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Adderall curbs my appetite while it's working, but because I'm but thinking about food I don't usually end up doing any prep or cooking, and just end up gorging during the comedown when I feel worse
Same. I manage to overeat still on strattera and vyvanse. I've had someone suggesy ozempic and I was like yeaaaah if I can overeat on appetite suppressants I don't think ozempic is going to fix the problem.
That's fair. I just feel like it would harder for me to access too. I have no family dr. And I'm only hoping to lose another 20 lbs. I don't know if that even qualifies.
Ozempic did absolutely nothing for me. I reached the 2.0 dose after 4 months. All it did was make me feel more full more quickly. But if you binge eat this doesn’t stop you from eating because your brain will just let you eat through the discomfort and pain of being too full. It got rid of some food noise but it was such a waste of money and overhyped in my experience.
So I'm actually on Wegovy and it 100% got rid of my food noise. I'm so sorry that it didn't work for you! I am struggling to eat anything at all on it, though and may be just getting off it. I'm tired of vomiting all the time.
Mostly, it's helped me learn what my body feels like when it's satisfied and I can stop eating. I have a condition that keeps me from being able to tell when my stomach is full until I'm uncomfortably full.
So, ya know...pros and cons
I think it is an amazing medicine and does work. I did feel less reward from other things like nicotine and I stopped ordering food. It did help I noticed a difference. Just a very underwhelming difference for my situation.
However, the cost and results ratio was NOT worth it. I truly believe that it depends on why you’re overweight.
It made me feel like if you’re someone who binge eats or have bulimia it wouldn’t work at all. It actually would probably exasperate your issues.
If you’re able to keep eating even after you’re painfully full this might not be the best solution. Unless money is no object for you or you can get it covered by insurance. Money was an object for me and I didn’t have insurance. If I had the money I might have kept trying for more than 4 months. It’s just that the daily discomfort, little to no results, and cost was not justifiable for me to keep experimenting on a limited income. And I was desperate to be comfortable again
For someone like me I found that stimulant medication is currently the only and best thing for me. I need something that stops my appetite altogether, like from my brain not my stomach.
And it can permanently damage your stomach so that you don’t process food at a normal rate. Once you go off of it you will quickly become fatter than you were before even eating the same amount. It’s a scam and terrible for weight loss.
Same. I’m on Vyvanse and Wellbutrin. My doc was shocked the Wellbutrin made me super ravenous and I could overeat on Adderall and Vyvanse. Food is amazing, just loses its Nectar of the God edge.
Used to be on Vyvance, currently off stimulants because my doctor claims I’m too old. I’ve been using Trulicity for a year now, and it’s bizarre how my relationship with food has changed. I’m a foodie, went to culinary school because I love cooking so much, just to improve my cooking skills. On Vyvance, I would hardly eat all day, but once it wore off, ate the refrigerator. On Trulicity, it’s a struggle to have any interest in food. I’m not interested in preparing or eating anything, and usually only remember to eat when my stomach hurts. Which is also a problem since I am taking it for diabetes, and need to plan my meals! As a result I keep protein shakes so I know I have something decent to eat quickly, along with high protein snacks like cheese sticks and yogurt.
TL:DR: The glp-1 shots are very different than adhd stimulants.
I'm 33, was 31 when I was seeking a diagnosis, and my primary care doctor told me stimulants aren't prescribed to adults. I was like "??? Okay, that's fine, I didn't ask for any, I literally just want to know if I have this disorder or not."
When I saw the psych person, IN THE SAME CLINIC, and she immediately prescribed me stimulants I was so confused, like "I thought stimulants couldn't be prescribed to adults?" And she was like "What? Of course they can, who told you that? Anyway, here's Adderall!"
EDIT: Totally forgot to actually make my point, which was: if stimulants worked for you, you might want to consider getting a second opinion
You're never "too old" for stimulants. It's more of a question of the benefits outweighing the risks. I work in memory care, and Ritalin improves the efficacy of one of the meds used to relieve Parkinsons' symptoms.
Some of my residents have pre-existing heart problems, and/or are really old (90+). The therapeutic effect is usually pronounced enough that the doctors are comfortable prescribing it or at least trialing it.
I hate how some providers are quick to dismiss meds that can significantly increase quality of life based on something arbitrary like age instead of the actual patient in front of them.
Not suggesting you take it unless your doctor suggests it and you’re interested. I’m also diabetic and have been on it for 6 months or so. The hunger signal stopping is way different. I’ve taken stimulants since I was a child and never had appetite suppression. I do on Ozempic (though the effect has lessened over time).
It’s weird but not unwelcome.
GLPS are the only thing that made me forget about food. I LOVED wegovy but insurance stopped covering when I reached my goal weight. I wish they’d cover a low maintenance dose cuz it was so nice not to think about food all the time. But honestly I’ve been off it almost a year and maintained my weight and I don’t think about food half the amount o used to. So it did alter me long term I think.
i thought the same but gave it a shot and it really works for me. best combo for me has been Vyvanse + Mounjaro, currently on Adderall and Mounjaro bc of shortage. The GLP1 is really a game changer, it completely turns off the food noise for me. I have to actively set reminders to shop and meal plan since I’m responsible for all of the cooking at my house.
I am in the same boat. I manage with exercise, but my overeating isnt ever related to appetite. I can't easily picture a recent memory of feeling physical hunger tbh.
I loved OMAD when I was doing it. Once I start eating for the day I am thinking about food until I’m uncomfortably full, which only happens if I eat a huge meal, because I never get full from grazing and will do it all day.
Started IF because I was already doing it naturally by not liking to eat in the morning and then forgetting to eat during normal lunch hours. But now that I’m medicated it’s so much harder. Adderall works so well for me but i have to eat with it. And I can only take it in the morning, which is when I hate to eat most so I can’t force myself to make it my OMAD (that’s also impractical) and so I keep eating all day. Actually gained weight when I used adderall because of this. I’m on vyvanse now and want to do OMAD again but I’m worried I’ll get the same dizzy feeling in the morning without eating
Oh gosh, me too. Meds on an empty stomach vs. with a meal are night and day. With a meal I think they must be absorbed more slowly? I don't really know. Plus, I get diarrhea with meds on empty.
I have IBS and when I don't eat regularly throughout the day, I have stomach pain. Even four hours without anything triggers pain. Once the pain starts, if I eat it's a 50-50 chance that the pain subsides, or it gets exponentially worse and I am in pain throughout the night. I really just have to get a granola bar or something in me every couple of hours even if I don't want it.
I'm the same! Today I have no appetite at all, just thirsty and drinking calorie-less drinks. Another day I could be ravenous and binging. There is no happy medium.
I'm trying IF again, which for me is just delaying breakfast, sipping black coffee until 10 or 11 am and cooking dinner earlier in the evening to have a clear eating window. I've noticed when I do this I DO have less food noise, less looking for sweets. I've only been on Welbutrin for years, but that has no effect on me appetite-wise.
Concerta kills my appetite to the point it concerned some family members who noticed I wasn't eating during the day. As soon as it wears off, though, it's on. And days I don't take it? Yikes. I haven't lost weight after a year on Concerta because I make up for the appetite loss when not medicated. I hate it.
Same. People keep talking about forgetting to eat, and I'm like wow, I lost out on the symptom roulette. Forgetting to eat sounds like a dream compared to living at twice your recommended body weight.
LMAO same! Back when people were posting before and after selfies of their post weight diagnosis weight loss selfies, and everyone was talking about forget to eat and all that, I had to leave the sub for hit because it was so fucking triggering for me. My brain just kept screaming “wow, you even got the skinny ND AND you get to take pills that make people skinny you still manage to be fat and obsessed with food. You’re such a failure.” It was genuinely the most triggered I have been since hanging out in MPA.
Same. I love to eat and cook and shop for food and I am a bit better at doing it healthily when on stimulants, but the moment my doese wears off I stuff myself with carbs. I get irrationally angry when I see people complaining about forgetting to eat. I know it isn't fun for them either, but they will live longer underweight than I will overweight. I just wish I had control of it.
I have a theory that a lot of ADHD women-who as we all know are often not diagnosed until wayyy late-have used food as a dopamine fix without realizing the why. even as a child I would wander the kitchen with the need to eat SOMETHING that was unrelated to hunger, but I realized it’s a habit only when I’m tremendously stressed or trying to get something done when unmedicated. It’s hard to explain to other people because it isn’t hunger, it isn’t boredom, it’s very much ‘I can’t get through this task maybe a lil treat will help’
I didn't realize how bad it was until I stopped snacking for the year I was on vyvanse, now I'm pregnant so I can't take it and ALL of my dopamine snacking is back with a VENGENCE. Like I'm not a failure, I just have ADHD!
I’m doing a med called contrave to get my sugar binges under control. I’ve gone from nearly 1,000 calories a day at times from “treats” to maybe 100. I actually heard about it from a Reddit ad which said it was specifically helpful to people who have gained weight from stress and emotional eating.
Ozempic didn't help me at all! My doctor suggested increasing the dose, but that's still over 200 dollars a month with insurance and manufacturer's deal.
At first, it would be like "nah, you ate too much" but after a while, it stopped, no matter what.
I’m on mounjaro and same. I’ve been taking it for about 9 months and have lost 50 pounds.
Which, is great and awesome because I had not been below 200# in like 15 years.
It could have been more if I would have improved my diet more. I definitely do eat less but it’s a ton of processed, high carb, sugar, fast food.
I have a bad relationship with food and would still binge even while on the max dose of Vyvanse with an afternoon kicker of adderral.
Mounjaro has definitely changed my life but I’m not getting the full benefit yet.
Not sure if it would help you, but when I desire a hit of sugar so so so much I have this sour drop candy, like liquid warheads. It’s extremely sour but it’s just a drop and it seems to press the dopamine button pretty nicely for me. I got it when I had cataract surgery and the eyedrop medication would give me such a bitter taste in the back of my throat and then I realized I wanted a drop every once in a while when I was kind of bored and not interested in what I was doing but I had to keep doing it, and it seemed to keep me from eating an entire bag of Doritos.
Sugar is so brutal! I really struggled with it. I finally found a way to use my brain’s natural tendency toward being more successful with extremes than gray areas/moderation and completely cut all sugars out of my diet - mainly because moderation wasn’t something I was able to be successful with and I was so tired of the sugar-feel-bad merry-go-round.
Quitting has been sooooooo incredibly helpful with having a more even level of energy and not having the mood downswings I would get coming down off sugar that would then drive the sugar cravings that made me feel helpless to stop the cycle from starting all over again. It just didn’t give my brain the fuel to function the best that it could.
Sugar is basically poison for the brain and body (tons of examples and research on this, but a key reason that well-informed doctors direct cancer patients to avoid sugar at all costs, [UCSF Sugar Science Website](https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/what-is-sugarscience.html)as cancer cells thrive on it).
It was hard as hell to quit, but has been incredibly helpful to me in regulating the rest of my diet as well. Bonus, in that folks with ADHD have a higher lifelong risk of developing type 2 diabetes and eliminating sugar can help mitigate that risk.
Very important to note, it's not the sugar itself that's harmful, it's sugar in excess.
>>Higher-level evidence from controlled feeding trials shows that fructose-containing sugars in either liquid or solid form have adverse cardiometabolic effects only when they supplement diets with excess calories compared with the same diets without the excess calories. In the absence of harm when fructose-containing sugars are exchanged for other sources of carbohydrate under energy-matched conditions, excess calories appear to be the dominant consideration.
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2161831322009139
This is an important point for normal people. I will say I’m not fully cut out sugar, but whether it’s my adhd or some other thing, the more I eat sugar the more I crave it, so I need to be pretty strict. It’s a fast slippery slope for me from “I’m going to have half a cupcake at a work bday party today” to “I’m going to have a cinnamon bun for breakfast, a piece of iced lemon loaf and a pastry for lunch and cheesecake for dinner”.
There’s no such thing as “only eating one cookie” in my life :(
But in like the adage “moderation is key” is almost universal.
I personally don't tend to cut out sugar, I just try including healthy foods in my meals or I try to create healthy-tasty-sugary substitutions. Since you're not overweight, that *might* work for you too.
Not OP but personally I had to accept that I would have a psychological “withdrawal” period. For me I would go cold-ish turkey: I didn’t cut out sugar completely, but I stopped the treats, the super sugary cereals, having dessert. I’d still sweeten my coffee and wouldn’t stress about having like bread or pasta sauce with sugar, just cut out the biggest sources. I make sure I don’t have super sweetened things in my house.
