Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

I am absolutely delighted to welcome someone that I've been waiting for a long time to get on the podcast.

Her name is Becca King.

Now Becca is ADHD nutritionist on Instagram.

We were just talking about it.

She has had an amazing account from 2020 talking about ADHD and nutrition and that is because she is a registered dietitian, nutritionist and certified intuitive eating counselor.

She's based in North Carolina and as an adult with ADHD who struggled for years with disordered eating, Becca is passionate about helping other adults with ADHD who struggle with binge eating, chronic dieting and body image issues, find food freedom and improve self esteem.

And she uses the principles of intuitive eating and weight inclusive approach to nutrition for ADHD in her virtual practice.

So I know that lots of you might be very interested in, in speaking to Becca.

I just want to say welcome to the podcast.

You've now got a book coming out as well, which is very exciting.

So, so I'm so excited to like dive into this conversation with you and hopefully help lots of people.

Yes, thank you for having me.

I'm very excited to chat with you and I'm glad we finally made it happen.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean first of all, the book is available for pre order.

What is the book called and what's it about?

Yeah, it's called how to eat well for adults with adhd.

So it's a non diet guide to basically like how to feed yourself when you have adhd.

Because I think a lot of the current books that are out there are very like eat this, not that kind of like, or like heal your ADHD with diet kind of thing.

And I was like, there's nothing that's like how do I actually feed myself and deal with some of the like challenges that come with adhd?

And there's just like, I mean there's a lot of executive function that goes into eating and then like eating for stimulation and emotional reasons.

And all of these things make it, really can make it something that like, maybe to someone who doesn't have adhd, feeding themselves seems pretty easy, but for a lot of ADHDers, that's, that's not the case.

Yeah, absolutely.

You've totally hit the nail on the head there that if someone from the outside who doesn't understand all the deep complexities of adhd, they'll be like, what's the connection?

And like why, you know, why what's nutrition and food?

And then you just explained it so well, the executive functioning, the planning, the prioritizing.

But then we've got the emotional side as well.

And then we've got the stimulation side with the dopamine, we've got the addictive side, we've got the impulsive side, we've got the binge eating.

And it's just, you realize how complex it is, but also how much it can take over someone's life and how if you're being diagnosed later on in life and you've never been able to understand why you found it's so difficult to be regulated and to cook healthy food and choose healthy food and not eat for stimulation.

Like you kind of think, what's wrong with me?

There's something wrong with me.

And then we get this understanding of adhd.

So perhaps you can tell me a little bit about maybe your background.

Like what you obviously a trained dietitian, but also with adhd.

So how did this all come about for you?

Yeah, so I had, I own struggles with food.

Kind of pre diagnosis is kind of when they started.

I was diagnosed at 19.

And so I didn't fully make that connection between the two that like maybe ADHD had had a role in my, in my eating disorder.

But once I went to school, I started to kind of have to figure out how to like feed myself on my medication so that I wouldn't binge when my meds would wear off.

Because that was like a big issue when I got to grad school.

And I was like, I need to figure this out because I'm going to be a dietitian.

I can't, I can't be binge eating if I'm going to be a dietitian.

So I started exploring the intuitive eating framework, which is what I use with my clients.

But I was trying to figure out like, how do I implement this when I take a medication that suppresses my appetite?

Because honoring your hunger is one of the principles in intuitive eating.

So it's like, yeah, well, what if I don't feel hunger cues like everybody else does?

How do I, you know, how do I do this?

And so trying to kind of navigate all of that.

And then I actually started working when I became a dietitian in a weight loss clinic, which was not the right environment for me, didn't really feel like I was helping people there because it was just.

Yeah, just a not but I'm sustainable place.

Yeah.

I'm interested to know now with your understanding of adhd, I wonder how many of those patients that you were looking at were.

So many.

Yeah, so many.

And I would see people come off of their ADHD medication to take appetite suppressants.

And I was like, I remember just being like, there's no way in the world this is more helpful than actually taking the medication to help you function in your day to day.

Like we're making me sad for them.

Like you're, you feel like you need to shrink your body that much that like you're willing to go off of a medication that helps you function in your day to day life that also helps regulate your appetite.

And usually they would struggle with, you know, the food journaling piece.

And all of my co workers would be like, I don't understand.

It's not that hard to just journal.

And then I go look at their chart.

I'm like, they have adhd?

Yeah.

It's really hard for them to remember to journal.

And they just could not understand some of those things.

We're seeing this in so many disciplines though.

Like I was talking to someone about substance abuse and we, you know, in criminal justice system as well, and all these comparables with not understanding there's ADHD in the mix.

And so if we understood neurodivergence, then we'd be able to help so many more people.

But what's happening is that just loads of professionals who aren't trained in these different areas who then just go, I don't know what's going on.

And kind of like washing the hands of these people who clearly you're not.

