ADHD, Food & Momming with Liz Lewis
In this episode I talk with Liz Lewis about food, being a mom and ADHD. Be sure to check out The ADHD Enclave!
How Liz got started with her blog.
The biggest challenge as an ADHD mom when it comes to feeding yourself and your child.
The ideas or beliefs around what a meal has to look like.
A common challenge Liz hears in her community.
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Summary
Balancing the chaos of motherhood, the nuances of ADHD, and the pressures of meal planning can feel like an insurmountable task. Join us as Liz Lewis, an insightful writer and coach, shares her personal experiences navigating life after becoming a mom in 2010.
Faced with the daunting challenges that ADHD and motherhood presented, Liz took a brave leap to prioritize her family over her career. Her journey didn't stop there. By 2015, driven by the need for real, practical advice, she founded HealthyADHD.com and created a nurturing online community for those like her—moms juggling ADHD and family responsibilities. Hear how Liz found her way back to writing, discovering fulfillment beyond the confines of traditional social media.
Our discussion sheds light on the gendered nuances of meal planning, especially for moms grappling with ADHD. The executive function struggles that accompany ADHD can make the simple act of preparing meals feel overwhelming, compounded by societal expectations of culinary perfection.
Liz emphasizes the importance of understanding whether these obstacles are logistical or tied to unrealistic personal expectations. With her guidance, we explore how embracing flexibility can ease the pressure, making meal times less about perfection and more about nourishment.
Highlights
(00:00) ADHD and Food Challenges for Moms
(04:41) ADHD Moms and Family Food Expectations
(08:16) Navigating Food Challenges With ADHD
Transcript
00:33 - Sarah
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. 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 writer, coach and founder of HealthyADHDcom, liz Lewis. Hi, liz, how's it going?
01:16 - Liz
Pretty good. Pretty, good Pretty good, I mean it's February, it's one of those in-between months, it is it's such a short in-between month.
01:23 - Sarah
It's one of those in-between months it is. It's such a short in-between month. So Liz is with us today. She's going to tell us a little bit about herself and then I'm going to ask her some questions. Today's topic is momming, food and ADHD. So, as I said, you're a writer coach. You want to tell us a little bit how you got your start.
01:51 - Liz
So back in 2015,. My son was actually born in 2010 and he is autistic, has adhd, like me, and I tried really hard to work after he was born and it just didn't work out. He didn't do well in child care so I had stopped working and I was sort of listless for a couple of years. Trying to be some kind of housewife extraordinaire did not go well. And then in 2015, I was like you know, I bet it's this ADHD thing, like. I remember thinking it, and I started researching and I everything I found about women and ADHD was written by and now I call these people friends and colleagues, but it was written by therapists and researchers and even the websites. What was up then and that was 2015 was more pre-social media. So there was blogging going on and I thought to myself I'm going to start a blog, but it's not going to be a blog about me specifically. I'm going to talk about ADHD and momming, I'm going to give real information and I'm going to cite sources and I'm going to try to walk that weird line between blogging and, like informational, nonfiction writing. So I did, I just started doing it and I just wanted it to be something different than what was out there and it was really cool. I got to meet really cool people like Terry, matlin and and Michelle.
03:00
Over time, you know, I got involved really early on and that's how it started and I always knew, ultimately, that I wanted to do more of a community Like. I wanted to gather people together. I just wasn't into the Facebook thing and that was where a lot of people started with Facebook groups. Even now, you know Facebook groups and I just was never into that. So that's really how I started. I've always been a writer. I forgot that I was a writer for a little while and tried to play like the social media game and then I was like, yeah, this isn't for me. How do I do this, like, how do I do this in a way that feels intuitive, it feels like it's more me. So I went back to writing and now I'm really happy to say that I'm still writing and it's great.
03:42 - Sarah
Awesome. Yeah, I can relate a lot to that journey.
03:47 - Liz
You'll have to tell me about it sometime.
03:49 - Sarah
Yeah, I'm not a TikToker, I you know. It's like there's this urge to want to jump on all these different things. I totally get that. So yeah, about momming, momming food and ADHD. First question what's been the biggest challenge as an ADHD mom when it comes to feeding yourself and your child?