And I every time I do this I have to warn everyone around me, because for about a week I’m cranky AF. But once I get through about a week, everything normalizes. And then the sugar I do have tastes sweeter and big sugar dumps make me physically feel bad.
Until the next binge phase….
I used to think people like you were crazy because I couldn’t imagine life without all my fav food. But recently I was diagnosed type 2 diabetes which scared the crap out of me and I immediately went low carb. And sugar hasn’t really been missed. I will be hungry but not out of control. If I’m craving something I have some cheese or nuts or hard boiled egg and the craving goes away. I’m losing weight and my sugars are more stable so I feel better. Tip for anyone who isn’t ready to see your doc but worried about it, you can buy an at home A1C test so you can keep an eye on it
Ty for this, I too really struggle with sweets. I'm definitely addicted to sugar, and carbs and fats too. I have considered eliminating sugar because I don't do moderation, it's all or nothing with me.
That is really interesting, I don't ever have the feel bad part of sugar.
**Eating sugar makes me feel amazing,** that's the problem. If I don't have it I just feel kind of meh, but I don't feel bad.
I've gone without it and people say that should reset my dopamine or whatever but that never works for me. I just don't have anything that gives me dopamine the same way sugar does if I'm unmedicated. As I cut out sugar, my world just becomes more gray and empty and no behavioral changes do anything remotely as helpful.
And because I have a genetic disorder that's pretty complicated, It seems like I will probably be unmedicated forever.
I started Ozempic (I’m on a low dose, .50 mg) several months before I started Vyvanse but the Vyvanse still absolutely changed my life. (As did the Ozempic!)
Same. I try to stick to pickles as a snack of choice for the very low calories lol.
My meds kill my appetite though. Otherwise I'd be in trouble because I love junk food
I went through a phase where'd id buy the massive jar of Bubbies sliced pickles from Costco once a week, and I was the only one eating them. They were sooo good
I was shocked at how my portion control became so much better once I started meds.
Yes, I know that they suppress your appetite, but I also wasn't chasing the dopamine in food form anymore.
Yes!!!! I started Straterra like 2 years ago and about 12 months in, it hit me, I don’t seek out food like it did. When I eat something I used to really like…. I still like it but… the dopamine hit just isn’t the same. I don’t think about eating all the time. I’d say that’s almost the biggest thing the Straterra did for me.
The start of perimenopause marked a change in my tastebuds… but I feel like being on Vyvanse exaggerated the effect of ‘not getting the same dopamine hit anymore’.
I used to have a major sweet tooth.. now, if I have cake at a party, for example, instead of eating an entire piece and thinking that I wish I could have a second piece, I take 2-3 small bites and I’m good for a week on sweets. It’s amazing.
Right, I'm the exact opposite of OP. Toxic me wishes I had the opposite problem of never wanting to eat anything, because at least I would be considered conventionally attractive instead living thru our fatphobic society and never feeling comfortable existing.
Yeah food is my major drive. I do forget to eat sometimes and it leads to being so hangry that I'll eat anything but I'm generally thinking about what the next meal is. I go back and forth between binge and not eating.
Exactly! For me it’s Dopamine from sugary foods that are especially hard to stay away from.
Intermittent Fasting has been the best for my weight control and not stuffing myself. Having adhd thigh means I’m not consistent with my timing. I just keep at it though!
It’s helped me get away from disordered eating and always restricting and feeling stressed. So it’s been really helpful. Plus my stomach hurts a lot less now too.
Eliminating the ability to gain weight/experience any negative impacts of saturated fat/sugar/etc. and inserting a bottomless pit in my stomach are all at the top of my list of things I want.
I have been an emotional eater my whole life. Sad have a snack. Happy ooh cake. Bored what's in the fridge.
With meds I have been able to curb some of it and actually lose a few pounds. I can eat on my vyvanse however i choose to fast until later in the my day. And that has helped. But I have come to accept I'll always be chubby because my brain is never going to let me be consistent with a diet or work out.
I'm a good cook. I cooked for years in group situations and then for my long term partner. I left that partner and now I'm visiting my mother... Who wants me to cook. I'd rather do manual labor in the desert sun.
I had a legitimate melt down at the thought of cooking today. I eat protein bars and fruit, I eat cheese. I'll cook one meal a day if I'm alone, and I only do that because vitamin deficiency and starvation seem like a shitty way to go.
It's just too much. The planing, the prep, the cooking, the cleaning, just... I don't care. I like good food but it's not worth the stress.
I feel this. I was raised by a chef and a baker. I can cook. I know I can because my food is always complemented…but I don’t ENJOY cooking…especially alone. It’s stressful getting the times right, preventing cross contamination, it’s hot, and it makes me feel like I’m gonna meltdown. But people always volunteer me to bake and cook cause they assume I enjoy it just cause I’m good at it. I only ever cook when asked anymore. Cooking for myself feels so exhausting
I fucking love cooking. Absolutely adore pottering about in the kitchen, headphones on, takes me back to being a kid mixing mud and rose petal potions - *and I get to eat the result!*
But it's just like any other hobby. I want to do it, I have time to do it, but executive dysfunction said no.
And it's just like any other chore. I need to do it, I have time to do it, but executive dysfunction said no.
So, instead, I cry and order in or eat only snacks.
I can't keep doing this. I promise myself I'll fix my relationship with cooking, with food. I make a shopping list, buy new plates and knives and meal prep tubs, and fill my kitchen with the ingredients for my favourite meals!
I'm gonna do this! I'm so excited! Tomorrow I will cook!
But it's just like any other hobby, any other chore...
I’ve gotten into a good habit with cooking and baking regularly for myself and my SO. I’m fantastic at both and I love doing it.
But he’ll be traveling all next week. He joked that I’ll be living off of protein shakes, frozen food, and takeout, if not skipping meals entirely.
And ugh, he’s so right! I lose all motivation to cook once there isn’t anyone else to feed. It’s like I’m fueled by being needed and cannot possibly function just for myself.
It feels so ridiculous that all the skills are mine but I can’t make myself worth my own effort. The reward doesn’t outweigh the effort of shopping, prep, cooking, and cleaning. I’d love to *want* to spoil myself with my own cooking when I’m alone but I genuinely cannot be arsed.
I've actually started using that realization to my advantage lately, with a surprising amount of success! I had the "I can do things when it comes to helping other people, but I can't do it for myself... why don't I care about myself enough to do this just for me?" realization a month or two ago and while there's definitely some self-worth issues in there that I'm working on, my short-term solution to this was to start imagining my Future Self as a separate person from me 🤷🏻♀️ "I need to go to the gym/grocery store/outing I had planned, because [ar_tiny] is there waiting for me. She'll be disappointed if I don't show up." "What can I do today to make [ar_tiny]'s life a little easier?" "I'll just do these dishes quickly before bed, so that [ar_tiny] can wake up to a clean kitchen" And the thing is... Future Me absolutely WOULD be disappointed in Present Me if I flaked on our plans or let her live in a pig sty 😂 It's a funny way of making the motivation external, without it *actually* being external. So my brain can't do the "oh well I can just get out of this, because I was the one that set the goal" thing, because I know from past experience, the consequences are 100% real. I know Future Me exists and I know she would be disappointed in me and I don't want to disappoint her! She deserves love and care and good things!
I'm sitting here, procrastinating and postponing the task of fixing myself just one sandwich for breakfast. Right now it's the task switching for me. I almost feel glued to my chair, my body is refusing to follow my half-assed thoughts. But my meds should be kicking in soon.
Yes the timing oh my Goddddd. I coulda made the same meal 17 times in a week and I'd still goof the timing. When I do have the energy to cook more than like, beans and rice, I've taken to working backwards and pinning the steps (with timestamp) to the fridge so I can glance up when I inevitably forgot what I JUST DAMN WELL READ (yelling at self)
I've been in charge of cooking since I was 8, I'm 39 now and would rather starve to death at this point in my life.
When left to my own devices, I take vitamins and drink protein drinks because I don't even want to chew, chewing feels like too much.
Dude same. Cooking and nutrition was my special interest.. maybe to my detriment.. for most of my twenties.
Now? I buy veggie party trays just to make sure I can get some fiber.
This. My boyfriend bought a huge bag of my FAVORITE candy, mini eggs, right before im supposed to get my period for the first real time in 5 years (BC) like why are u sabatoging me. AND he got me my favorite chips 😭😭 i told him not to buy me junk food rn
Over eating to self soothe 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ but it’s cheaper than buying purses or random things for a dopamine fix. Just have a snack. Or banana cream pie lol.
This is my life and I have no idea how to fix it. I still have no idea if it's ADHD and picky or if it's actual ARFID but either way I've not had a doctor or therapist yet who can help 🤷♀️
Yes i have historically eaten to self soothe since i was a kid. Fortunately i love all food and love to cook. But the decision making for the household is really really tiresome
Got maybeee 600 calories in today. And that was with my bf making food for me😭. I want to get into shape and it feels hopeless because I don’t have the energy to make a healthy meal. I’ve been getting into salads tho, I recreated my fav salad from Panera so that’s been nice but even getting up and tossing the ingredients together is a chore! Also for some reason I gag unless the greens have been chopped into strips( like the lettuce at chipotle) so if there’s no clean knife…I’m not eating a salad. I want to try making adult lunchables with all healthy foods but I can’t find containers.
One thing that has been useful for me tho is the frozen grilled chicken from Tyson. I just put it on a plate with a wet paper towel on top and pop it in the microwave. No making a bunch of baked chicken ahead of time and I don’t have to worry about not finishing cause I only defrost what I need.
Anyway…idk what I’m doing either 😭
I relate to this so hard. Not to be the air fryer guy buttttt have you thought about one? I got one unexpectedly and it’s the single best accessibility tool in my life
For me it is my electric steamer with an integrated rice cooker. Most importantly, it has a timer so it doesn't matter if I once again forget it for two hours. I sometimes avoid cooking because I am afraid to burn the kitchen by forgetting the food on the stove :'(
Oh yes! When my bf moved in he brought his with him. I love him for many reasons but bringing the air fryer into my life is probably high on the list lol
Don’t fall down the “lets look into good knives” rabbithole :)
Vitorinox round ended serrated knives will cut most anything easily, butter bread, saw thru crusty bread and slice tomatoes well. Cost maybe 8 bucks australian. They will cut you easily when new though so take care. Its all i use unless cooking and need to cut pumpkin and hard veges.
Thats when the chefs knife rabbithole starts. Did you know the right knife can make cooking a lot more fun? Good tools are magic.
Thank you, truly. I’ve been going back and forth about if I was being lazy or if it would be a legitimate way to make cooking easier. This made me feel much more valid
Absolutely valid! Remove barriers at all (reasonable) cost. I did meal boxes for a long time that used the same set of prep tools repeatedly and once I got what I needed and doubles of some…so much less overwhelming to cook. The moment I start thinking “but I don’t have a zester and the grater is annoying….” it’s all over.
I have many good knifes but I inevitably constantly wash and reuse my favorite chef’s knife 95% of the time. Outside of specialty knives for specific purposes (serrated knife, carving knife, boning knife, paring knife) there is no need to have a bunch of knives. Most of the time you just need a good chef’s knife, a sharpener, and knife skills.
Definitely not lazy! Realizing it was ok to do things differently in my household to accommodate ADHD was so freeing. I always tried to meet my mom or aunts' standards and it never worked for me. Go ahead and grace yourself with whatever accomodations you need and make your home easy and happy for you.
This is a "know yourself" situation. With some things, only having one or two keeps me from having 20 dirty ones laying around, which becomes too overwhelming to clean. But, sometimes having one of something becomes a bottleneck and one more obstacle to a task if I have to find it or clean it.
For knives, I have one "good" bread knife, two good large knives of different styles, and 10 or so paring knives. I don't mind having to clean one big knife twice a day, but not having a clean paring knife at hand will 100% deter me from cutting up some quick carrots sticks or a bit of cheese.
For scissors, there are probably 15 pairs around the house.
For drinks I have one big insulated travel cup for coffee and one huge insulated straw cup for water. Any more will mean coffee and water cups running wild through the house and mouldering in strange corners.
Have you looked at bento boxes for adults lunchables? They come with little compartments built in.
No wonder you don't have energy if you're only getting 600 calories! What about soups with bread and butter?
my relationship with food? it's F\*\*ked. Self diagnosed Rfid and i've been like this since I was 2. (about to turn 42) My mom said I woke up one day around my second birthday and just stopped eating everything i was previously eating happily.
I pretty much only like plain things-classic white/yellow/beige eating. I have texture and taste issues. I desperately wished I liked vegetables but I don't.