Trying hard enough or you just don't care.

Yeah, you're not motivated.

And it's like the person's really motivated and you know, if they're feeling a lot of shame and guilt coming in there and being like, I know I didn't journal, I'm terrible, you know, I'm sorry.

And it's like, well, let's one like explore why we weren't doing that.

Maybe we don't need to be like journaling Is a tool.

Like most of my clients, we don't food journal or I have other ways that we keep track of things or have them take pictures of things instead of writing.

Writing it all down because that's easier.

And they're probably on their phone anyway.

So it's like just snap a picture and we can work with that.

And it already gets the like time and all the things that you need on there, which is nice.

So there's ways around it if that's something you want to do.

But like, also, I don't think lifelong we should have to stop it and write down what we eat.

You know, long term, like, that's just a barrier.

Another barrier for people, especially people with adhd.

Like, if eating is already challenging, being like, hey, let's stop and write down everything we eat, every time we eat is going to probably prevent people from.

From eating to some degree of just like, oh, I don't.

I'm not going to bother with that if I have to do that.

Yeah.

So what mean.

What we're understanding is that with intuitive eating, the way you sort of help people and guide people is more sustainable way of kind of listening to those hunger cues and hopefully making choices and not having.

Not feeling shame and guilt and the self criticism.

But what you said, I think is so important is that if we are on stimulant education, then that just changes everything.

And to have a dietitian who understands or a nutritionist who understands that if we've got someone on medication, this is a whole different ball game.

Like we have to treat this in a very different way.

And again, who's being trained like this?

Unless maybe they've got ADHD themselves?

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

We don't really learn.

Like, my nutrition textbook is like a little two paragraphs about ADHD in the pediatric section again.

So it's just like, yeah, kids might be on stimulants and blah, blah, blah.

And you're like, well, probably a lot of us are on them lifelong.

So you still have challenges eating when you're an adult on stimulant medications.

I think of intuitive eating is like removing the shoulds with eating and kind of figuring out what works best for you.

And that really will look different for everybody.

Instead of it just being like, here's this like plan or these are all these rules you have to follow kind of thing, or your eating needs to look like, you know, three meals and two snacks a day and that kind of thing that might not work for people.

And then think about, like, what can I add to the things that I, I'm eating in terms of like.

Like eat what you want, add what you need is a, A popular little mantra in kind of the intuitive eating space that I really find helpful of like, thinking about what we can add in instead of trying to take things away and feeling deprived.

Totally.

I mean, it's.

If you think about it just from a mindset perspective, if you're not being riddled every day with the shoulds and the guilt and the shame, then you're going to be a bit more open to being like, curious about, oh, actually, what can I do?

What can I eat alongside my cheeseburger?

Oh, maybe I can like cut some carrots or some broccoli on the side, but I'm still going to enjoy my cheeseburger.

Yes, those cravings are very real cravings.

And you know, let's not forget that women, we've got menstrual cycles.

Yes.

And it's so, so, you know, prolific with ADHD that we're going to have big highs and lows and our emotional regulation is going to be so tied.

The stimulation, like, it's so, I mean, it's so profoundly interconnected, isn't it, what you do and adhd, that it kind of blows my mind that this is just.

This should be a conversation from the very beginning and it should be part of diagnosis, assessment, everything.

Yeah, it.

In my book, I talk about it.

I'm like in a dream world.

Like, we would be given like a whole treatment team when we get diagnosed or a doctor would let you know when you get diagnosed that, like, I'm not the only person you should get support from.

You should, if you have the resources to be able.

And it would be nice if it was more accessible for more people too.

But like being able to get a coach, having a therapist, if it's, you know, needing a trainer so that you actually move your body, being able to have a dietitian to help you would be so nice instead of, I hear so many people being like, well, doctors just give you medication and that's it.

And it's like, well, that's kind of their job in the treatment, like, world is to manage, kind of manage your medication.

And unfortunately that's what they have time for.

But it'd be nice if it was like, here's a pamphlet of like, other people that you should think about, like, working with because it takes, it does take.

Kind of take a little bit of a village to help kind of figure out how to manage your adhd.

Being able to have resources for people like, hey, I.

You're going to start medication, you might want to make sure you have some support from a dietitian.

So that way when you know you can make sure you're still getting in all the nutrients that you need and that you're not going to end up in that, like, cycle of not eating during the day and binging at night.

100%.

I mean, that would be an ideal world.

And maybe one day that will be the case, that it's seen as a much more kind of holistic, full, full circle, you know, healthcare, where it's not so dependent on pharmaceuticals and we're able to be signposted to much more sort of lifestyle, kind of more functional medicine where we can look at all the different aspects of our life and see how ADHD has impacted it and what we can do to reclaim that control.

Because I think for so many people who've lived undiagnosed for so long, they felt out of control.