04:08 - Liz
So I haven't actually talked about meal planning and like food and stuff for a few years. So I actually had to really think about this In general when people back in the past, when I did a lot more of this meal planning stuff, when people were complaining to me or talking to me coming up to me at a conference and I just want to say this up front I have never had anyone who identified as male come up to me and start talking about meal planning. I don't know why this becomes so gendered, but it feels like it still is, even now in 2023. So two categories I break this down in my own head.
04:45
First, there is what we in ADHD land refer to as executive function stuff the logistics of planning meals or food. It's kind of a nightmare. There's a lot of decision making. You have to make choices upfront about what you're going to eat and even if you can get past that point of making the choices, none of us like doing that, you know. Then you have to shop. You have to make a list and shopping is a sensory nightmare.
05:14
If you go to a grocery store, let's say you make it that far and then you bring everything home and you have this plan in your head and you put it all away and then 24 hours later you don't feel like executing on the plan and cooking itself, unless you're a person that really loves that or you get a sense of satisfaction from it. There isn't a lot of like intrinsic motivation to cook. So, yeah, there's that part of it, and then the other part of it is the much more sort of emotional pull we all have toward food and family and what food means to us emotionally. And we all know at this point that within the ADHD community, you know, there's a high, high prevalence of disordered eating behaviors, and so I think for a lot of us it's a much more loaded thing. And those are the two areas that people usually are struggling with. One or the other, or both, is usually what it is.
06:16 - Sarah
Totally A hundred percent. So to that end, what's a common misconception ADHD moms have when it comes to feeding themselves and their families?
06:28 - Liz
Well, again, I have like sort of I don't know why I create categories in my mind. It's the way my brain works. So there's like the first thing, which is this we have a lot of ideas or beliefs around what a meal looks like, like we think it has to look a certain way. It can't be a turkey sandwich on a plate or a piece of pizza on a plate. I've heard a lot of stories about things like well, I can't just put a piece of pizza on a plate Like shouldn't there be a like a vegetable or something to go with it or like whatever? And I'm like I don't know why. Why does a meal have to mean, I don't know, a protein, a starch and a vegetable Like? Why? I don't understand Like, but we do. We have ideas about what it needs to look like. The other big thing is is that women in general feel like we need to make everybody happy. We need to meet everybody's needs taste preferences, food allergies. We take it on ourselves Like it's our responsibility to make everyone happy, and I don't actually think that's true, but I think we're kind of socially conditioned to think that that it's our problem to do that. I also think along the same lines as like it needs to look a certain way. We also don't always. Maybe it's an ADHD thing, but we don't always understand that.
07:54
You can just eat what's in your house, like you. You can mix and match things. It doesn't have to be. This was the plan. Tacos on Tuesday. You know you could have a taco on Wednesday, but also maybe you have something else left over. You want to put it on the plate too, like it doesn't. I don't know. We get a little rigid about it.
08:14 - Sarah
We do, we totally do.
08:16 - Speaker 4
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08:42 - Sarah
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09:11 - Liz
Well, there's a couple of different things that come up a lot, and in particular with people who identify as as female or women. So one of them and this is like a practical thing is we will go into the meal planning thing and we will maybe buy a bunch of food or whatever, bring it home, put it away and forget about it. And then there's like wasted food or rotten food that stinks up your kitchen, and then you end up spending extra money going out anyway, whether it's because you forgot it or you decided you didn't want to eat it. You know there's like the, the double buying of food, sort of, and the expense of that, and there's a lot of frustration around that. Sometimes I'll even say shame.
09:55
And then the other thing I hear a lot and it isn't this isn't like in the enclave, but this tends to be again an ADHD thing is this idea that like, like we, we have to eat healthy, like, um, like, if it's not healthy enough, you know we're doing, or, or if we have food coloring, or we're doing an elimination diet and we're going to try to eliminate all the dairy, or I'm going to go keto for a while, and then we do that and then it doesn't work. Or we try to go all in instead of making tiny incremental changes and we burn ourselves out really quickly, but those are the things I hear a lot. Burn ourselves out really quickly, but those are the things I hear a lot. Wasted food and wasted money and then like it not being healthy or good for our ADHD or it doesn't look like the food bloggers that we've been following. You know you go on whatever social media. There's some conventionally attractive woman with her attractive family in her beautiful kitchen serving really pretty meals.