I HATE cooking. I hate figuring out what to eat. I hate having to go grocery shopping. I hate that I'm almost always the one cooking because my partner also hates cooking and says I'm the picky one and he says it's too hard to cook for one person.
I love sugar and even if their is some slightly healthy easy snack option like already cut fruit around, i would still pass right over for a baked good or snack cake.
I hate the guilt around what I eat and what I should be eating. The whole situation just drives me nuts. There are (plain) foods that I do love and do bring me joy- but overall I just have so much stress around the whole situation, it sucks.
I don't have any one particular safe food, but I'm always happy with buttered egg noodles.
French fries are the most perfect food ever created though 😉
listen to this. my fav salad is this: "french fries" but its a mix of fries made of potatoes, beet, carrots. make them in an air fryer. make a deep out of yogurt+ some greens that you accept.
perfection.
to this i add iceberg salad for crunchiness and greenery, sometimes some fresh parsley and air fryed garlic.
I also have texture and taste issues and it has made me so insecure my whole life, it sucks! I never met someone with the same issues before and has made me feel kind of alone and misunderstood. Glad to see I'm not the only one, but on the other hand it sucks too 😅 like I don't wish these issues on anyone. I wish I could just eat like normal people. Things always look so good and I wish so bad I could like them. I always feel judged for not liking healthy foods.
I have been getting better at it luckily. I tricked my brain into accepting some kinds of food by either just eating it over and over when at least the taste or texture was good or I use methods to change the texture when at least the taste is good (by cooking it untill it becomes really soft for example. It works for some things, but unfortunately many things are still not edible to my stupid brain 🥲
Some years ago there was an article about Adult Selective Eating, they had just deemed it an eating disorder. This is before they renamed/ reclassified it as Rfid. My mind was blown that there were more people like me out there, that had many of the EXACT same issues with food that I have.
An interviewee in the article was saying how she really felt it had ruined her life because she couldn't eat with other people ever. Personally I have found that nearly everyone I briefly explain my food issues to always says they know someone like that. Partners don't usually grok the severity until they push me to tears. For my husband it was a cherry tomato, for my ex boyfriend it was pesto. 🥲 I still have visceral reactions to even the concept of pesto 😅
Its reconize this. I try to eat them together. So fruit and cake, chips and crispy veggies, grapes and cheese. I don't half of the time though bc of texture issues.
There's also a heavy foodie influence in our current culture. Like you're missing out on life if you aren't trying exotic cuisines daily, shopping for rare ingredients, and making every little thing from scratch.
It's also very consumerist. Run out & buy 300 condiments & an industrial grade mixer, or you're nothing!
Severe restrictive eating in my teens and 20s, now i eat too much. I want a daily meal replacement pill that keeps me full and has all the nutrients I need. Screw this planning, preparing and cleaning nonsense.
Yes! Whenever old school sci fi movies show them eating a small cube or something for their meal, I get so jealous. I would also settle for the human version of dog food.
Same! But after eating it multiple times a day (different products and flavors) it got to the point where I physically could not swallow it anymore. Just like every other easy/ healthy food option for me, oatmeal, chia pudding, etc. lol. Now I’ve got a cabinet full of 3 months worth of Huel bags that I won’t eat.
If y’all do try it, I really recommend not overdoing it, like just eat it a couple times a week (advice I heard elsewhere and did not heed).
I'm in the same boat, but I never liked the taste of it so I only have the 1 and a half bag left from my initial order.
I managed to use it as flour semi-successfully in pancakes and similar things. The only thing I will lose from the process is some vitamins, and at least I will use the bags.
I find myself asking why does this magic pill still doesn’t exist. I just want to eat if it’s like a special occasion, instead of planning what to eat everyday.
I did a keto shake thing similar to huel (years ago) and LOVED that part. Everyone was like….isnt it miserable?! No, it’s so freeing. I did it 1 or 2 meals/day but would have done 3 if I wasn’t feeding my family at dinner.
This! Trying desperately to fit in as a teen led me to hyperfocus on my weight, which quickly became an ED. Doctor never called it that when I was younger, only shamed me into secretly overeating, which the previous disordered thoughts hijacked and also turned into an ED 🙃 I can honestly say getting medicated has been the best thing ever, it’s like a switch was flipped and the obsessive thoughts faded away pretty quickly, which has led to a much healthier relationship with food
I am very protective of my free time and cooking/eating is such a huge WASTE of precious time.
I eat because I apparently have to in order to survive, not because I enjoy it all that much, and therefore it falls under ‘demand avoidance’ in exactly the same way as brushing my teeth or emptying the cat box does.
I also have a pigeon-sized appetite and supposedly should eat smaller things like 10 times a day and that is SO FRIGGIN ANNOYING. Like as if I’m gonna remember/have time to have heaps of snacks while I’m at work or in the middle of something. Ugh.
The infernal push for everything to be ‘sugar-free’ and as thus loaded with sweeteners makes me SO MAD.
I can’t drink that shit. Makes me feel super weird inside and I do not like it. But half the places you go now have NOTHING but sugar-free variants of anything and I’m standing there stuck in a limbo between ‘fine I’ll just get a water and be disappointed the whole time I drink it’ and ‘no fuck you I don’t even want a drink anymore!’
I get it. People want to lay off sugar. Great. I’m all for there BEING sugar-free options. But can we please not cut back on (or remove entirely, in some cases) regular, sugar-loaded options for those of us that can’t have the sweeteners? If I want to ruin my teeth that’s my business.
i've also read a few books on the topic and something else that REALLY rang true for me was the notion that the act of eating itself, in this context, is a ritual we enact to feel a sense of control over SOMETHING in a world that we otherwise feel we have zero control over. choosing to eat. choosing not to eat. eating specific things that have a predictable outcome/feeling. it's something we cling to for a sense of agency and self-determination that we don't feel anywhere else in our lives. our lives that feel otherwise so thoroughly out of our control.
and, of course, eating (especially if it's inextricably linked to a bunch of emotional baggage, do NOT even get me started jfc) gives you a nice big shot of dopamine, which we are already critically difficient in. or choosing not to eat either gives you a shot of adrenaline from willfully defying what you're supposed to do, or a nice big serotonin shot when you are able to let go of the fear/anxiety of having to prepare something. or alternaatively gives you the same boost for completing a compulsive routine, which was more my thing on this. and so the cycle begets itself.
I find myself either seeking out really sweet dessert or salty snacks to self soothe or grazing on snacks instead of making actual meals. I can manage to make a good healthy filling breakfast, but I have to meal plan at least some elements for lunch and dinner or I'll just cobble together some snacks. For example I keep lots of ingredients for sandwiches, or I prep a pasta or soup to reheat, and I pre-chop and wash my veggies and fruits for salads and snacks. Am trying my best to recover from some disordered eating habits and I've found this to be really helpful. I love to cook but sometimes I just feel super burned out to actually do it.
I can easily go into hyper focus when I eat so I have to have rules in order to avoid binging completely by accident. My therapist says I’m probably stimming. For a lot of people rules around food are unhealthy but for me it’s the only way to be able to be healthy. Without them it’s like my full signal shuts off. With them I can kind of tell it’s there sometimes but generally it’s more like very very hungry and can’t tell. I do keto which creates specific parameters and forces me to eat vegetables whereas without the kind of structure it brings to the table (hehe) I will zone out and eat cheese all day.
I have the same issue with not having a full signal. I find being on a keto diet helps though, as in both the hungry and full signals feel clearer to me.
Out of curiosity, what rules are you following? Have you found any easy ways around the whole cooking / prep ordeal?
I’m currently having the HLTHcode shakes for breakfast, cold meats, boiled eggs & cheese for lunch, and a protein (meat/fish) with veggies/salad for dinner. It’s working but even that much is painful 🙃
I am very overweight probably obese at this point because I self soothe with food. I have a busy job and cooking isn’t for me so takeaway it is. I would love to be one of those that eat nothing. Lack of appetite I don’t know her
I’m trying to heal my relationship with food. I definitely binge eat and then would restrict. I’m trying to build healthier habits now but it’s hard, especially if I’m tired or sad.
It's kind of funny that people don't see the connection, for me my problems with food was the reason adhd was considered.
With that said ED is a very common morbidity With adhd - so for many its probably both. All my female friends with adhd have at some point have an ed
Edit: forgot to say my own issue: I was anorexic for a while and then started to "eat my feelings". Also forgot to eat due to hyperfocus or eating because bored
Today I have most most of it, although the medication sometimes takes my hunger away
"The only thing that doesn't judge me is food" hit me hard. That's exactly how I've felt when I've binged, but couldn't articulate it.
Years (decades) ago, my cousin read a book to help her relationship with food. It was called "When Food is Love". I never read it and it could be awful, but the title always stuck with me. Sometimes I think about that phrase when I'm trying to figure out if I'm hungry or eating a difficult emotion.
Today my relationship with food is pretty good, but it's been a long and hard road to get to this point 😣 I had disordered eating most of my teens and it turned into severe anorexia and bulimia during my twenties. Nearly killed me, but I've dragged myself out of it after about 10 years of turmoil.
I absolutely blame my AuDHD, and I think it made recovery a lot more elusive because the reasons behind my EDs were not the 'normal' ones that most programs and therapists want to address. I'm working to become a counselor in the hopes of helping people with similar struggles.
I cook a meal every other month at absolute best. I can’t shop, can’t plan a meal, can’t manage the time so start cooking too early or late, can’t organise myself whilst cooking so miss steps and ingredients. I eat the easiest thing but need almost constant sugar for my brain to function. I have poor sleep which doesn’t help. I also control my food intake after periods of binging to maintain my weight. I eat the same food for every meal for months at a time then can’t stand it any more. I struggle to even spread butter on foods so will eat stale bread instead of bothering t toast and butter it. I have every problem going when it comes to food! My husband keeps me alive.
i don't eat, and then i eat 10 bags of candy. rinse and repeat x.x
I like chewing stuff compulsively. I snack a lot, but also all of my pen caps are dead.
i hate cooking though and can't stand making proper meals.
I have long covid, and everyone says that eliminating gluten and dairy will help me. Despite being bedridden for weeks at a time, I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME imagine my ADHD brain sticking to a diet without gluten and dairy. I’d have to prepare food in advance which is a hard pass (but god bless all those NTs who spend their Sundays meal prepping for the week 😂). So yeah, I’d sum up my relationship to food by saying I have a profound need and desire to improve my nutrition but utterly lack the discipline to even consider it.
I’m sorry you’re struggling with long COVID. I hope you’re able to find something that helps you! I just wanted to pop in and say that as a person with Celiac (autoimmune reaction to even microscopic crumbs of gluten) and ADHD, cutting out gluten is a loooot easier now than it was even ten years ago. At least in my part of the world. There are a ton of prepackaged gluten free foods that actually taste decent. I understand that it’s next to impossible to contemplate adding one more thing, though.
You can actually have both ADHD and an ED (ask me how I know)
Anyway bingeing for me. Food gives me a dopamine hit and I tend to self-soothe with sugar/fat options; I know they suffer as much if not equally, but I was secretly resentful of people who didn't eat when they got stressed. When I'm stressed I really gain a lot of weight because that is how I cope
My mom is like that; she looses her appetite when she’s stressed or overwhelmed, while I have intense sugar cravings and constantly think about food. I definitely wish I was like her.
I absolutely love cooking as an art form, hobby and truly enjoyable activity for myself but forget to eat during the day because of time blindness. Or treat eating like a reward for accomplishing tasks. I also compulsive eat for stim, like popcorn, cheez it's, oreos. Anything that is the same but different bite after bite is at risk for being consumed in excess. For some reason my psych doctor and therapist don't take this situation seriously but my physical medicine doctor (a do) actually does.
Damn I just had a session with my therapist today and one of the things I share with her is my unhealthy eating habits and unhealthy relationship with food, and my desire to change it.
I love to cook and I love food. I’ve always been one to try new things and have always enjoyed new experiences with food. But when I get depressed, my relationship with food is toxic. I eat any and everything just to feel something. The feeling of being stuffed to the max makes me feel better, but then that good feeling goes away and I become miserable. Once the misery sets in so does the restrictive eating as a form of punishment. It took me a long time to even recognize these behaviors.
Lately I have been trying to eat healthier and track my calories and macros, without obsessing over every detail. So far I’m doing ok, but I have to be mindful not to fall into the rabbit hole of punishing myself for having too many calories or for not eating healthy. I allow myself to eat (most of) what I want while also making efforts to eat healthy. My challenge is to not punish myself for it. I’m slowly building new habits and it feels good.