They felt like, yeah, especially with food.

I mean, let's go, let's go back to, you know, what we wanted to discuss is like, managing eating, you know, with, you know, for stimulation and.

Yeah.

When we don't have that awareness, but where they're constantly picking, snacking, dopamine, hunting.

We like the salts.

We like the crisp.

We like the sugar.

Yes.

We like the fizzy.

We like the chewy.

The like chewy candy.

Like they're sour.

Like Sour Patch Kids here.

I don't.

Or like Twizzlers.

Those like that kind of.

That and crunchy, I find, are like two really big textures.

Yeah.

Let's just like remove the shame now.

Let's just kind of put it out.

Yeah.

Because somebody might not have made that connection and been like, oh my God.

I'm always like looking for like, fizzy, sour.

Sweet.

Sweet.

Yeah.

I'm a boredom eater is kind of the label a lot of.

Especially I work with mostly women, so, like when they get diagnosed later in life, a lot of them are like, I've always been abort, like a boredom eater or a grazer.

And like, I'm just always kind of eating, but I'm not really hungry and I don't really know why I'm eating, but I feel like I need to eat for some reason or just need something to do or it helps.

Sometimes it's like they unders.

Kind of understand that it helps, helps them function better by doing that.

And it's like, oh, well, then when I get diagnosed, like, oh, I'm basically self Medicating with food is my brain is getting dopamine from food, which is like, for most people, food's pretty accessible.

It's especially like packaged foods, low effort.

You just have to open something and eat it and you can do it while you're doing other things, which makes it something that often we can kind of rely on.

And I don't think eating for stimulation is necessarily a bad thing.

I think it can be a tool in our toolkit and like, normalizing that, like, it's going to like, you might eat for stimulation.

That's okay.

Because like, saying don't ever do it is like, you know, isn't going to be realistic for people.

But I think learning how to find like tool.

More tools to add to our toolkit there of like, so that food's not the only thing.

But understanding like when it shows up and when we're likely to.

To eat for stimulation too.

Because like, yeah, during your menstrual cycle, you are probably.

Or your luteal phase, I should say, you're probably going to need to feel like you need to eat for stimulation more than your meds, not meds may not suppress your appetite as much during that phase of your cycle.

And so I think understanding that and we can give ourselves a little bit of great grace there too, that like, this is something normal.

Because I've had clients who are like, doing so great.

I haven't binged in weeks.

And then all of a sudden they're like, and I binge out of nowhere.

I don't understand why.

And then we'll start looking at where they're at in their cycle and they're like, oh, and they'll come back the next week.

Yeah, I started my period.

That makes sense now.

That's why I was craving all these things out of nowhere.

And binging was because, you know, especially if they have PMDD mix in the mix there too, it's just like, oh, yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense.

And so it's just kind of starting to build awareness for it.

And then when you know, kind of know that it's going to happen versus it just magically showing up, it's a little easier to navigate to totally.

It takes the sting out of it, doesn't it?

Because like you say that awareness, it's kind of like, okay, so this is what happens.

And for a week of the month, it is a lot harder.

And maybe I can just give myself that bit of grace and sort of it just being, oh, you've done it again, like, try Harder, like, do something different than.

It's the.

The depriving that makes everything much harder.

And, yeah, it's like a pendulum back and forth between, like, deprivation and restriction and kind of, like, overeating and binge eating.

And so it's just if you do try to deprive yourself, it's probably gonna swing back that other direction to feeling more out of control when you do finally eat that food you're trying to not avoid, or like, the cravings are too much and you can't and you quote, unquote, give in to it or something like that.

God, it's so much about the word, isn't it?

The wording and the way the different phrases and the stuff that we've heard from, you know, generations before us and the diet culture.

And I mean, I am so careful.

I've got three daughters and I'm so, so careful with anyone talking about weight food, having these kind of, like, little words of saying things like, I'm trying to be good today, or, oh, no, I'm.

I'm.

I'm, you know, going on holiday.

And so I'm just, like, trying to, like, be careful this week or whatever.

And I look at them, I'm like.

I, like.

I can feel like smoke coming out of my ears.

And I've got, like, someone that does that.

And it's so unconscious that she just speaks like that the whole time.

It's just so part of her mental narrative that she's constantly on this sort of, like, restrictive situation.

Whereas I'm like, with my girls, you know, very much.

Where are you in your cycle?

If they come in and they come in from school, they're always hungry anyway.

Oh, yeah, they raid the snack draw and then they might, like, toast and this and that.

And I kind of know where they are in this in their cycle, so I just kind of give them a bit of wide birth.

But then other times I'm like, no, I want them to have a good dinner.

And so I think, what do I say here?

Because I don't want to eat too many snacks.

So when I put the nutritious meal on the table, that they're not hungry.

