ADHD & Disordered Eating with Becca King
Join dietician Becca King on the Adulting with ADHD podcast as she explores the complex relationship between ADHD and nutrition, highlighting intuitive eating strategies for managing disordered eating patterns. Through insightful conversations, Becca offers compassionate advice for both adults and children in developing a healthier relationship with food.
Highlights:
Discusses the impact of ADHD on disordered eating patterns, including executive dysfunction and emotional eating.
Highlights the intuitive eating habits of children and how adults can learn from them.
Becca King shares practical advice and her personal journey into ADHD nutrition, encouraging listeners to reconnect with their inner child.
Summary
In this episode of the Adulting with ADHD podcast, host Becca King delves into the often-overlooked topic of how ADHD influences eating habits. She shares her personal journey, discussing the challenges adults with ADHD face, such as executive dysfunction impacting meal planning and cooking, and how these can lead to disordered eating patterns. Becca emphasizes the importance of understanding these challenges and working with them rather than against them, offering practical strategies to manage them.
The conversation takes a heartwarming turn as Becca highlights the intuitive eating habits of children, suggesting that adults can learn from their carefree approach to food. By reconnecting with our inner child, Becca believes we can foster a healthier relationship with food. She underscores the simplicity and effectiveness of intuitive eating, encouraging adults to stop eating when satisfied, a practice often innate to children.
Throughout the episode, Becca shares her insights and experiences, inviting listeners to follow her journey on Instagram as @ADHDnutritionist. Whether you're managing your own ADHD or nurturing intuitive eating habits in your little ones, this episode provides valuable insights and advice for developing a balanced relationship with food.
Transcript
00:00 - Sarah (Host)
This episode contains content on food and eating that may be sensitive to some listeners. The Adulting with ADHD podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. Please see a medical professional if you think you have ADHD or have ADHD and need additional assistance. For podcast archives, please visit patreoncom. Slash adultingwithadhd. Slash adulting with ADHD. This is the adulting with ADHD podcast self empowerment for people with ADHD. Today, I'm very excited to have with me Becca King. Becca is a dietician who specializes in ADHD adults. Becca, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk about this topic. How did you get into this line of work, Becca?
00:53 - Becca (Host)
I actually got laid off at the beginning of the pandemic and I was working in weight loss at the time, which is not really my area of nutrition or my passion, I would say and I was actually working with a business coach and kind of trying to figure out my say. And I was actually working with a business coach and kind of trying to figure out my niche and as I was working with a really good friend and thinking about my own journey with eating, I was like there's nobody talking about nutrition for adults with ADHD. And I got really lucky. Obviously I had a lot of free time at the beginning of the pandemic and I totally that time for focus and learn as much as I could more about ADHD, not just from my own personal perspective.
01:30
But I'd done some polls and some Facebook support groups and all these women were talking about how they struggled with binge eating and had ADHD and I was like there's no one talking about this, like, and this is important. So I was like I'm gonna start talking about this. My business coach at first was a little apprehensive about it because she did like pediatric nutrition, so she just imagined like the little hyperactive boy and I was like no, no, no, that's not. That was like there's more to it, and so that's kind of how I got here.
01:58 - Sarah (Host)
I know I had the same reaction. I was in a class once and someone had referenced their ADHD eating issues also binge eating and I had the same reaction like what is this? So yeah, with all that said, if you're an ADHD adult, what's one of the most important things you need to know about this connection with food?
02:21 - Becca (Host)
I think especially just that executive dysfunction can show up with food and that if you are someone who struggles with feeding yourself regularly or meal planning, remembering to eat, being able to cook for yourself, all of that can be challenging because there's so much executive functioning that goes into being able to nourish our bodies and our minds, into being able to nourish our bodies and our minds A hundred percent.
02:45 - Sarah (Host)
And what would that look like? Like, let's take one of your examples. So let's say I'm struggling in the kitchen with ADHD. How does that look?