11:02 - Sarah
Yeah, it could be a little paralyzing. Yeah, totally. So if you're an ADHD mom who wants to address this, what's one thing you could do to get started?
11:12 - Liz
Yeah, Well, I would start where you are and really figure it out. Is it a logistical problem for you? Like a meal plan, sort of like a budget is structural. You can make a meal plan and you can tweak it and maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, and that's like a structural thing. That's like something you're experimenting around thing. That's like something you're experimenting around. But if the real issue for you is this measuring up, making everybody happy, the expectations you've created or others have created for you if that's really what it is then that's what you have to address. It's not the food itself, it's your ideas around it. So first just get clear on what you're doing here. Do you just need some structural support around the meals, or is this a bigger issue that you're having with food and feeding your people and feeling like you're doing a good job at that?
12:08 - Sarah
Yeah, I love those answers. That was so wonderful, Liz. So if our listeners want to keep up with you, did you have anything else you wanted to add to that? I feel like that was really profound and important.
12:23 - Liz
I can't really think of anything Not to put you on the spot. No, I just think that the more I learn and as I'm writing this book and everything, the more I learn about women and food and ADHD, the more I want to be sensitive about how we talk about food and because ADHDers in general are so externally focused, so we're constantly like reading the room, so to speak, even if we're bad at it. We're constantly comparing ourselves to other women, with and without ADHD, and we're making a lot of assumptions about, you know, our performance in comparison to theirs, and I just think we need to be sensitive about it because I think we create a lot of ideas in our heads about what meal planning is, what it means, about our value, the role we play in our family, say, and I just think we need to question more of that stuff. That's all.
13:17 - Sarah
Yeah, and it is loaded. That's so true, it's a loaded topic. So if our listeners want to keep up with you, where are you on the internet?
13:27 - Liz
Well, you can go to my website, but I have to apologize ahead of time. I really need to find a WordPress designer to help me with the website. It's a little bit messy right now because I started it in 2015 and I need to find someone to help me fix it, to recode that whole thing. But you can find me on the website. You can just shoot me an email lizathealthyadhdcom. I am on social media. I do Twitter, healthy ADHD. I do Instagram, healthy ADHD. I have an email list that you can sign up for. I don't charge people. I know everyone's moving to Substack and email costs money. Now you have to pay for people's emails. I haven't done that, so I still send out an email every week. I'm pretty easy to find. I'm around and the Enclave is always there.
14:11 - Sarah
Yeah, tell us a little bit about the Enclave for people who don't know what it is. What is it?
14:16 - Liz
So when I started it, the whole reason I started it was because I saw that there was a need for a place for women to gather, but I wanted it to be a little bit more private and I wanted to have a little bit more topical conversations, and so I just moved it off of social media, off of like Facebook or whatever, and just put it in the Mighty Networks. And at this point I work with, I have a partner, elizabeth Brink, and what we really want now is to provide a little bit more intimacy, a little bit more peer coaching resources. But we want it to be accessible, because right now on the internet with ADHD especially, I mean sort of the trend is high ticket. You know coaching and we we do offer coaching in the enclave, but we want it to be almost a bridge service for those that can't afford a $500 an hour coach. We want to give you some privacy, the ability to body double if you want to share your story or if you don't't, if you want to be really super independent, if you just want to check in once a day, see what everyone's up to state your like goals.
15:23
Some people just like that. Yeah, just having that anchor. I want to check in. This is what I'm doing today. Yeah, you know, and it's I don't know, it's like I don't know.
15:32 - Sarah
We try to keep it flexible and fun and accessible that's awesome, that sounds great and you can find it at healthyadhdcom right.
15:40 - Liz
You can find it there or at this point. All you have to really type in is the enclave or the ADHD enclave and it'll come up Awesome In a Google search. Awesome.
15:50 - Sarah
Okay, liz. Well, thank you very much for being on the show today and we will. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm glad we finally got to do this and hopefully we'll have you again on another topic.
16:02 - Speaker 5
Yeah, let me know. Awesome sounds good. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with AutoQuote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at Progressivecom. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