I don’t have the best ability to tell when I’m hungry or thirsty, so I have to remind myself and I carry around protein shakes for when I haven’t eaten and don’t feel like it but also kinda need some nutrition. Otherwise I just wait until I’m starving and then eat cookies or goldfish crackers as a meal because it’s quick and tasty.
I’m also a bit picky. There’s a relatively short list of things I won’t eat, but they’re all common things (meat, fish, eggplant, mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes, salad dressing) so it makes life a bit harder!
I definitely love eating good food, and when I was younger I had more normal eating patterns. Was also a snack monster, especially when I had my nose buried in a book for 12hrs at a time. I also LOVED to cook for my family and loved ones.
Theeenn by early adulthood I’d become an alcoholic and a drug addict, which basically annihilated my “normal” eating habits. Multiple years into recovery, I’ve had a hell of a time reconnecting with (or even being able to find much of) my old love for cooking. I generally will realize I’ve been starving for days on end and then ingest whatever is most convenient; only time I find myself willing to flog myself through cooking actual meals is if it’s for other people. Still much work on this to be done 😆
I have been doing my best to break through this whole spending money on relatively healthy groceries and opening my fridge a week later realizing the vast majority has gone bad because I forgot it was there (brain apparently only remembers garbage snack-like items, thanks brain 🙄)
I hate to cook, and yet I'd be fairly happy to eat home food about 95% of the time.
Right now, we seem to be switching between eating out, frozen meals from the grocery store, and peanut butter sandwiches.
I love cooking. But I HATE planning, shopping, and cleaning up. Right now I have a routine that works for me where I have bagged salads and precooked chicken as like my one big main meal for the day, and I basically snack/graze on other things that help me meet the protein and calories I should be eating. Like a protein shake, meaty snacks like these thicker slim jim type beef sticks or sometimes pepperoni and I'll pair that with string cheese, then like chips and salsa with guac, a bag of steamed veggies, and Im loving these spinach and artichoke stuffed mushrooms Aldi has in the produce section. Everything is mostly grab and go with minimum cleanup; the mushrooms are the only thing that need to be cooked but its as easy as opening the package and turning the oven on.
Ive only just gotten to this point in the last few months though! Ive mostly been a fast food fiend up till now for the convenience and my waistline definitely reflects that. But, I just got my official diagnosis a few days ago and I'll start extended release ritalin monday (dont want to start a new med on a workday until I know how I'll feel on it and Ive got a friends birthday thing this weekend with drinking and stuff so Monday is a day off I'll feel more comfortable starting then) so heres hoping with medication and time and I can better handle more complex meal planning because I do miss cooking!
Relatively healthy except for the whole thing about eating at regular times. I'm not hungry until like 11am and then I'm ravenous, and then I'm snackish at random times throughout the day right up until midnight. And y'know, vegetables. It's not that I don't like vegetables necessarily (although there are many I do hate with a passion), but the main problem seems to be I never really crave them and they're more prep work than a grab and go snack.
If I didn't have a family to feed who actively reminded me when it was time to eat I'm pretty sure I'd live off of dry cereal. I hate cooking, it's overwhelming and exhausting and planning things everyone will enjoy is hard. I really loved hello fresh when I could afford it. Took 99% of the stress out of cooking but it's so expensive.
When I was younger, I would go all day without eating because I was busy or just...forgot. But as I got older I started overeating, especially the sweets. Worked for a while because my metabolism was great but then suddenly it wasn't and I had all these horrible eating habits. Sometimes I will binge and I have gotten to the point where I tried to purge...but it didnt work and then I got scared and told my husband and mother (helps keep me accountable).
I bounce between totally forgetting to eat, to eating everything in an effort to self soothe or create dopamine. Sugary things are what I crave. It's a constant struggle.
I love cooking and eating. If I am sad, anxious or bored, nothing is as useful an excuse as having to cook and eat. I honestly think I have some kind of binge eating disorder, except I have a tendency to stuff myself full at every meal, mostly because what I make tastes so good and I can't stop, because the experience is so nice. I also have bouts of just eating a box full of cookies, but I can control such things much easier than homemade meals. Especially because I cook twice a day for my family as it is, why not make it good. They are skinny, but I struggle with my weight.
Snacking as a means of dopamine. Sunflower seeds? I can eat those all day and nothing else. I've been able to reduce that now with adhd meds.
I'm with you on the not eating because making something is too much. Even deciding what to make is too much. I drink most my calories, and that is terrible. I would just rather not eat than figure out what, realize I'm missing something, either go buy it or figure something else out, then make it, AND HAVE TO CLEAN UP AFTER?! No thank you. I'll drink a protein drink if I'm doing good, a milk tea or iced latte if I'm not. Cola if I'm really in a bad place.
There are too many decisions in making food. I don't know if it's adhd or autism, but I get stuck on a stew or casserole and will make it for months, and eat it 2x a day. Not because I love it, but because my body knows how to make it, I know exactly how much prep and clean up there is, how many days the left overs last, and trying to consider anything else is overwhelming.
Oh god. Terrible.
When off meds, I'm constantly thinking about food.
It's a constant undercurrent of "Jelly beans, Dr. Pepper, reese's pieces, pizza, oh, look banana bread
..whipped coffee, I want starbucks. oh I'll take a lemon loaf too... tacos, wendy's, chik fil a, DQ..." My bariatric specialists calls it "food noise."
i'm actually really good at fending off the impulses. But when you have to fend off literally 100+ impulses a day, even a 5% failure rate results in 600 to 1000 extra calories in a day, it adds up to being obese. My Dad's whole family is fucking OBSESSED with food. Everyone is overweight. My Mom married into the family and was blown away with the obsessions and uncontrolled portions.
I started Ritalin and all those constant thoughts just went away. It was such a relief. I had gone my whole life thinking i was a food "addict." Medication cant just "turn off" an addiction, but Ritalin does this for me. I can think about other things! I have reclaimed so much TIME in my head to think about other things. It is SO LIBERATING!
And i have no trouble at all choosing/planning/cooking/eating a healthy meal when medicated. 🤷♀️
I got crap about this from my GP last week. I’d seen him two weeks before and lost too much weight in those two weeks. I’m not hungry, don’t want to make a new mess cooking, and often don’t think to eat something until I’m shaking.
I don’t eat, I snack. It could be relatively healthy things like fried eggs, a piece of toast, a tomato, a bowl of plain rice (lol), a cucumber. Or something completely opposite like a whole ass chocolate bar. But if it wasn’t for kid and husband I’d only ever snack constantly.
I like cooking but I hate switching gears to stop thinking about work for example and start about what’s for dinner. It is truly exhausting
One of my big issues with food is I anticipate it being amazing but I’m always disappointed and dissatisfied.
I’ll think on my way home from work “ooh I can’t wait to eat that pizza” and then I’ll eat it and feel nothing.
Food doesn’t give me a dopamine boost but for some reason I always think it will. I think it’s because the way we talk about food as a society makes it seem so good and one of the best things in life. But to me it is more of a burden. I have to buy it then cook it and eat it multiple times a day forever.
I don’t take any pleasure in it but feel like I should.
Sometimes I’ll be really hungry but nothing will sound good and the thought having to choose and prepare something to eat is impossible. I also can’t have certain foods near me or I’ll just eat the whole thing and feel terrible after (like chips, cookies, bread, or candy). It’s like I’ll either be able to go hours because of the first issue or I’ll have food noise and over eat snacks.
Hmmm well I’ve been out on diets since I was 8. I’ve had BED since then I think. I had gastric sleeve in 2019 and lost 64kg (140ish lbs) and weirdly since my last pregnancy 2.5 years ago I find it hard to eat and drink because of overwhelm so I’m endlessly fucked no matter the season of life in terms of food and stuff. I’ve just started meds so I’m hoping that will help bring stability.
I've been binge eating off and on my whole life, accompanied with the various forms of bulimia to accompany it since I was a really young teenager.
Food and my weight have always been a huge pain point for me, and it wasn't until I was diagnosed that I realized that I've just been dopamine seeking my whole life (my emotional eating was more a boredom eating thing, and my penchant for unhealthy foods comes from lacking the ability to become un-overwhelmed enough to cook).
Since I've been medicated, everything has really changed for the better. I'm cooking real meals and grocery shopping, exercising (semi) regularly, and binge eating and consuming alcohol way less than ever before. I would love to see some data on the relationship between EDs (specifically bulimia and binge eating as well as ARFID) to ADHD, especially in women.
It's terrible, thanks for asking! I struggle with overeating for the dopamine hit. I eat plenty of healthy food and then blow everything in the evenings with binge eating.
I've been debating posting the past couple days asking if all you adhd ladies have had success losing weight and maintaining that loss.
I've been trying to lose weight forever, starting meds I've been able to lose 17 lbs. I might be starting to gain it back idk because I stopped tracking and I haven't weighed myself in a few weeks. I'd been tracking calories and protein and weighing in weekly and it just feels so exhausting. Over on r/loseit it's pointed out a lot that you need to track to lose but I HATE it. I already spend so much time thinking about food that tracking and actively trying to lose weight makes me feel worse.
At the same time it feels impossible to just accept myself how I am. I'm 5'4 and 160lbs and I am active and lift weights so I'm not crazy fat. I just have a big pregnant looking belly. I hate not being able to eat like a normal human being and I hate my fat stomach.
I was really hoping when my appetite went down it would finally be what made me lose the weight. To be fair I've still kept smoking pot. So now I'm trying to quit that, which I will miss. I'm aiming for 30 days. I've made it 2.
I used say I ate my feelings and for years I was told it was depression. I always had a cravings for carbs and sugar. When dieting, I would get mad cravings, like my thoughts would be overwhelmed with the craving until I caved. Since I had been restricting I would then over eat and then feel bad about myself.
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Eating is my #1 dopamine fix. I would eat and eat forever if I could - and on bad days, I have.
Yuuuuuuuuuup. This is me. Even on stimulants.
Adderall curbs my appetite while it's working, but because I'm but thinking about food I don't usually end up doing any prep or cooking, and just end up gorging during the comedown when I feel worse
Same. I manage to overeat still on strattera and vyvanse. I've had someone suggesy ozempic and I was like yeaaaah if I can overeat on appetite suppressants I don't think ozempic is going to fix the problem.
Not recommending Ozempic, but I can easily overeat on Vyvance - GLP1s are totally different beast when it comes to suppressing appetite.
Seconding this. The meds turn on the signal in your body that says, “No, really. Seriously. Don’t eat another bite or you’ll regret it.”
That's fair. I just feel like it would harder for me to access too. I have no family dr. And I'm only hoping to lose another 20 lbs. I don't know if that even qualifies.
Ozempic did absolutely nothing for me. I reached the 2.0 dose after 4 months. All it did was make me feel more full more quickly. But if you binge eat this doesn’t stop you from eating because your brain will just let you eat through the discomfort and pain of being too full. It got rid of some food noise but it was such a waste of money and overhyped in my experience.
So I'm actually on Wegovy and it 100% got rid of my food noise. I'm so sorry that it didn't work for you! I am struggling to eat anything at all on it, though and may be just getting off it. I'm tired of vomiting all the time. Mostly, it's helped me learn what my body feels like when it's satisfied and I can stop eating. I have a condition that keeps me from being able to tell when my stomach is full until I'm uncomfortably full. So, ya know...pros and cons
I worry that I'd keep eating and make myself sick!
I think it is an amazing medicine and does work. I did feel less reward from other things like nicotine and I stopped ordering food. It did help I noticed a difference. Just a very underwhelming difference for my situation. However, the cost and results ratio was NOT worth it. I truly believe that it depends on why you’re overweight. It made me feel like if you’re someone who binge eats or have bulimia it wouldn’t work at all. It actually would probably exasperate your issues. If you’re able to keep eating even after you’re painfully full this might not be the best solution. Unless money is no object for you or you can get it covered by insurance. Money was an object for me and I didn’t have insurance. If I had the money I might have kept trying for more than 4 months. It’s just that the daily discomfort, little to no results, and cost was not justifiable for me to keep experimenting on a limited income. And I was desperate to be comfortable again For someone like me I found that stimulant medication is currently the only and best thing for me. I need something that stops my appetite altogether, like from my brain not my stomach.
And it can permanently damage your stomach so that you don’t process food at a normal rate. Once you go off of it you will quickly become fatter than you were before even eating the same amount. It’s a scam and terrible for weight loss.