02:54 - Becca (Host)
So it could be. You know, maybe it's being really overwhelmed and being like okay, I don't even know where to start with a recipe, so I'm going to order, I'll just order takeout again. Where to start with a recipe? So I'm going to order, I'll just order takeout again. Or you know, maybe buying a bunch of groceries or especially produce, and it just going to rot, you forget that it exists in your fridge and then you find it all rotting in there, so a lot of food waste can happen. Or you know, you have all these great intentions, for maybe you do meal plan and you have these great intentions for all these recipes to make, and then you get home from work and you're just too exhausted or you don't have any spoons left to like actually make those meals for yourself.
03:35 - Sarah (Host)
Totally, and I have one I totally hyper focus. You've probably heard of this. I hyper focus on recipes. Yeah, you have the best intentions and then as soon as I procure everything I need, I immediately lose interest.
03:51 - Becca (Host)
Yes, I had that happen to me at the beginning of the pandemic. I was like I'm going to meal plan for two whole weeks so I don't have to go to the grocery store, which is like the opposite of how I do things. I go to the grocery store frequently or order groceries frequently so I can decide what sounds good in the moment, because it changes a lot.
04:09
And I did that, and I picked all these recipes from Pinterest that I had never made before and I think I maybe made one or two of them, and the rest of it I either just like randomly snacked on or it like went to waste and I was like, well, you learned a lesson.
04:31 - Sarah (Host)
We're not going to meal plan for two weeks. That doesn't work for our brain. That sounds exactly like me. So what are some of the signs? Let's say you're an ADHD adult. What are some signs you may be struggling with disordered eating?
04:36 - Becca (Host)
Yeah, going really long periods of time without eating and then by the time you do eat you might be ravenous, so you might overeat or potentially even binge, just and it's not necessarily, I would say, it's more of an unintentional form of restriction. So for a lot of my clients it's, you know, they're on meds that suppress their appetite so they don't realize it, or they're hyper-focused and you know it feels like it's been 30 minutes but it's been four hours since you had your last meal or snack sorts of things. Maybe if you are more of a perfectionist, maybe not eating something because the quote unquote healthy option or the best option isn't available so you just skip eating. Other things that can happen.
05:16
I think I try not to demonize this, but I wouldn't necessarily say it falls in line with disordered eating, but recognizing that food can be a source of stimulation for some folks or a way to help regulate emotions as well. But I try not to demonize those behaviors because I think food can be a part of that toolkit for us, but for some folks it might be something that they rely on as their only coping tool for emotions or for stimulation and that can, you know, turn into overeating or binge eating because it's, you know, the only thing. You're relying on Other things. I see a lot, sometimes even using your meds as a tool to suppress your appetite or as a weight loss tool sometimes. Oh yeah, yeah. I think sometimes that gets overlooked a little bit. Or I would say people being hopeful of like, oh, I'm on an appetite suppressant so I'm going to lose weight, and it's like that's not what's going to happen most likely.
06:12 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, totally, and I guess I should have. This isn't all my questions, but I should have asked first how do you define disordered eating? How did that term come about? What does it mean? Have asked?
06:22 - Becca (Host)
first, how do you define disordered eating, how that term come about? What does it mean? So it's different in the sense. Okay, so an eating disorder has criteria like ADHD and the DSM-5 to meet a diagnosis. Disordered eating could be behaviors that are quote unquote, not the norm when it comes to eating, but don't meet a specific criteria for like binge eating or anorexia or bulimia. It's, you know, it's just those behaviors. A lot of times, a lot of dieting behaviors are looked at as helpful behaviors, but they're often very disordered, unfortunately for a lot of folks. If you're in larger bodies, you know diet culture will tell us, hey, that's fine that you're doing that, but if someone who's in a smaller body does those behaviors, it's like you have disordered eating, and so it's kind of one of those things kind of that gray area.