So there's always this fine line of I kind of want to give them a bit of space to do the thing, but I also want to make sure that they are eating.

They've got adhd.

I want them to have the nutritious food because I know when I'm not there, they're probably not making the healthiest of choices because, A, they're teenagers and B, they've got ADHD and they just want that fast, quick fix.

And it's kind of like letting them know, like, helping them maybe be a little aware of, like, time in a sense of like the now and not now of like, in their brain.

Probably coming home from school, all they're thinking about is the snacks in the moment that they want and not that, like, oh, yeah, we'll probably have dinner in an hour or whenever it is.

They're like, snacks, yes, let's get all the snacks.

And then it's like, oh, hey, just a reminder, like, you know, I'm cooking dinner right now.

Just to remind them that that's even something that that's gonna be happening, can help them hopefully a little bit too, without being like, hey, you know, don't spoil dinner or whatever.

Because if they're hungry, then like, they're.

They're listening to their bodies in some degree.

Or it's like, hey, let's.

Maybe I'll, you know.

Do you want me to cut up an apple and put it with your snacks or something like that?

I do try that one.

Not always that well received.

Yeah, they're like, no, not interested.

Actually, what I have noticed is that because they're teenagers, they're a bit like, oh, if you're going to give it to me, me, because I don't have to do it myself, I'll put the apple in front of them and I will be eating the other stuff.

And then they will just kind of pick up the apple because they're quite happy not to move.

So that makes.

Yeah, that makes me happy.

That kind of.

Subliminally I've managed to get some nutritious food down them.

Yeah.

Often if you offer it, like, even if it's like, I'll just put it on the table and it's there.

Like, even kids will be like, maybe I'll try some.

Maybe I won't eat all of it, but I'll have a couple pieces of whatever it is because it's available.

Especially if they're not having to do, especially with ADHD and kids.

Like, I wouldn't want to have to cut everything up and wash it and do all of that.

So I was like, oh, cool, this just got put in front of me.

I'll eat some.

We need someone to do that for us though, don't we?

Yeah.

And when you do, like, if you could find.

So yeah, like, my ex used to be really great at, like, he'd be like, do you want a snack?

I'm gonna cut something up and eat and like do.

I'll bring you some.

While I was, would be working or something, I'd be like, yes, that's amazing.

So like, yeah, having people in your life too, if, if you can share things that you need or maybe they help you in this area and you help them in other areas that are your strengths.

It is, it's making those choices, isn't it?

It's making those choices in the moment.

And everything seems to have a knock on effect as well, I think with food.

So if we start our day well ish, you know, making a good choice for us, then we.

It typically follows, doesn't it?

What, I mean, what would you say to someone that's listening now and goes, I would love to start my day and hopefully for it to ripple out to healthier choices.

I would say protein's great in the morning.

Like whatever.

Any kind of way you can get protein in.

I think thinking about like, what's easy and doable and just even getting in the like where I usually kind of start as like a foundation with my clients.

It's like I don't necessarily care about the like nutrient quality necessarily of what you're eating.

I just want you to get in the routine of eating, eating regularly throughout the day and just getting used to like pausing and having to stop what you're doing sometimes and go eat and getting used to doing that.

And then we can kind of start tweaking things as that starts to become a little bit more natural.

So usually it's like, okay, hey, if breakfast is, we're skipping breakfast right now, we're just going to focus on how can we get breakfast in and we'll find things that are quick and easy.

I usually try and find things with some protein in it too because that just kind of helps keep you more satiated throughout the day.

So I will find things.

Sometimes for some of my clients it's like, hey, I drink coffee in the morning and I don't eat breakfast.

And I'm like, okay, can we put a scoop of protein powder in your coffee?

So that way, if that's the thing that you can do, but you don't have time for breakfast because sometimes it's like I don't have time for that.

I can't, can't do that.

And it's like, okay, I'm like, can we do that?

You know, so trying to find things that it's like, okay, we, what can we put in in here and make it easy and accessible to eat and it Might be using things maybe that are pre prepared or things like that or use shortcuts to make it easier to do.

But getting in that groove of eating regularly just because that helps kind of keep our blood sugar stable, it prevents us from having those big like I'm not hungry and now I'm ravenous kind of moments.

And that's really big.

For a lot of ADHD years it's like oh, I'm not hungry and then all of a sudden I need to eat like right now and whatever I'm going to eat.

And then often it's at that point we're usually so hungry that even if you wanted to make a decision like eat something more nutrient dense in that moment, that's probably not what's going to even sound appealing because your body is like I need the quickest, fastest source of energy right now and something that has lots of fiber and you know, is a lean protein and all that that it's like that's not appealing to my brain right now.

I want the fun, more fun foods that are, you know, I want the chips and I want the candy or the soda or whatever is going to get my blood sugar back up, give my brain some stimulation and you know, help me feel temper a little bit better.