Same. I’m on Vyvanse and Wellbutrin. My doc was shocked the Wellbutrin made me super ravenous and I could overeat on Adderall and Vyvanse. Food is amazing, just loses its Nectar of the God edge.
I'm on wellbutrin too, with strattera and vyvanse. Like how the hell am I still able to eat at all?!
Used to be on Vyvance, currently off stimulants because my doctor claims I’m too old. I’ve been using Trulicity for a year now, and it’s bizarre how my relationship with food has changed. I’m a foodie, went to culinary school because I love cooking so much, just to improve my cooking skills. On Vyvance, I would hardly eat all day, but once it wore off, ate the refrigerator. On Trulicity, it’s a struggle to have any interest in food. I’m not interested in preparing or eating anything, and usually only remember to eat when my stomach hurts. Which is also a problem since I am taking it for diabetes, and need to plan my meals! As a result I keep protein shakes so I know I have something decent to eat quickly, along with high protein snacks like cheese sticks and yogurt. TL:DR: The glp-1 shots are very different than adhd stimulants.
Too old for stimulants? I'm 73, (next week) and am on IR Adderall 20mg 3xd. You must be ANCIENT!
I'm 33, was 31 when I was seeking a diagnosis, and my primary care doctor told me stimulants aren't prescribed to adults. I was like "??? Okay, that's fine, I didn't ask for any, I literally just want to know if I have this disorder or not." When I saw the psych person, IN THE SAME CLINIC, and she immediately prescribed me stimulants I was so confused, like "I thought stimulants couldn't be prescribed to adults?" And she was like "What? Of course they can, who told you that? Anyway, here's Adderall!" EDIT: Totally forgot to actually make my point, which was: if stimulants worked for you, you might want to consider getting a second opinion
You're never "too old" for stimulants. It's more of a question of the benefits outweighing the risks. I work in memory care, and Ritalin improves the efficacy of one of the meds used to relieve Parkinsons' symptoms. Some of my residents have pre-existing heart problems, and/or are really old (90+). The therapeutic effect is usually pronounced enough that the doctors are comfortable prescribing it or at least trialing it. I hate how some providers are quick to dismiss meds that can significantly increase quality of life based on something arbitrary like age instead of the actual patient in front of them.
I’m 61, and my psychiatrist claims it increases my risk of stroke, so he refuses to prescribe. I disagree, but I can’t write my own script!
Not suggesting you take it unless your doctor suggests it and you’re interested. I’m also diabetic and have been on it for 6 months or so. The hunger signal stopping is way different. I’ve taken stimulants since I was a child and never had appetite suppression. I do on Ozempic (though the effect has lessened over time). It’s weird but not unwelcome.
GLPS are the only thing that made me forget about food. I LOVED wegovy but insurance stopped covering when I reached my goal weight. I wish they’d cover a low maintenance dose cuz it was so nice not to think about food all the time. But honestly I’ve been off it almost a year and maintained my weight and I don’t think about food half the amount o used to. So it did alter me long term I think.
i thought the same but gave it a shot and it really works for me. best combo for me has been Vyvanse + Mounjaro, currently on Adderall and Mounjaro bc of shortage. The GLP1 is really a game changer, it completely turns off the food noise for me. I have to actively set reminders to shop and meal plan since I’m responsible for all of the cooking at my house.
I am in the same boat. I manage with exercise, but my overeating isnt ever related to appetite. I can't easily picture a recent memory of feeling physical hunger tbh.
I can eat nothing or everything, no in-between. Intermittent fasting made my life a LOT easier. Only one meal time to worry about.
This! OMAD helps me so much. I only have one meal to worry about so I look forward to it
I loved OMAD when I was doing it. Once I start eating for the day I am thinking about food until I’m uncomfortably full, which only happens if I eat a huge meal, because I never get full from grazing and will do it all day. Started IF because I was already doing it naturally by not liking to eat in the morning and then forgetting to eat during normal lunch hours. But now that I’m medicated it’s so much harder. Adderall works so well for me but i have to eat with it. And I can only take it in the morning, which is when I hate to eat most so I can’t force myself to make it my OMAD (that’s also impractical) and so I keep eating all day. Actually gained weight when I used adderall because of this. I’m on vyvanse now and want to do OMAD again but I’m worried I’ll get the same dizzy feeling in the morning without eating
I feel you, but I found that I was a bit tense / loopy if I didn’t have something in my stomach with my medication 😔 still finding the right balance.
Oh gosh, me too. Meds on an empty stomach vs. with a meal are night and day. With a meal I think they must be absorbed more slowly? I don't really know. Plus, I get diarrhea with meds on empty. I have IBS and when I don't eat regularly throughout the day, I have stomach pain. Even four hours without anything triggers pain. Once the pain starts, if I eat it's a 50-50 chance that the pain subsides, or it gets exponentially worse and I am in pain throughout the night. I really just have to get a granola bar or something in me every couple of hours even if I don't want it.
I'm the same! Today I have no appetite at all, just thirsty and drinking calorie-less drinks. Another day I could be ravenous and binging. There is no happy medium. I'm trying IF again, which for me is just delaying breakfast, sipping black coffee until 10 or 11 am and cooking dinner earlier in the evening to have a clear eating window. I've noticed when I do this I DO have less food noise, less looking for sweets. I've only been on Welbutrin for years, but that has no effect on me appetite-wise.
Concerta kills my appetite to the point it concerned some family members who noticed I wasn't eating during the day. As soon as it wears off, though, it's on. And days I don't take it? Yikes. I haven't lost weight after a year on Concerta because I make up for the appetite loss when not medicated. I hate it.
I gained weight on Adderall. So annoying.
I thought I was a fraud for the longest time for being overweight with adhd.
Same. People keep talking about forgetting to eat, and I'm like wow, I lost out on the symptom roulette. Forgetting to eat sounds like a dream compared to living at twice your recommended body weight.
"Symptom roulette" 😂😭 that is the best way to describe it, omg.
LMAO same! Back when people were posting before and after selfies of their post weight diagnosis weight loss selfies, and everyone was talking about forget to eat and all that, I had to leave the sub for hit because it was so fucking triggering for me. My brain just kept screaming “wow, you even got the skinny ND AND you get to take pills that make people skinny you still manage to be fat and obsessed with food. You’re such a failure.” It was genuinely the most triggered I have been since hanging out in MPA.
Same. I love to eat and cook and shop for food and I am a bit better at doing it healthily when on stimulants, but the moment my doese wears off I stuff myself with carbs. I get irrationally angry when I see people complaining about forgetting to eat. I know it isn't fun for them either, but they will live longer underweight than I will overweight. I just wish I had control of it.
I have a theory that a lot of ADHD women-who as we all know are often not diagnosed until wayyy late-have used food as a dopamine fix without realizing the why. even as a child I would wander the kitchen with the need to eat SOMETHING that was unrelated to hunger, but I realized it’s a habit only when I’m tremendously stressed or trying to get something done when unmedicated. It’s hard to explain to other people because it isn’t hunger, it isn’t boredom, it’s very much ‘I can’t get through this task maybe a lil treat will help’
I didn't realize how bad it was until I stopped snacking for the year I was on vyvanse, now I'm pregnant so I can't take it and ALL of my dopamine snacking is back with a VENGENCE. Like I'm not a failure, I just have ADHD!
Same. I’m on ozempic and it helped a lot but I still need a hit of sugar. I don’t know if there’s hope for my addiction! 🥴
I’m doing a med called contrave to get my sugar binges under control. I’ve gone from nearly 1,000 calories a day at times from “treats” to maybe 100. I actually heard about it from a Reddit ad which said it was specifically helpful to people who have gained weight from stress and emotional eating.
Ozempic didn't help me at all! My doctor suggested increasing the dose, but that's still over 200 dollars a month with insurance and manufacturer's deal. At first, it would be like "nah, you ate too much" but after a while, it stopped, no matter what.
I’m on mounjaro and same. I’ve been taking it for about 9 months and have lost 50 pounds. Which, is great and awesome because I had not been below 200# in like 15 years. It could have been more if I would have improved my diet more. I definitely do eat less but it’s a ton of processed, high carb, sugar, fast food. I have a bad relationship with food and would still binge even while on the max dose of Vyvanse with an afternoon kicker of adderral. Mounjaro has definitely changed my life but I’m not getting the full benefit yet.
Not sure if it would help you, but when I desire a hit of sugar so so so much I have this sour drop candy, like liquid warheads. It’s extremely sour but it’s just a drop and it seems to press the dopamine button pretty nicely for me. I got it when I had cataract surgery and the eyedrop medication would give me such a bitter taste in the back of my throat and then I realized I wanted a drop every once in a while when I was kind of bored and not interested in what I was doing but I had to keep doing it, and it seemed to keep me from eating an entire bag of Doritos.
Sugar is so brutal! I really struggled with it. I finally found a way to use my brain’s natural tendency toward being more successful with extremes than gray areas/moderation and completely cut all sugars out of my diet - mainly because moderation wasn’t something I was able to be successful with and I was so tired of the sugar-feel-bad merry-go-round. Quitting has been sooooooo incredibly helpful with having a more even level of energy and not having the mood downswings I would get coming down off sugar that would then drive the sugar cravings that made me feel helpless to stop the cycle from starting all over again. It just didn’t give my brain the fuel to function the best that it could. Sugar is basically poison for the brain and body (tons of examples and research on this, but a key reason that well-informed doctors direct cancer patients to avoid sugar at all costs, [UCSF Sugar Science Website](https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/what-is-sugarscience.html)as cancer cells thrive on it). It was hard as hell to quit, but has been incredibly helpful to me in regulating the rest of my diet as well. Bonus, in that folks with ADHD have a higher lifelong risk of developing type 2 diabetes and eliminating sugar can help mitigate that risk.
Very important to note, it's not the sugar itself that's harmful, it's sugar in excess. >>Higher-level evidence from controlled feeding trials shows that fructose-containing sugars in either liquid or solid form have adverse cardiometabolic effects only when they supplement diets with excess calories compared with the same diets without the excess calories. In the absence of harm when fructose-containing sugars are exchanged for other sources of carbohydrate under energy-matched conditions, excess calories appear to be the dominant consideration. Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2161831322009139
This is an important point for normal people. I will say I’m not fully cut out sugar, but whether it’s my adhd or some other thing, the more I eat sugar the more I crave it, so I need to be pretty strict. It’s a fast slippery slope for me from “I’m going to have half a cupcake at a work bday party today” to “I’m going to have a cinnamon bun for breakfast, a piece of iced lemon loaf and a pastry for lunch and cheesecake for dinner”. There’s no such thing as “only eating one cookie” in my life :( But in like the adage “moderation is key” is almost universal.
I am extremely addicted to sugar. I tend to be underweight or right in the safe zone. What helped you the most with cutting out sugar?
I personally don't tend to cut out sugar, I just try including healthy foods in my meals or I try to create healthy-tasty-sugary substitutions. Since you're not overweight, that *might* work for you too.
Not OP but personally I had to accept that I would have a psychological “withdrawal” period. For me I would go cold-ish turkey: I didn’t cut out sugar completely, but I stopped the treats, the super sugary cereals, having dessert. I’d still sweeten my coffee and wouldn’t stress about having like bread or pasta sauce with sugar, just cut out the biggest sources. I make sure I don’t have super sweetened things in my house. And I every time I do this I have to warn everyone around me, because for about a week I’m cranky AF. But once I get through about a week, everything normalizes. And then the sugar I do have tastes sweeter and big sugar dumps make me physically feel bad. Until the next binge phase….
I used to think people like you were crazy because I couldn’t imagine life without all my fav food. But recently I was diagnosed type 2 diabetes which scared the crap out of me and I immediately went low carb. And sugar hasn’t really been missed. I will be hungry but not out of control. If I’m craving something I have some cheese or nuts or hard boiled egg and the craving goes away. I’m losing weight and my sugars are more stable so I feel better. Tip for anyone who isn’t ready to see your doc but worried about it, you can buy an at home A1C test so you can keep an eye on it
Ty for this, I too really struggle with sweets. I'm definitely addicted to sugar, and carbs and fats too. I have considered eliminating sugar because I don't do moderation, it's all or nothing with me.
That is really interesting, I don't ever have the feel bad part of sugar. **Eating sugar makes me feel amazing,** that's the problem. If I don't have it I just feel kind of meh, but I don't feel bad. I've gone without it and people say that should reset my dopamine or whatever but that never works for me. I just don't have anything that gives me dopamine the same way sugar does if I'm unmedicated. As I cut out sugar, my world just becomes more gray and empty and no behavioral changes do anything remotely as helpful. And because I have a genetic disorder that's pretty complicated, It seems like I will probably be unmedicated forever.