07:08 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, the interstitial. Yeah, thanks for making that distinction. It's one of those things like I know when I experience it or I know when I see it, but I don't really know how to define it. So that's a great distinction there. That's great. I don't know if you've ever been put on a waiting list, but therapy is hard to come by these days. If you need therapy and you need someone to talk, to consider BetterHelp. I've been using BetterHelp on and off since the pandemic and it's honestly been really helpful when I can't reach my normal therapist, to save 10% off your first month visit. Betterhelpcom slash ADHD adulting. That's betterhelpcom slash ADHD adulting. So yeah, let's say all right, let's go with me. I think I might have disordered eating. What's my first step on this journey to kind of get to the bottom of that?
07:58 - Becca (Host)
So I use the intuitive eating framework with my clients. I think if you are struggling with your relationship with food, working with a dietician who has experience working with folks that have ADHD can be really helpful and help navigate that with you, because usually if they don't understand ADHD and how that is going to show up in food, usually they can address some of the challenges with eating, but then there will still be kind of a missing piece there often.
08:27 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, just to reinforce your point, I've been a chronic dieter my whole life but I I finally partnered up with you know, basically a nutritionist, a dietician, someone who actually has background in this stuff and she's ADHD and knows exactly. You know, and I will say for listeners, like that's the first time I've actually seen lasting results and felt really good about it and it's such a huge piece. But, like you said at the beginning of our convo, like not a lot of people are talking about it. So that's yeah, that's why we're here, right? Yeah, that's awesome to hear you talk about this, because it really is a huge, in my opinion underserved area of the space.
09:07 - Becca (Host)
Yeah, and I think for a lot of folks like you, get like the normal things that show up that we get told all the time with being ADHD, you know, having ADHD it's like, oh, you're just lazy, like you know, maybe it's using, you know, what I call shortcuts or convenience foods, you know, to make cooking easier for you, and it's like, oh, why can't you just chop the vegetables? It's not that hard. It's like you're just being lazy and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That might not be a skill for someone who has ADHD or something that you know. If that's the part of the cooking process that prevents you from cooking, then buying chopped pre and buying pre-chopped vegetables or a frozen bag of vegetables is a great option for you.
09:43 - Sarah (Host)
You know kind of thing Totally and I wanted to go back to intuitive eating. How would you tell someone what that is who's not really familiar with it?
09:53 - Becca (Host)
Yeah, so it's a self-care framework and it does have validated assessment tools and things like that. It is very researched, but it's a non-diet approach to nutrition. So the goal of intuitive eating is is more of a weight neutral approach, so it's not necessarily focused on eat this or don't eat that, or count your calories, all of that stuff. It's moving away from all of that external, all of the external cues and things that we do in terms of what, when and how much to eat, and turning inward and really rebuilding that trust with our bodies. Again, if you think about babies, they're basically we're born intuitive eaters, right? They cry when they're hungry and when they're full they either fall asleep or they turn their head away from the bottle or the breast. And as we get older, we start getting all these messages from family and society about what, when and how much to eat and that really can inhibit our ability to listen to our bodies or make it more challenging. So it's kind of getting back to that place.
10:53 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, I'm going to try thinking like a baby Totally. I love that so much because it really is, at that point, just about feeding your body. They don't even know anything else.
11:07 - Becca (Host)
And kids are amazingly intuitive too. Some people are always like it's so like when I work with clients and they either have kids themselves or nieces or nephews who will say things and they're just like I, or be so carefree about food or just you know, they'll have a have ice cream and stop eating the ice cream when they're full and be like here you go, I'm done, and they're like wait, what Like you could just stop eating it, and I think it's cool to see that. You know you can see it. If a child is capable of having that relationship with food, I think we can all get back to those places if you don't feel that way now.
11:43 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, I totally agree. I have a five-year-old and I just sometimes it's like who's teaching who? Here you are so smart. Yes, You've already gotten your enjoyment out of it. What's the point? Yeah, I love that. Well, Becca, I really have loved this conversation here. And for people who are listening, where can they keep up with you and kind of see what you're about online?
12:10 - Becca (Host)
I am most active on Instagram and you can find me at ADHDnutritionist.
12:15 - Sarah (Host)
Excellent, becca. Well, thank you so much for being here today and I will be in touch. Yes, thank you for having me, Sarah.
