ADHD and Binge Eating: How They’re Connected
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Do you have ADHD and struggle with binge eating? I can help! 👉🏼 nataliefoxrd.c...
I'm Natalie Fox and I'm a Registered Dietitian. In this video I discuss how ADHD and neurodivergence can affect your eating habits and overall nutrition. Specifically, I dive into how taking Adderall or Vyvanse, masking, sensory needs, time blindness, hyperfocus, and executive dysfunction challenges can affect your relationship with food and set you up to binge in the evenings.
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WHERE TO CONNECT WITH ME:
Tiktok: / natalie.fox.rd
Website: nataliefoxrd.com
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DISCLAIMER:
The information in this video is for education and entertainment purposes only. Always speak to a health care provider about your unique health needs. Please use this video as educational, not as unique recommendations.
Masking at work + burnout is my biggest issue. Thank you for your educated and thoughtful content.
Thanks for sharing! I'll work that in!
Stimming with food & bingeing to meet my sensory needs has been one of my biggest coping strategies since I was very young, (I'm late-diagnosed autistic, I'm not sure yet if I also have ADHD), and I so appreciate you bringing that up in this video. I'm truly only just coming to terms with this. Perhaps this is unique to my situation, because I also live with disabling chronic pain, but there's definitely also a part of me that feels like "I deserve this treat/reward because I can't do most of the things I would like to do anymore except to eat the food I like."
That is so common! Food can be so rewarding and also provide comfort - not must emotional comfort but physical comfort as well. It is a well-tuned tool for situations like that. But there can be other options as well for your tool box. I’ll make some content around this!
@@nataliefoxRD That's very reassuring to hear, thank you! I saw a nutritionist years ago to see if changing my diet could help with my pain, and she was so brutal about cutting out anything that could be inflammatory. It unfortunately didn't noticeably help my pain & it really deprived me of a need without finding any other suitable options. I think people like you are so needed in the industry, because food it so linked with shame & pleasure, but also with connection, creativity, culture & comfort (The big C's!) and those important emotional and psychological factors are so overlooked with a lot of professionals. I think making space for those days where it's needed, and actually addressing the need while providing effective alternatives, like you said, is the way to go. I would love to see some content around this!
Oh man.. I could soap box this point for AGES! You are so right! Food has WAY more functions than just fuel but for some reason whenever the discussion comes up around nutrition for health, the knee jerk reaction is always to strip away all of those other functions and just make food a fuel source. But that is never ever going to be sustainable! And then people feel like a failure for not being able to maintain a lifestyle devoid of pleasure and connection as though that is something to aspire to.
@@nataliefoxRD Yes! There's just so much inflexibility in the existing system & way our culture deals with food. It's that rigidity & shame that I think truly triggers people who want to make sustainable changes into giving up. I think a lot of people don't know how to find that balance. When my pain isn't too bad for a bit, I find it easy and pleasurable to eat quite healthy, but snack food is still my best coping tool in long-term flare ups. The second someone tells me I shouldn't do that, I only want to do it more hehe
@@nataliefoxRD And you're so right, we shouldn't aspire to a livestyle devoid of pleasure and connection- that's a great way of putting it.
Hello Natalie! Thank you for your content, so full of sense in this crazy world of misinformation! I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD (age 35), and I do struggle with my body size since I was a kid. In some point of my life I was so thin I’ve lost my period for 10 months. I wasn’t diagnosed with any ed. But then I developed binge eating. It was like yo-yo dieting and bingeing, I think it was due to restriction. Recently I’ve decided to give up the idea of intentional weight loss. First it was nice, but then I understood that I’ve basically lost the goal of my life. And I started bingeing even harder. I don’t restrict after a binge though. As a person with ADHD I need some kind of structure, and my diet and workout routine was providing this. What I didn’t acknowledge is this routine also stole all of life’s pleasures from me, including communication with people. Now I do feel like shit in my almost 37, without a job, community and kids. Luckily I have a supportive husband. But unfortunately it’s not enough. I still feel so lonely and isolated, and living in foreign country doesn’t help the matters at all. I think now I use food for numbing my feelings. Maybe you have some ideas how to distract myself from this stuff? Thank you so much!
I’m in a completely different situation as I followed an extremely restrictive diet, but I’m currently healing my relationship with food and trying to eat enough.
