is low, avoiding uncomfortable tasks, such as washing dishes.
4) Disorganization: feeling overwhelmed by planning meals, forgetting to go grocery shopping and not having enough food to cook with, making a mess in the kitchen.
5) High sensitivity: avoiding certain smells/ textures, difficulty tolerating excess stimuli as you eat and inability to tolerate loud chewing or other sounds sounds.
Gentle Tips when Eating with ADHD
1) Use external reminders, such as clocks, timers, calendar invites, notes, and to do lists.
2) Create a grocery inventory list when going to the grocery store.
3) Pair tasks you don’t typically like with some form of stimulation, such as podcasts, audiobooks or a phone call with a friend.
4) Get support from friends and loved ones where you can. For example, can your partner remind you to eat or even better help prepare you a meal?
5) Create a list of easy meals/ snacks to have on hand for when you feel overwhelmed. For example: cheese + crackers, a smoothie, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with pretzels and an apple.
6) Gamify boring tasks - set a timer for 15 minutes and clean whatever you can in those 15 minutes.
7) Have compassion for yourself! Remember, you are doing the best you can in this moment.
Poor time management, emotional dysregulation, and disorganization are just some of the ways in which eating with ADHD can be challenging. Incorporating lists, timers, gamification as well as finding other ways to increase dopamine can help what might feel impossible to be doable as someone with ADHD.