So yeah, that's really well explained actually for people to understand and see their pattern and kind of again it's just to reducing if when you talk about it and you normalize it and you can kind of go oh yeah, okay so that is exactly what happens.

But I understand why because our brain is basically saying we're on like emergency, like yeah, on the dregs of your fuel, you know like the red light in your petrol.

Yeah.

And that's what you know, straight we see and see our gas in our, in our car flashing.

We go straight to the, to the petrol station.

But we need to do the same for us.

But the convenience side, what you just said then I think is so good to hear.

It's like this compassionate permission slip to say guys, buy the frozen food, buy the pre cut vegetables, make your life easy.

Like you said, we need simple, we need easy, we need effortless, we need as least amount of steps as possible and there shouldn't be any shame in that.

You know, we don't get, no one gives us, I mean I'm as a mum, no one has once given me a badge of honor for cooking from scratch some soup.

Like no one stood over me and gone, you've cut those carrots yourself.

That's so good.

Yeah, not one person, no one's once asked me.

So I kind of think if I want to buy a bag of frozen vegetables and that is how I'm going to make some soup or I'm going to.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just going to put some frozen fish and some chips in the air fryer, then that's great.

So I love that you're saying this because it's giving all these women who I think from social media, from lifestyle, from all these different horrendous channels that we're hearing that you're not a good person unless you're eating fresh fruit smoothies.

Yeah.

And hand chopped salads.

Yeah.

Every single.

You're prepping all of your food and it's all, you know, whole ingredients and it's all, all these things that's like, that's really great.

But it takes, it's an immense amount of privilege to be able to do that.

And like the people you see on social media who are like wellness influencers, that is their whole entire job for most of them.

So, like, yeah, it's easy for them to cook every single meal at home and from scratch because that's like part of all they do all day.

They don't go work a 9 to 5 or they're not taking care of their kids all day long and doing all these other things or they have help helping them do other things so that they don't.

They're not having to clean their house and do all these other things.

They have people helping them do that.

So it's like it just.

Yeah, I think people feel.

I had someone comment once on something like, I'm using a meal kit right now and they felt bad, like, you know, just for right now kind of thing.

And I was like, there's no rule that says like you have to go to the grocery store.

There's no rule that there's this one way to feed yourself.

Like, that's just like we've been told this basically.

But yeah, you don't have to go to the grocery store if you don't want to.

If you like ordering groceries, order your groceries.

If you like using meal kits, I find them really helpful.

Like when I wrote my book, I used meal kits because I was like, cool, I don't have to go to the grocery store.

There's only so many meals I can pick from each week instead of like going on my Pinterest and there's, you know, millions of recipes that I can pick from.

There's only a certain amount I can pick and that makes it easier.

Yeah, it's being intentional, isn't it?

And I know that you mentioned right at the beginning executive functioning for us, it transcends so many parts of our life.

But like you say, going to the supermarket, planning meal prepping, knowing what we're going to make each day, especially when we're just all over the place doing a million things and then recognizing, oh my God, I've got a few kids now and all of that.

I know that a lot of women kind of like unravel a little bit when they become mums because they just about held it together, you know, looking after themselves.

Have just about managed to kind of keep this sort of relatively healthy ish life.

But when it comes to, then you have kids and all of a sudden all that energy expenditure that we've put on just keeping ourselves together is now with kids and that's when a lot of things unravel.

And so I think to have these, I'm going to say in inverted commas, hacks to make our life easier shouldn't be, it shouldn't be like shameful.

It shouldn't be, oh look, I'm doing this lazy girl thing.

This should be celebrated.

Yeah.

If you're anything, we're being like innovative and like resourceful.

And to me it's being like working smarter and not harder, like is exactly what you're doing.

And saving spoons for yourself so that you can go do other things or have more energy to go do other things.

Because like cooking, like even feeding a family can feel like a full time job.

And so it's like, yeah, let me take some pressure off of myself.

I don't need to spend all of this time doing all of these things because like that is kind of the beauty of living in the era that we do live in is like we do have a lot of things that are convenient.

And part of that was.

And I think that that's really great.

Like we have foods that make cooking and things more accessible so that we don't have to spend an hour making every single meal that we cook or longer.

It's like, cool.

I can make a 15, 20 minute meal.

It can be very nutrient dense and satisfied, satisfying.

But I don't need to feel exhausted when I'm done or have like a mountain of, you know, pots and pans that I use to make this meal because then it's like, great, now I have to do the dishes after I just spent all this time cooking.

Like I don't want to do that.

It's Just gonna be.

Yeah, a lot.

So.

So do you advise people with ADHD to meal prep or plan, like, a weekly schedule?

Does that work or doesn't.

Doesn't it work?

Every one's a little bit different, traditional, like, meal prep.