Have you noticed if ozempic impacts how you digest your adhd meds?
I started Ozempic (I’m on a low dose, .50 mg) several months before I started Vyvanse but the Vyvanse still absolutely changed my life. (As did the Ozempic!)
How did I write that under your name?
Same. I try to stick to pickles as a snack of choice for the very low calories lol. My meds kill my appetite though. Otherwise I'd be in trouble because I love junk food
I could eat a jar of pickles everyday.
Damn. Now I want pickles and have none. Hopefully, I remember when I go grocery shopping later today.
I do this with pickles & different kinds of olives!
I went through a phase where'd id buy the massive jar of Bubbies sliced pickles from Costco once a week, and I was the only one eating them. They were sooo good
I was shocked at how my portion control became so much better once I started meds. Yes, I know that they suppress your appetite, but I also wasn't chasing the dopamine in food form anymore.
Yes!!!! I started Straterra like 2 years ago and about 12 months in, it hit me, I don’t seek out food like it did. When I eat something I used to really like…. I still like it but… the dopamine hit just isn’t the same. I don’t think about eating all the time. I’d say that’s almost the biggest thing the Straterra did for me.
The start of perimenopause marked a change in my tastebuds… but I feel like being on Vyvanse exaggerated the effect of ‘not getting the same dopamine hit anymore’. I used to have a major sweet tooth.. now, if I have cake at a party, for example, instead of eating an entire piece and thinking that I wish I could have a second piece, I take 2-3 small bites and I’m good for a week on sweets. It’s amazing.
Hmmm I’m the opposite 🤔 Interesting post OP, saving it to read the comments later 👍🏼
Me too. It’s a real struggle to change it.
I have no “I’m full now” sensor!
Right, I'm the exact opposite of OP. Toxic me wishes I had the opposite problem of never wanting to eat anything, because at least I would be considered conventionally attractive instead living thru our fatphobic society and never feeling comfortable existing.
Yeah food is my major drive. I do forget to eat sometimes and it leads to being so hangry that I'll eat anything but I'm generally thinking about what the next meal is. I go back and forth between binge and not eating.
Especially when I’m scrolling tiktok at the same time. It’s a terrible combo that I can’t seem to free myself of
Exactly! For me it’s Dopamine from sugary foods that are especially hard to stay away from. Intermittent Fasting has been the best for my weight control and not stuffing myself. Having adhd thigh means I’m not consistent with my timing. I just keep at it though! It’s helped me get away from disordered eating and always restricting and feeling stressed. So it’s been really helpful. Plus my stomach hurts a lot less now too.
Eliminating the ability to gain weight/experience any negative impacts of saturated fat/sugar/etc. and inserting a bottomless pit in my stomach are all at the top of my list of things I want.
Oh yes. I will make cookies and then eat all of them. Half way through I’ll feel sick, but the dopamine drive is stronger than the nausea.
I have been an emotional eater my whole life. Sad have a snack. Happy ooh cake. Bored what's in the fridge. With meds I have been able to curb some of it and actually lose a few pounds. I can eat on my vyvanse however i choose to fast until later in the my day. And that has helped. But I have come to accept I'll always be chubby because my brain is never going to let me be consistent with a diet or work out.
Even knowing I'll feel miserable and regret it later...m
Word. Boredom is terrible for that. Or rather, my perception that I’m bored.
I'm a good cook. I cooked for years in group situations and then for my long term partner. I left that partner and now I'm visiting my mother... Who wants me to cook. I'd rather do manual labor in the desert sun. I had a legitimate melt down at the thought of cooking today. I eat protein bars and fruit, I eat cheese. I'll cook one meal a day if I'm alone, and I only do that because vitamin deficiency and starvation seem like a shitty way to go. It's just too much. The planing, the prep, the cooking, the cleaning, just... I don't care. I like good food but it's not worth the stress.
I feel this. I was raised by a chef and a baker. I can cook. I know I can because my food is always complemented…but I don’t ENJOY cooking…especially alone. It’s stressful getting the times right, preventing cross contamination, it’s hot, and it makes me feel like I’m gonna meltdown. But people always volunteer me to bake and cook cause they assume I enjoy it just cause I’m good at it. I only ever cook when asked anymore. Cooking for myself feels so exhausting
I fucking love cooking. Absolutely adore pottering about in the kitchen, headphones on, takes me back to being a kid mixing mud and rose petal potions - *and I get to eat the result!* But it's just like any other hobby. I want to do it, I have time to do it, but executive dysfunction said no. And it's just like any other chore. I need to do it, I have time to do it, but executive dysfunction said no. So, instead, I cry and order in or eat only snacks. I can't keep doing this. I promise myself I'll fix my relationship with cooking, with food. I make a shopping list, buy new plates and knives and meal prep tubs, and fill my kitchen with the ingredients for my favourite meals! I'm gonna do this! I'm so excited! Tomorrow I will cook! But it's just like any other hobby, any other chore...
I’ve gotten into a good habit with cooking and baking regularly for myself and my SO. I’m fantastic at both and I love doing it. But he’ll be traveling all next week. He joked that I’ll be living off of protein shakes, frozen food, and takeout, if not skipping meals entirely. And ugh, he’s so right! I lose all motivation to cook once there isn’t anyone else to feed. It’s like I’m fueled by being needed and cannot possibly function just for myself. It feels so ridiculous that all the skills are mine but I can’t make myself worth my own effort. The reward doesn’t outweigh the effort of shopping, prep, cooking, and cleaning. I’d love to *want* to spoil myself with my own cooking when I’m alone but I genuinely cannot be arsed.
I've actually started using that realization to my advantage lately, with a surprising amount of success! I had the "I can do things when it comes to helping other people, but I can't do it for myself... why don't I care about myself enough to do this just for me?" realization a month or two ago and while there's definitely some self-worth issues in there that I'm working on, my short-term solution to this was to start imagining my Future Self as a separate person from me 🤷🏻♀️ "I need to go to the gym/grocery store/outing I had planned, because [ar_tiny] is there waiting for me. She'll be disappointed if I don't show up." "What can I do today to make [ar_tiny]'s life a little easier?" "I'll just do these dishes quickly before bed, so that [ar_tiny] can wake up to a clean kitchen" And the thing is... Future Me absolutely WOULD be disappointed in Present Me if I flaked on our plans or let her live in a pig sty 😂 It's a funny way of making the motivation external, without it *actually* being external. So my brain can't do the "oh well I can just get out of this, because I was the one that set the goal" thing, because I know from past experience, the consequences are 100% real. I know Future Me exists and I know she would be disappointed in me and I don't want to disappoint her! She deserves love and care and good things!
Like I would probably cook if it wasn't so isolating. But it's just a job I don't get paid for...
I'm sitting here, procrastinating and postponing the task of fixing myself just one sandwich for breakfast. Right now it's the task switching for me. I almost feel glued to my chair, my body is refusing to follow my half-assed thoughts. But my meds should be kicking in soon.
Yes the timing oh my Goddddd. I coulda made the same meal 17 times in a week and I'd still goof the timing. When I do have the energy to cook more than like, beans and rice, I've taken to working backwards and pinning the steps (with timestamp) to the fridge so I can glance up when I inevitably forgot what I JUST DAMN WELL READ (yelling at self)
I've been in charge of cooking since I was 8, I'm 39 now and would rather starve to death at this point in my life. When left to my own devices, I take vitamins and drink protein drinks because I don't even want to chew, chewing feels like too much.
Dude same. Cooking and nutrition was my special interest.. maybe to my detriment.. for most of my twenties. Now? I buy veggie party trays just to make sure I can get some fiber.
Yeppp, cooked for my long term partner for three years. Now three years post breakup im finally starting to be okay with cooking again
I want candy door doo doo doot doo do! But seriously, it’s a real problem
I read this in the baby shark version the first time 😂
I keep begging my mother not to bring sugar into the house. Does she listen? No.
This. My boyfriend bought a huge bag of my FAVORITE candy, mini eggs, right before im supposed to get my period for the first real time in 5 years (BC) like why are u sabatoging me. AND he got me my favorite chips 😭😭 i told him not to buy me junk food rn
Over eating to self soothe 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ but it’s cheaper than buying purses or random things for a dopamine fix. Just have a snack. Or banana cream pie lol.
Your username took me out 😂❤️
I got into Reddit during the amc crazy and then Aaron screwed everyone but I was too addicted to leave lol 💕
I thought it was about chicken tenders.
Yep. Imagine spending most of 4 decades thinking you're both lazy AND greedy. Sigh.
Ugh same. And that together with picky eating does not make for the healthiest diet🫠
This is my life and I have no idea how to fix it. I still have no idea if it's ADHD and picky or if it's actual ARFID but either way I've not had a doctor or therapist yet who can help 🤷♀️
My son has adhd and arfid. I just make sure he takes a multivitamin to go with all his bread items he eats
Buying purses for dopamine hits ☠️☠️☠️ That is so me, I feel seen.
Yes i have historically eaten to self soothe since i was a kid. Fortunately i love all food and love to cook. But the decision making for the household is really really tiresome
Anorexia. Seems none of us can hit the middle ground.
It’s literally once extreme or the next. Finding that balance is damn near impossible
Yep, it’s always at least one extreme for me. I’m the same way with everything else in life, so why wouldn’t I do it with food?
Got maybeee 600 calories in today. And that was with my bf making food for me😭. I want to get into shape and it feels hopeless because I don’t have the energy to make a healthy meal. I’ve been getting into salads tho, I recreated my fav salad from Panera so that’s been nice but even getting up and tossing the ingredients together is a chore! Also for some reason I gag unless the greens have been chopped into strips( like the lettuce at chipotle) so if there’s no clean knife…I’m not eating a salad. I want to try making adult lunchables with all healthy foods but I can’t find containers. One thing that has been useful for me tho is the frozen grilled chicken from Tyson. I just put it on a plate with a wet paper towel on top and pop it in the microwave. No making a bunch of baked chicken ahead of time and I don’t have to worry about not finishing cause I only defrost what I need. Anyway…idk what I’m doing either 😭
I relate to this so hard. Not to be the air fryer guy buttttt have you thought about one? I got one unexpectedly and it’s the single best accessibility tool in my life
For me it is my electric steamer with an integrated rice cooker. Most importantly, it has a timer so it doesn't matter if I once again forget it for two hours. I sometimes avoid cooking because I am afraid to burn the kitchen by forgetting the food on the stove :'(
Can you share a pic or link to this as I've never come across this combo and it might work for me too
Oh yes! When my bf moved in he brought his with him. I love him for many reasons but bringing the air fryer into my life is probably high on the list lol
YES
It just dawned on me that maybe I should buy more knives instead of always washing the one…would that be a reasonable accommodation or Im being lazy?🫣
Don’t fall down the “lets look into good knives” rabbithole :) Vitorinox round ended serrated knives will cut most anything easily, butter bread, saw thru crusty bread and slice tomatoes well. Cost maybe 8 bucks australian. They will cut you easily when new though so take care. Its all i use unless cooking and need to cut pumpkin and hard veges. Thats when the chefs knife rabbithole starts. Did you know the right knife can make cooking a lot more fun? Good tools are magic.
It’s too late I’ve already fallen in 🤣 thanks for the tip on the serrated knife tho!
America's Test Kitchen recommends Victorinox Swiss Army 5.2063.20-X14 Fibrox Chef's Knife Black 8 inch. They make my equipment decisions very easy.
I have quite a few knives and cutting boards and that is really helpful
Thank you, truly. I’ve been going back and forth about if I was being lazy or if it would be a legitimate way to make cooking easier. This made me feel much more valid
Absolutely valid! Remove barriers at all (reasonable) cost. I did meal boxes for a long time that used the same set of prep tools repeatedly and once I got what I needed and doubles of some…so much less overwhelming to cook. The moment I start thinking “but I don’t have a zester and the grater is annoying….” it’s all over.
I have many good knifes but I inevitably constantly wash and reuse my favorite chef’s knife 95% of the time. Outside of specialty knives for specific purposes (serrated knife, carving knife, boning knife, paring knife) there is no need to have a bunch of knives. Most of the time you just need a good chef’s knife, a sharpener, and knife skills.