One of my biggest issues is also that controlling my food intake and losing weight had become the focus of my life, so that one was very hard for me. What helps me a lot is finding new, achievable, healthier goals and focusing on them. For me, that’s writing a book and poetry, drawing, and getting better at running, but that could look different for everyone. Maybe there’s a hobby you always wanted to try? An instrument you wanted to learn? A skill you wish you had? Try that and set yourself realistic goals. I also currently work on getting back my social life as I cut many people off just so that I wouldn’t have to deal with eating normally in front of them. This one is much harder, especially because we can only partially control social interaction, so make sure you find something that doesn’t depend on other people, too.
I really hope that can help you a bit. Good luck with your journey, you can do it.
@@Diana-qp2rw , thank you so much for your kind words and recommendations! I also wish you to figure out your issues and get better:) Unfortunately in my case it’s quite hard to have hobbies and time for myself, cause all household chores in our family are on me (except repairs and taking out trash when I ask). Even groceries are mostly on me, and I can bring only what I can carry myself (I don’t drive). My husband is a breadwinner in our family, therefore I see this situation as fair, but it’s hard for me. I don’t contribute financially and it doesn’t help my self-esteem at all. To ask my already tired husband from 2 jobs he is working to do anything is useless and somehow unfair. So we are kinda stuck, I’m getting resentful and he doesn’t get what’s wrong, especially with his quite low standards of cleanliness and dining.
Thank you for sharing! I will certainly make some content that touches on these challenges. I think there can be a way to still have structure and rhythm in your eating pattern without it being about weight or shame. It can be helpful to reframe it as a way to support yourself better especially in the context of neurodivergence. If you have a day that felt like a struggle, maybe try and reflect on the question: "what would have made today easier?" or "what would have made today more pleasurable?" and start experimenting with the ideas that come up for you.
@@nataliefoxRD , thanks! Yeah, for me it is more like, you know, numbing my shame, that I couldn’t have it all with my ADHD, gave up career, I feel so worthless among all this chores. It’s a pain for my otherwise smart brain. It’s a vicious circle, like, I don’t earn money and do all chores, get too tired to learn anything that could become a career, therefore continue with chores and eat to numb my feelings of worthlessness, feel even worse and less energetic, and then everything repeats itself.
I struggle most with meal planning- finding easy to make foods that are ACTUALLY easy to make for someone with ADHD is a tough thing to do. Add to that a healthy element and you end up eating raw veg as the only viable solution. Which upsets my IBS, so doesn't last long. I'd love to see more ADHD-oriented meal planning recipes. It's not just about how simple it is to make it right, but also how many steps are involved, how many ingredients to attend to, and how far in advance the meal prep is from when it is eaten. If I'm already spinning out of control, I feel like there should be a "level 1" list of easy healthy meals to choose from that would help me work my way out rather than having to submit to the binge because there aren't any other choices.
You got it! I will definitely be doing some of this!
Okay that’s so true! Hayley Honeyman actually has a video on this. She has a list of Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 meals depending on how much adhd energy or burnout you have. That helped me a lot and I actually printed out a list for my pantry and fridge for staple items that I always want to keep in stock in case of low energy days when I need something FAST. Microwave rice, ramen, Mac n cheese, cheese sticks, deli meat, bread, microwave dinners, etc.
@@nataliefoxRDI second this! Meal planning easy, quick sources of foods and snacks that are decent and maybe that have taste profiles similar to beloved snacks that one would normally reach for! Something instead of chips, something instead of cookies, etc.
And most importantly HOW to remember to get these foods stocked up in the house regularly. Because being consistent long term is the hardest thing with adhd.
Absolutely! I have some good tools for this! Stay tuned :)
OMG, YES! I lived the sensory struggle. Mine were smell and texture.
I was a child at the time, though.
It was also during the early ops post Oprah low fat craze.
I ended up being the fat kid.
Not A fat kid, but THE fat kid in a class of 34 at a "Christian" school so....FUN TIMES WITH BINGING.😅
Man the 90's/early 2000's were a rough time.....
Her: “If you’re somebody who comes home from work and binges on snack foods”
Me (ADHD) with an empty bag of kettle corn after I came home from work ate two cookies, peanut butter with apple, and the rest of the kettle corn 😮
this called out to me in so many languages 😂
“How are you nourishing yourself throughout the day?” I’m not and I’m sure that’s not part of the problem at all! 😂
I feel very targeted by this video. 🤣
Eating and work and after work are just, well, hard.
This also explains my "I need to lay down and just not do anything" feels when I get home. I forget how exhausting hyperfocus and masking can be.
I think it’s hard because getting into a hyperfocus flow, it feels really good! But then it’s so easy to get overextended
@@nataliefoxRD 100% You "get on a roll" and then *BAM* you're hungry and confused as to why you're hungry.