For most of my clients, to spend your whole Sunday or spend a couple hours on Sunday, making meals for the week is not a strategy that generally works.

And even for me, when I was in grad school, I tried to do that, and I was like, I'm going to be a dietitian.

I should be meal prepping, because that's what everybody does.

Then I was like, this isn't working for me.

And I was like, I also think it's kind of like, if it works for someone, that's great.

But I also kind of get grossed out.

If I cooked something on Sunday by, like, Wednesday is probably, like, when I personally is, like, probably the last day I would eat something.

So if I'm like, Thursday or Friday, you're eating what you ate, especially if it.

It's like, you know, has chicken or whatever.

And I'm like, that just doesn't sound appealing to me.

So then I would cook all this food.

Food and probably waste it and then go buy food because I didn't want to eat that thing that I made.

So, like, I find that that doesn't necessarily work sometimes, like, bulk prepping things, like, kind of prepping components versus meals.

So you can grab, you know, like, chicken's a great one because it's, like, cool.

I could throw this in a pasta dish, or I could throw this on top of a salad or put it in a wrap or something like that.

Yeah.

So those kind of things can be nice to prep and meal planning.

Some of my clients write out their meals for the week, but I think of it as, like, more of a flexible meal plan.

So, like, for some people, unless if they need to, like, writing it out and assigning a day can work.

But for a lot of my clients, it's like, let's just pick the meals we want to make this week.

And then the day of, we can kind of decide what we want to make or what feels realistic.

Because sometimes there's just a little resistance when we're like, oh, we're going to have tacos today because it's Tuesday.

And then you get to Tuesday, and you're like, I don't really want the tacos.

And.

And that, for me, works.

Kind of having some meals, you just.

I rotate through.

I might add some things in there.

Different things depending on what season it is.

Like, since it's getting cold, there'll probably be some more soups and chilies in the mix in the winter months for lunch.

So just, it makes it easier that way.

And like, not planning out every meal and being okay with, like repeating some meals throughout the week.

Week is really helpful for me.

Like, I don't need to make seven different dinners.

Seven different lunches.

Like, I can kind of repeat them, some of them.

Or make enough so I have leftovers, you know, kind of thing.

Yeah.

100.

I'm, I'm very similar as well.

And I, I.

If someone turned around to me and said, right, this is your meal plan for the week, My ADHD brain would go, no one's telling me to stick to a, to a routine.

And like, my brain would be like, that is not happening.

But I love knowing that, okay, I've got some chicken that needs eating over two days.

Yeah, I can.

Is it going to go in a wrap?

I'm going to make a salad.

Like you say pasta, you know, anything, or, you know, soup, definitely.

Right now I'm making a lot of soup, but sometimes my kids love soup in the evening.

And I'll make like a cheese toasty.

Do you know what a cheese toasty is?

Is that probably a grilled cheese.

Grilled cheese sandwich, Exactly.

Yep.

So that's like one of my favorite things in the world is a grilled cheese sandwich.

So I will.

Especially with soup.

Soup.

Or maybe make like a tuna melt or, you know, have some tuna fish with that.

And so I kind of know that they'll enjoy the grilled cheese sandwich, but if I can get them to have the soup on the side and they can dip it in, then we do things like that.

But it definitely.

That's a great example of that.

Like, eat what you want and add, Add what you need.

Like, they're getting in probably some vegetables in the soup and things like that.

Yeah.

Like, it kind of just work it out with what.

And, and listen, we've not even touched on sort of the, the more sensory side of adhd.

Where before, again, before we have diagnoses or we have our kids diagnosed, they're just, we're face eaters.

The kids are.

Yeah.

You're just picky.

And it's like.

No, I just.

They're upset.

Strong sensory preferences.

Yeah.

And that is so limiting and it can be so difficult to.

Yeah.

You know, even if we want to eat healthy, if there's certain fruit and vegetables that we just won't go.

Go near, like my door One of my daughters won't go near any berries.

She hates anything squishy.

She doesn't like anything that smells a bit like a berry.

One of my other daughters probably will eat almost all green vegetables.

So I'm navigating.

It's a lot.

Yeah.

And then like, having to plan as a parent, Like a parent having to plan.

When you have, you know, kids with different sensory preferences, trying to plan meals that honor everyone's sensory needs can be challenging.

When it's like, oh, well, she's.

She's not going to eat this and she's not going to eat this.

So, like, what meals, you know, kind of meet everyone's preferences.

So I'm not having to make four or five different dinners a night.

You know, sometimes I'm making two, two dinners because I've got one of my other daughters, again, she doesn't eat fish, whereas the other ones eat salmon.

And I kind of think I really want them to have the salmon.

So I'm always having to make like a meat or another type of protein on the side.

So she.

Because she won't eat the fish.

Yeah.