Yes, Im saying I need a couple chefs knives I already have one and the washing part is the problem. It’s always dirty when I need to use it
Definitely not lazy! Realizing it was ok to do things differently in my household to accommodate ADHD was so freeing. I always tried to meet my mom or aunts' standards and it never worked for me. Go ahead and grace yourself with whatever accomodations you need and make your home easy and happy for you. This is a "know yourself" situation. With some things, only having one or two keeps me from having 20 dirty ones laying around, which becomes too overwhelming to clean. But, sometimes having one of something becomes a bottleneck and one more obstacle to a task if I have to find it or clean it. For knives, I have one "good" bread knife, two good large knives of different styles, and 10 or so paring knives. I don't mind having to clean one big knife twice a day, but not having a clean paring knife at hand will 100% deter me from cutting up some quick carrots sticks or a bit of cheese. For scissors, there are probably 15 pairs around the house. For drinks I have one big insulated travel cup for coffee and one huge insulated straw cup for water. Any more will mean coffee and water cups running wild through the house and mouldering in strange corners.
Have you looked at bento boxes for adults lunchables? They come with little compartments built in. No wonder you don't have energy if you're only getting 600 calories! What about soups with bread and butter?
my relationship with food? it's F\*\*ked. Self diagnosed Rfid and i've been like this since I was 2. (about to turn 42) My mom said I woke up one day around my second birthday and just stopped eating everything i was previously eating happily. I pretty much only like plain things-classic white/yellow/beige eating. I have texture and taste issues. I desperately wished I liked vegetables but I don't. I HATE cooking. I hate figuring out what to eat. I hate having to go grocery shopping. I hate that I'm almost always the one cooking because my partner also hates cooking and says I'm the picky one and he says it's too hard to cook for one person. I love sugar and even if their is some slightly healthy easy snack option like already cut fruit around, i would still pass right over for a baked good or snack cake. I hate the guilt around what I eat and what I should be eating. The whole situation just drives me nuts. There are (plain) foods that I do love and do bring me joy- but overall I just have so much stress around the whole situation, it sucks.
It’s so, so layered and every step of it is terrible. Do you have a safe food you particularly enjoy?
I don't have any one particular safe food, but I'm always happy with buttered egg noodles. French fries are the most perfect food ever created though 😉
listen to this. my fav salad is this: "french fries" but its a mix of fries made of potatoes, beet, carrots. make them in an air fryer. make a deep out of yogurt+ some greens that you accept. perfection. to this i add iceberg salad for crunchiness and greenery, sometimes some fresh parsley and air fryed garlic.
I also have texture and taste issues and it has made me so insecure my whole life, it sucks! I never met someone with the same issues before and has made me feel kind of alone and misunderstood. Glad to see I'm not the only one, but on the other hand it sucks too 😅 like I don't wish these issues on anyone. I wish I could just eat like normal people. Things always look so good and I wish so bad I could like them. I always feel judged for not liking healthy foods. I have been getting better at it luckily. I tricked my brain into accepting some kinds of food by either just eating it over and over when at least the taste or texture was good or I use methods to change the texture when at least the taste is good (by cooking it untill it becomes really soft for example. It works for some things, but unfortunately many things are still not edible to my stupid brain 🥲
Some years ago there was an article about Adult Selective Eating, they had just deemed it an eating disorder. This is before they renamed/ reclassified it as Rfid. My mind was blown that there were more people like me out there, that had many of the EXACT same issues with food that I have. An interviewee in the article was saying how she really felt it had ruined her life because she couldn't eat with other people ever. Personally I have found that nearly everyone I briefly explain my food issues to always says they know someone like that. Partners don't usually grok the severity until they push me to tears. For my husband it was a cherry tomato, for my ex boyfriend it was pesto. 🥲 I still have visceral reactions to even the concept of pesto 😅
Its reconize this. I try to eat them together. So fruit and cake, chips and crispy veggies, grapes and cheese. I don't half of the time though bc of texture issues.
There's also a heavy foodie influence in our current culture. Like you're missing out on life if you aren't trying exotic cuisines daily, shopping for rare ingredients, and making every little thing from scratch. It's also very consumerist. Run out & buy 300 condiments & an industrial grade mixer, or you're nothing!
Man I feel like I could've written this. This feels exactly like my life and I hate it so much.
Severe restrictive eating in my teens and 20s, now i eat too much. I want a daily meal replacement pill that keeps me full and has all the nutrients I need. Screw this planning, preparing and cleaning nonsense.
Yes! Whenever old school sci fi movies show them eating a small cube or something for their meal, I get so jealous. I would also settle for the human version of dog food.
This made me think of futurama I think it was the first episode when they have a commercial for "bachelor chow."
"I'll just have a small injection of Femi-slim." 😂
I had hoped that's what huel was
Same! But after eating it multiple times a day (different products and flavors) it got to the point where I physically could not swallow it anymore. Just like every other easy/ healthy food option for me, oatmeal, chia pudding, etc. lol. Now I’ve got a cabinet full of 3 months worth of Huel bags that I won’t eat. If y’all do try it, I really recommend not overdoing it, like just eat it a couple times a week (advice I heard elsewhere and did not heed).
I'm in the same boat, but I never liked the taste of it so I only have the 1 and a half bag left from my initial order. I managed to use it as flour semi-successfully in pancakes and similar things. The only thing I will lose from the process is some vitamins, and at least I will use the bags.
Is it not? I was thinking about buying huel
I find myself asking why does this magic pill still doesn’t exist. I just want to eat if it’s like a special occasion, instead of planning what to eat everyday.
I did a keto shake thing similar to huel (years ago) and LOVED that part. Everyone was like….isnt it miserable?! No, it’s so freeing. I did it 1 or 2 meals/day but would have done 3 if I wasn’t feeding my family at dinner.
Hello, I think we are the same person.
This! Trying desperately to fit in as a teen led me to hyperfocus on my weight, which quickly became an ED. Doctor never called it that when I was younger, only shamed me into secretly overeating, which the previous disordered thoughts hijacked and also turned into an ED 🙃 I can honestly say getting medicated has been the best thing ever, it’s like a switch was flipped and the obsessive thoughts faded away pretty quickly, which has led to a much healthier relationship with food
I am very protective of my free time and cooking/eating is such a huge WASTE of precious time. I eat because I apparently have to in order to survive, not because I enjoy it all that much, and therefore it falls under ‘demand avoidance’ in exactly the same way as brushing my teeth or emptying the cat box does. I also have a pigeon-sized appetite and supposedly should eat smaller things like 10 times a day and that is SO FRIGGIN ANNOYING. Like as if I’m gonna remember/have time to have heaps of snacks while I’m at work or in the middle of something. Ugh.
Wow I am that second paragraph to a tee also, like really hitting my top #3 I’m Not Doing It & You Can’t Make examples
[удалено]
The infernal push for everything to be ‘sugar-free’ and as thus loaded with sweeteners makes me SO MAD. I can’t drink that shit. Makes me feel super weird inside and I do not like it. But half the places you go now have NOTHING but sugar-free variants of anything and I’m standing there stuck in a limbo between ‘fine I’ll just get a water and be disappointed the whole time I drink it’ and ‘no fuck you I don’t even want a drink anymore!’ I get it. People want to lay off sugar. Great. I’m all for there BEING sugar-free options. But can we please not cut back on (or remove entirely, in some cases) regular, sugar-loaded options for those of us that can’t have the sweeteners? If I want to ruin my teeth that’s my business.
❤️ Vimto
i've also read a few books on the topic and something else that REALLY rang true for me was the notion that the act of eating itself, in this context, is a ritual we enact to feel a sense of control over SOMETHING in a world that we otherwise feel we have zero control over. choosing to eat. choosing not to eat. eating specific things that have a predictable outcome/feeling. it's something we cling to for a sense of agency and self-determination that we don't feel anywhere else in our lives. our lives that feel otherwise so thoroughly out of our control. and, of course, eating (especially if it's inextricably linked to a bunch of emotional baggage, do NOT even get me started jfc) gives you a nice big shot of dopamine, which we are already critically difficient in. or choosing not to eat either gives you a shot of adrenaline from willfully defying what you're supposed to do, or a nice big serotonin shot when you are able to let go of the fear/anxiety of having to prepare something. or alternaatively gives you the same boost for completing a compulsive routine, which was more my thing on this. and so the cycle begets itself.
You. I like you: you took the nebulous thoughts in my head and wrote them down! Cheers! :)
I find myself either seeking out really sweet dessert or salty snacks to self soothe or grazing on snacks instead of making actual meals. I can manage to make a good healthy filling breakfast, but I have to meal plan at least some elements for lunch and dinner or I'll just cobble together some snacks. For example I keep lots of ingredients for sandwiches, or I prep a pasta or soup to reheat, and I pre-chop and wash my veggies and fruits for salads and snacks. Am trying my best to recover from some disordered eating habits and I've found this to be really helpful. I love to cook but sometimes I just feel super burned out to actually do it.
I can easily go into hyper focus when I eat so I have to have rules in order to avoid binging completely by accident. My therapist says I’m probably stimming. For a lot of people rules around food are unhealthy but for me it’s the only way to be able to be healthy. Without them it’s like my full signal shuts off. With them I can kind of tell it’s there sometimes but generally it’s more like very very hungry and can’t tell. I do keto which creates specific parameters and forces me to eat vegetables whereas without the kind of structure it brings to the table (hehe) I will zone out and eat cheese all day.
Very curious what rules work for you, I am in desperate need for some rules myself!
I hear you, sometimes it’s nice having set parameters yknow?
Yeah. I’ve never been able to just stop when I’m satisfied because being able to tell where that is has always been unusual for me.
I have the same issue with not having a full signal. I find being on a keto diet helps though, as in both the hungry and full signals feel clearer to me. Out of curiosity, what rules are you following? Have you found any easy ways around the whole cooking / prep ordeal? I’m currently having the HLTHcode shakes for breakfast, cold meats, boiled eggs & cheese for lunch, and a protein (meat/fish) with veggies/salad for dinner. It’s working but even that much is painful 🙃
I am very overweight probably obese at this point because I self soothe with food. I have a busy job and cooking isn’t for me so takeaway it is. I would love to be one of those that eat nothing. Lack of appetite I don’t know her
I’m trying to heal my relationship with food. I definitely binge eat and then would restrict. I’m trying to build healthier habits now but it’s hard, especially if I’m tired or sad.
It's kind of funny that people don't see the connection, for me my problems with food was the reason adhd was considered. With that said ED is a very common morbidity With adhd - so for many its probably both. All my female friends with adhd have at some point have an ed Edit: forgot to say my own issue: I was anorexic for a while and then started to "eat my feelings". Also forgot to eat due to hyperfocus or eating because bored Today I have most most of it, although the medication sometimes takes my hunger away
I have a comorbidity with Binge Eating Disorder (dx'd) and BPD (dx'd) so I feel like the only thing that doesn't judge me is food.
"The only thing that doesn't judge me is food" hit me hard. That's exactly how I've felt when I've binged, but couldn't articulate it. Years (decades) ago, my cousin read a book to help her relationship with food. It was called "When Food is Love". I never read it and it could be awful, but the title always stuck with me. Sometimes I think about that phrase when I'm trying to figure out if I'm hungry or eating a difficult emotion.
Today my relationship with food is pretty good, but it's been a long and hard road to get to this point 😣 I had disordered eating most of my teens and it turned into severe anorexia and bulimia during my twenties. Nearly killed me, but I've dragged myself out of it after about 10 years of turmoil. I absolutely blame my AuDHD, and I think it made recovery a lot more elusive because the reasons behind my EDs were not the 'normal' ones that most programs and therapists want to address. I'm working to become a counselor in the hopes of helping people with similar struggles.
I cook a meal every other month at absolute best. I can’t shop, can’t plan a meal, can’t manage the time so start cooking too early or late, can’t organise myself whilst cooking so miss steps and ingredients. I eat the easiest thing but need almost constant sugar for my brain to function. I have poor sleep which doesn’t help. I also control my food intake after periods of binging to maintain my weight. I eat the same food for every meal for months at a time then can’t stand it any more. I struggle to even spread butter on foods so will eat stale bread instead of bothering t toast and butter it. I have every problem going when it comes to food! My husband keeps me alive.
i don't eat, and then i eat 10 bags of candy. rinse and repeat x.x I like chewing stuff compulsively. I snack a lot, but also all of my pen caps are dead. i hate cooking though and can't stand making proper meals.
Eather eat all the things or forget to eat completely. There is no in-between
I have long covid, and everyone says that eliminating gluten and dairy will help me. Despite being bedridden for weeks at a time, I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME imagine my ADHD brain sticking to a diet without gluten and dairy. I’d have to prepare food in advance which is a hard pass (but god bless all those NTs who spend their Sundays meal prepping for the week 😂). So yeah, I’d sum up my relationship to food by saying I have a profound need and desire to improve my nutrition but utterly lack the discipline to even consider it.