And then we've got to remember this as women, like most women now are working in some community capacity and families and we and the executive functioning, we're just so exhausted, we're drained.

So, I mean, I love the fact that you brought this book out because I presume in your book you've probably given examples of good food choices.

Yes.

Just ways to.

I try not to think of food as necessarily good and bad, but just like, ways we can add in more of like, nutrition in different ways and making it easy.

Like, your frozen veggies are a good example of that.

Of just like, what are ways we can add things into the mix.

That isn't gonna feel like I'm climbing a mountain in order to be able to do those things.

Because then it's not.

It might happen once that you're like, cool, I did this thing.

And then it's like, oh, but I haven't done it ever again.

So trying to just find ways to make it as easy as possible to get in nutrient dense foods.

Because I think, I think two people always assume that, like, processed foods are bad.

It's a big, big thing on social media.

But there's so many processed foods that are very nutrient dense.

And like.

Go on, tell us.

What?

Tell us.

Yeah, like, pretty much like everything we eat is technically pretty much everything unless it's in, like, its whole form.

It is a processed food.

Like, if it's Been changed.

Like when you go to the deli and you get, you know, get chicken breasts, that's technically a processed food because it's not the whole chicken.

Like unless you're getting the whole chicken like just straight from the butcher.

It's processed technically.

So like bean, canned beans, very nutrient dense.

Frozen fruits and veggies also very nutrient dense, sometimes even more nutrient dense than fresh because they're like flash frozen at the peak of their nutrition.

Technically protein powders like an ultra processed food food.

But it makes getting in protein, especially for adhders who lose their appetite.

Like it makes it so much easier to at least make sure you're getting something in your body to like hey, I can drink a protein shake if I know that I need to eat.

But like the thought of eating food on my meds just makes me sick to my stomach.

It's like cool.

Well I can drink something though so that's doable.

Even like getting.

Sometimes I get like frozen pre cooked chicken so that way I don't have to, to like I can pop it in the air fryer, cook it on my stove top really quick.

But I don't ever have to like handle the raw meat which I really like from like a sensory perspective.

So it just makes it easier.

And I don't have to remember to get chicken out of the freezer to thaw and then marinate.

I can just put like start cooking it right away.

I can get pre cooked like 90 second pouches of.

I could get one that's like a brown rice quinoa blend.

That's really good.

I love those.

So it's like yeah, those things make my life so much easier.

And I'm still eating foods that have lots of nutrition in them.

And like you said earlier, if you're working and taking care of kids, that makes it so much easier than versus oh, we're just going to stop and grab fast food or we're going to just get takeout again.

And it's like that adds up financially and like you just don't have as much control over necessarily what you're getting there versus like at home you're getting, you can kind of get more nutrient dense foods for a lot less than you would get, you know, out and about.

So yeah, yeah, I love those pouches.

We have them here.

We've got like brown rice, different types of lentils and one of my favorite fast food I guess recipes, it's not even a recipe but I'd like, I'll get a salmon fillet, fry it in two seconds, pop that in a bit of like curry paste, put some spinach leaves, bit of lemon juice and maybe some tomato puree.

And genuinely in about six minutes, it's kind of like a weird risotto Indian mix which a few of my kids will eat that.

But that literally I just have everything in.

It's, it's like supermarket bought salmon.

Chop it really small so it fries in two seconds.

And for me it's kind of like I am willing to, I'm willing to just do that process bit because it's a relatively, it is a nutritious meal.

Yeah.

And it sounds like it's tasty too.

So like you get to, it's something like spicy enjoyable.

Yeah, that's my, that's my eating for stimulation.

Definitely.

Like me and my husband, it's just like the spicier the better.

So we eat a huge amount of Indian food.

We love Indian food because anything bland is like, but if we've got lots of spice and strong flavors, we love that.

And my son has just started university and the first week, right, we took him and I did a supermarket shop.

I was like, right, I'm going to start you off, I'm going to pay for your first kind of big batch.

And I'm so happy because he went around the shop with me and I kind of had this one hour like fast track opportunity to say to him, use this frozen food.

Try this, add this.

Oh, that's so helpful.

Put the pizza in.

But like put some onions and olives on the pizza and little things where I can just try and imprint on him as much as possible so he can cook.

I mean, listen, I know he's a student so he's probably eating a lot of takeaway food, but he's messaged me a few times saying, can I cook the chicken from frozen in the oven?

I'm like, yes, it's fine as long as it's cooked.

Put it in.

And so, you know, we've got to, we've just got to cut ourselves a lot of slack here.

And many of us aren't 1950s housewives anymore.

Yeah.

Who were probably very, yeah.

Very unfulfilled and thinking, you know, I wish I was doing more with my life.

But probably only had the one thing to think about and that was like, what am I going to make for dinner every night?

Yeah.

But, but now we've got like you say frozen food.

We've got ideas, we've got social media telling us that we can cook something in, in a few minutes and this is what should be embraced.

And your book, the name of your book is fantastic.

It's incredible.

It's like, literally.

I think most people will need that book whether you think you eat healthily or not.

Because to have your insight, your professional insight from a lived experience as well is going to be really, really helpful.

Yeah, just to take away that, like, yeah, just taking away that shame, hopefully giving people some ideas.

How can I make this whole process just easier for myself?

And I will say, if you have kids and you are like an adh er who really does enjoy cooking, getting your kids involved in the kitchen to some capacity can be so, so helpful.

Like, that's one thing I'm really grateful my parents did.

They both, like, I would say cooking's like a hobby for them or a special interest.

They taught me a lot of cooking skills.

So that way, when I went to college and finally got an apartment, like my second year of college, whatever, like, I already knew, like, how to cook.

It wasn't scary, like, oh, my gosh, I don't know how to feed myself kind of kind of thing.

It was like, oh, I know how to, like, fry an egg.

Or I know how to, like, do all these things in the kitchen.

Which was really, really helpful because I had so many friends who were like, I don't even know how to scramble an egg.

I'm like, okay, you know, and like.

And that's okay if that's you, but giving your kids some skills.

So that way it doesn't feel like this big, scary place.

Because I also work with a lot of clients who's like, they never really had any experience in the kitchen.

And that also, to me, makes total sense why it would feel.

Feel scary and overwhelming to cook.

Because it's just.

It's a lot if they've never really spent time doing it where it's just not like a familiar thing for you.

Like, it is if, you know, if you grew up in a family that does a lot of cooking, you're probably in the kitchen, hanging out with your parents or stopping in there to see what they're doing and that kind of stuff.

So you kind of get used to that kind of thing.

So I love that.

I mean, I learned how to cook, first of all, because I'm very.

I love cooking food.

Food programs.

It's like my special interest food cooking.

Like, it's also my place where I express, like, creativity.

And it's my.

It's how I kind of relax as well, because I put my phone away and I can just play and just be intuitive.

And I.

That was.

Came from my mum because actually on the flip side, my mum's also got adhd, but she did not like cooking.

She was quite a.

She just loved working.

And so I would love to cook and I would say that her cooking skills on, you know, I think maybe she will agree that's not like her, the greatest quality that she has.

Yeah.

And so I used to cook for myself a lot, but when I was.

So I was cooking at the age of 14, like full.

Full meals.

Yeah.

So when I went to university, I was kind of like the resident chef and my friends, we'd come in and I would like make batches of pasta and sushi and all things like that because I loved it.

I'm hoping that my kids will have just seen me in the kitchen and see.

And hopefully I hope that, you know, they'll.

They'll take some interest as well.

But yeah, it sounds like at least with your son, if he's at least messaged you a couple times about feeding himself at school.

Yeah, I hope so.

So I just want to say thank you so much.

I've loved this conversation, Becca, and it's been, I think, hopefully really helpful, really validating and just like we say just to like normalize these conversations that, yeah, we're all different.

We know with adhd, we're all so different.

It presents so differently.

And I don't want to minimize impact that of disordered eating and binge eating and difficulties, you know, with our executive functioning and food and all of that.

I also hope that this conversation has given people some ideas and some tips and little insights that they can maybe bring into their.

Their daily life as well.

Just to make life easier with adhd, because it is not easy.

Most.

Yeah.

Yes, I think, yeah, normalizing that, like, what these struggles exist and that we can all kind of work, help each other and support each other too, I think can be really valuable.

Or just knowing like, you're not alone.

Especially like with disordered eating and binge eating, when I was struggling with those things, felt very alone.

Even though, like, logically I knew that there are other people in the world that struggle with these things.

It was like, nope.

My brain would try and be like, nope, you're the only one.

So I think talking about it can help remind people that, like, yeah, no, I really am not the only person that is experiencing those.

These things and, and that I can work through them and it can get better.

Amazing.

So if people have enjoyed this conversation and want to find you, I know Your Instagram is incredibly helpful.

Just remind people how they can find you.

Yeah, Instagram's the best place at ADHD Nutritionist would be where you can find find me.

You're welcome to send me a message if you have any questions or anything like that.

So.

And the book is on pre order and it's out in March, is that right?

Yes, March 5th is.

Or March 4th, sorry March 4th is when it will be out.

And yeah, the lit there is a link in my bio to pre order and it's like at a bunch of different bookstores just on that.

It's like a universal link so you can pick which place you would like to purchase it from.

Amazing.

Well, wishing you so much luck with it.

I'm sure it's going to be a very, very helpful resource and yeah, look forward to connecting again very soon.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen.

Listen to your podcasts and please do check out my website, ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk for lots of free resources and paid for workshops.

I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there.

Take care and see you for the next episode.