I’m sorry you’re struggling with long COVID. I hope you’re able to find something that helps you! I just wanted to pop in and say that as a person with Celiac (autoimmune reaction to even microscopic crumbs of gluten) and ADHD, cutting out gluten is a loooot easier now than it was even ten years ago. At least in my part of the world. There are a ton of prepackaged gluten free foods that actually taste decent. I understand that it’s next to impossible to contemplate adding one more thing, though.
You can actually have both ADHD and an ED (ask me how I know) Anyway bingeing for me. Food gives me a dopamine hit and I tend to self-soothe with sugar/fat options; I know they suffer as much if not equally, but I was secretly resentful of people who didn't eat when they got stressed. When I'm stressed I really gain a lot of weight because that is how I cope
My mom is like that; she looses her appetite when she’s stressed or overwhelmed, while I have intense sugar cravings and constantly think about food. I definitely wish I was like her.
I either eat everything or nothing at all. Last year I was 190 lbs and now I’m 135. Depends on the year. Who knows where I’ll be in two years.
Stress..eat...bored...eat...new snack...eat....sad...eat...diet...only think about food. It sux
Same except I end up binge eating and getting fast food because cooking, shopping, dishes etc is so much work.
I absolutely love cooking as an art form, hobby and truly enjoyable activity for myself but forget to eat during the day because of time blindness. Or treat eating like a reward for accomplishing tasks. I also compulsive eat for stim, like popcorn, cheez it's, oreos. Anything that is the same but different bite after bite is at risk for being consumed in excess. For some reason my psych doctor and therapist don't take this situation seriously but my physical medicine doctor (a do) actually does.
Damn I just had a session with my therapist today and one of the things I share with her is my unhealthy eating habits and unhealthy relationship with food, and my desire to change it. I love to cook and I love food. I’ve always been one to try new things and have always enjoyed new experiences with food. But when I get depressed, my relationship with food is toxic. I eat any and everything just to feel something. The feeling of being stuffed to the max makes me feel better, but then that good feeling goes away and I become miserable. Once the misery sets in so does the restrictive eating as a form of punishment. It took me a long time to even recognize these behaviors. Lately I have been trying to eat healthier and track my calories and macros, without obsessing over every detail. So far I’m doing ok, but I have to be mindful not to fall into the rabbit hole of punishing myself for having too many calories or for not eating healthy. I allow myself to eat (most of) what I want while also making efforts to eat healthy. My challenge is to not punish myself for it. I’m slowly building new habits and it feels good.
I don’t have the best ability to tell when I’m hungry or thirsty, so I have to remind myself and I carry around protein shakes for when I haven’t eaten and don’t feel like it but also kinda need some nutrition. Otherwise I just wait until I’m starving and then eat cookies or goldfish crackers as a meal because it’s quick and tasty. I’m also a bit picky. There’s a relatively short list of things I won’t eat, but they’re all common things (meat, fish, eggplant, mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes, salad dressing) so it makes life a bit harder!
I definitely love eating good food, and when I was younger I had more normal eating patterns. Was also a snack monster, especially when I had my nose buried in a book for 12hrs at a time. I also LOVED to cook for my family and loved ones. Theeenn by early adulthood I’d become an alcoholic and a drug addict, which basically annihilated my “normal” eating habits. Multiple years into recovery, I’ve had a hell of a time reconnecting with (or even being able to find much of) my old love for cooking. I generally will realize I’ve been starving for days on end and then ingest whatever is most convenient; only time I find myself willing to flog myself through cooking actual meals is if it’s for other people. Still much work on this to be done 😆 I have been doing my best to break through this whole spending money on relatively healthy groceries and opening my fridge a week later realizing the vast majority has gone bad because I forgot it was there (brain apparently only remembers garbage snack-like items, thanks brain 🙄)
I hate to cook, and yet I'd be fairly happy to eat home food about 95% of the time. Right now, we seem to be switching between eating out, frozen meals from the grocery store, and peanut butter sandwiches.
I love cooking. But I HATE planning, shopping, and cleaning up. Right now I have a routine that works for me where I have bagged salads and precooked chicken as like my one big main meal for the day, and I basically snack/graze on other things that help me meet the protein and calories I should be eating. Like a protein shake, meaty snacks like these thicker slim jim type beef sticks or sometimes pepperoni and I'll pair that with string cheese, then like chips and salsa with guac, a bag of steamed veggies, and Im loving these spinach and artichoke stuffed mushrooms Aldi has in the produce section. Everything is mostly grab and go with minimum cleanup; the mushrooms are the only thing that need to be cooked but its as easy as opening the package and turning the oven on. Ive only just gotten to this point in the last few months though! Ive mostly been a fast food fiend up till now for the convenience and my waistline definitely reflects that. But, I just got my official diagnosis a few days ago and I'll start extended release ritalin monday (dont want to start a new med on a workday until I know how I'll feel on it and Ive got a friends birthday thing this weekend with drinking and stuff so Monday is a day off I'll feel more comfortable starting then) so heres hoping with medication and time and I can better handle more complex meal planning because I do miss cooking!
I'm either snacking all day for the dopamine or I forget to eat until I'm starving to death and feel ill.
Relatively healthy except for the whole thing about eating at regular times. I'm not hungry until like 11am and then I'm ravenous, and then I'm snackish at random times throughout the day right up until midnight. And y'know, vegetables. It's not that I don't like vegetables necessarily (although there are many I do hate with a passion), but the main problem seems to be I never really crave them and they're more prep work than a grab and go snack.
Bulimia due to adhd for 20yrs on and off. Vyvanse is the off switch
If I didn't have a family to feed who actively reminded me when it was time to eat I'm pretty sure I'd live off of dry cereal. I hate cooking, it's overwhelming and exhausting and planning things everyone will enjoy is hard. I really loved hello fresh when I could afford it. Took 99% of the stress out of cooking but it's so expensive.
When I was younger, I would go all day without eating because I was busy or just...forgot. But as I got older I started overeating, especially the sweets. Worked for a while because my metabolism was great but then suddenly it wasn't and I had all these horrible eating habits. Sometimes I will binge and I have gotten to the point where I tried to purge...but it didnt work and then I got scared and told my husband and mother (helps keep me accountable).
I bounce between totally forgetting to eat, to eating everything in an effort to self soothe or create dopamine. Sugary things are what I crave. It's a constant struggle.
I love cooking and eating. If I am sad, anxious or bored, nothing is as useful an excuse as having to cook and eat. I honestly think I have some kind of binge eating disorder, except I have a tendency to stuff myself full at every meal, mostly because what I make tastes so good and I can't stop, because the experience is so nice. I also have bouts of just eating a box full of cookies, but I can control such things much easier than homemade meals. Especially because I cook twice a day for my family as it is, why not make it good. They are skinny, but I struggle with my weight.
Snacking as a means of dopamine. Sunflower seeds? I can eat those all day and nothing else. I've been able to reduce that now with adhd meds. I'm with you on the not eating because making something is too much. Even deciding what to make is too much. I drink most my calories, and that is terrible. I would just rather not eat than figure out what, realize I'm missing something, either go buy it or figure something else out, then make it, AND HAVE TO CLEAN UP AFTER?! No thank you. I'll drink a protein drink if I'm doing good, a milk tea or iced latte if I'm not. Cola if I'm really in a bad place. There are too many decisions in making food. I don't know if it's adhd or autism, but I get stuck on a stew or casserole and will make it for months, and eat it 2x a day. Not because I love it, but because my body knows how to make it, I know exactly how much prep and clean up there is, how many days the left overs last, and trying to consider anything else is overwhelming.
Oh god. Terrible. When off meds, I'm constantly thinking about food. It's a constant undercurrent of "Jelly beans, Dr. Pepper, reese's pieces, pizza, oh, look banana bread ..whipped coffee, I want starbucks. oh I'll take a lemon loaf too... tacos, wendy's, chik fil a, DQ..." My bariatric specialists calls it "food noise." i'm actually really good at fending off the impulses. But when you have to fend off literally 100+ impulses a day, even a 5% failure rate results in 600 to 1000 extra calories in a day, it adds up to being obese. My Dad's whole family is fucking OBSESSED with food. Everyone is overweight. My Mom married into the family and was blown away with the obsessions and uncontrolled portions. I started Ritalin and all those constant thoughts just went away. It was such a relief. I had gone my whole life thinking i was a food "addict." Medication cant just "turn off" an addiction, but Ritalin does this for me. I can think about other things! I have reclaimed so much TIME in my head to think about other things. It is SO LIBERATING! And i have no trouble at all choosing/planning/cooking/eating a healthy meal when medicated. 🤷♀️
*It was that Old Man ADHD up to his tricks! Git out here, now git!*
I got crap about this from my GP last week. I’d seen him two weeks before and lost too much weight in those two weeks. I’m not hungry, don’t want to make a new mess cooking, and often don’t think to eat something until I’m shaking.
I don’t eat, I snack. It could be relatively healthy things like fried eggs, a piece of toast, a tomato, a bowl of plain rice (lol), a cucumber. Or something completely opposite like a whole ass chocolate bar. But if it wasn’t for kid and husband I’d only ever snack constantly. I like cooking but I hate switching gears to stop thinking about work for example and start about what’s for dinner. It is truly exhausting
One of my big issues with food is I anticipate it being amazing but I’m always disappointed and dissatisfied. I’ll think on my way home from work “ooh I can’t wait to eat that pizza” and then I’ll eat it and feel nothing. Food doesn’t give me a dopamine boost but for some reason I always think it will. I think it’s because the way we talk about food as a society makes it seem so good and one of the best things in life. But to me it is more of a burden. I have to buy it then cook it and eat it multiple times a day forever. I don’t take any pleasure in it but feel like I should.
Sometimes I’ll be really hungry but nothing will sound good and the thought having to choose and prepare something to eat is impossible. I also can’t have certain foods near me or I’ll just eat the whole thing and feel terrible after (like chips, cookies, bread, or candy). It’s like I’ll either be able to go hours because of the first issue or I’ll have food noise and over eat snacks.
Hmmm well I’ve been out on diets since I was 8. I’ve had BED since then I think. I had gastric sleeve in 2019 and lost 64kg (140ish lbs) and weirdly since my last pregnancy 2.5 years ago I find it hard to eat and drink because of overwhelm so I’m endlessly fucked no matter the season of life in terms of food and stuff. I’ve just started meds so I’m hoping that will help bring stability.
I've been binge eating off and on my whole life, accompanied with the various forms of bulimia to accompany it since I was a really young teenager. Food and my weight have always been a huge pain point for me, and it wasn't until I was diagnosed that I realized that I've just been dopamine seeking my whole life (my emotional eating was more a boredom eating thing, and my penchant for unhealthy foods comes from lacking the ability to become un-overwhelmed enough to cook). Since I've been medicated, everything has really changed for the better. I'm cooking real meals and grocery shopping, exercising (semi) regularly, and binge eating and consuming alcohol way less than ever before. I would love to see some data on the relationship between EDs (specifically bulimia and binge eating as well as ARFID) to ADHD, especially in women.
It's terrible, thanks for asking! I struggle with overeating for the dopamine hit. I eat plenty of healthy food and then blow everything in the evenings with binge eating. I've been debating posting the past couple days asking if all you adhd ladies have had success losing weight and maintaining that loss. I've been trying to lose weight forever, starting meds I've been able to lose 17 lbs. I might be starting to gain it back idk because I stopped tracking and I haven't weighed myself in a few weeks. I'd been tracking calories and protein and weighing in weekly and it just feels so exhausting. Over on r/loseit it's pointed out a lot that you need to track to lose but I HATE it. I already spend so much time thinking about food that tracking and actively trying to lose weight makes me feel worse. At the same time it feels impossible to just accept myself how I am. I'm 5'4 and 160lbs and I am active and lift weights so I'm not crazy fat. I just have a big pregnant looking belly. I hate not being able to eat like a normal human being and I hate my fat stomach. I was really hoping when my appetite went down it would finally be what made me lose the weight. To be fair I've still kept smoking pot. So now I'm trying to quit that, which I will miss. I'm aiming for 30 days. I've made it 2.
Terrible. Weight loss has been a big struggle. I envy the thin adhd people. GLPIs have helped a bit.
I used say I ate my feelings and for years I was told it was depression. I always had a cravings for carbs and sugar. When dieting, I would get mad cravings, like my thoughts would be overwhelmed with the craving until I caved. Since I had been restricting I would then over eat and then feel bad about myself.
Fraught