ADHD and Intuitive Eating with Nicole DeMasi

In this episode, I chat with registered dietician Nicole DeMasi about ADHD and intuitive eating.

Highlights:

- What is Intuitive Eating?
- How Nicole into this specialty

- The most important thing for ADHD'ers to keep in mind about Intuitive Eating
- A common misconception about Intuitive Eating

- How to find out if Intuitive Eating is for you

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Summary

Nicole DeMasi, a registered dietitian with firsthand experience in managing ADHD, unveils the empowering journey of intuitive eating, especially for those grappling with ADHD. Her candid insights explore how intuitive eating transcends traditional diet culture, providing a nurturing and flexible approach to food that prioritizes mental and physical well-being over weight loss.

As Nicole shares her personal narrative of overcoming disordered eating, she reveals the profound impact that self-compassion and body respect can have in fostering a healthier relationship with food. By embracing curiosity over judgment, individuals can learn to trust their bodies and find peace with food, avoiding the pitfalls of an all-or-nothing mindset.

Nicole advises listeners on how intuitive eating can serve as a tool for self-empowerment and balance. Her guidance shines a light on the unique challenges faced by those with ADHD in navigating dietary pressures, offering strategies that are grounded in research and compassion.

As we explore the broader implications of intuitive eating, Nicole's expertise becomes a beacon for anyone seeking to break free from the constraints of rigid food rules and embrace a more fulfilling, nourishing approach to eating. Join us for an enlightening discussion that promises to inspire and inform, leaving you with a renewed perspective on self-care and body positivity.

Highlights

• (0:01:30) Explanation of intuitive eating as a non-diet, weight-neutral approach that focuses on listening to one's body.

• (0:03:15) Discussion on how diet culture and food rules can disrupt natural intuitive eating habits.

• (0:05:00) Nicole shares her personal journey with ADHD and disordered eating.

• (0:07:45) Emphasis on self-compassion and a balanced approach to food.

• (0:09:30) Encouragement to approach food with curiosity rather than judgment.

• (0:12:00) The long-term goal of achieving peace with food and avoiding an all-or-nothing mindset.

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 happy to have with me Nicole DeMasi. Nicole is a registered dietitian who specializes in ADHD. Welcome to the show, nicole.

01:16 - Nicole 

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

01:19 - Sarah 

Absolutely. Today we're talking about intuitive eating and how it impacts people with ADHD. So, before we get started, do you want to tell the listeners a little bit about what intuitive eating actually is?

01:33 - Nicole 

Yeah, sure. So intuitive eating is actually really just eating in its most purest sense. We're actually all born intuitive eaters and we kind of lose that ability over the years with things like diet culture and food rules. But eating intuitively is really just eating a way that feels good for your body, mentally and physically. It's a non-diet approach, it's weight neutral, so meaning that the point of it is really just to listen to your body and do what feels good for you.

02:07

It has nothing to do with wanting to lose weight or well, people do want to lose weight with intuitive eating, but that's not the the main focus, that's not the goal of it so there's 10 principles and it's based on, you know, research and it's been actually around for a very, very long time, like since the eighties, but it's kind of more of a popular thing now. So it's kind of becoming more like a trend. Unfortunately, like diet, culture gets its hands on everything right. But it's not actually a trend, it's not a diet. It's just sort of following these principles as a self-care framework sort of, to just really take care of you and listening to your body and honoring your health and respecting it, and it's really great for people with ADHD.

02:59 - Sarah 

That was actually my next question. I noticed that you're specializing in the ADHD population, so how did you get involved with that?

03:08 - Nicole 

So I was diagnosed officially in 2020. I kind of knew I had it for a long time and I didn't do anything sort of classic ADHD. And when I was diagnosed, I was already a dietician for about eight years, so I already had a private practice. I was already working inetician for about eight years, so I was I already had a private practice. I was already working in the space for a long time, but I never heard anyone talk about ADHD and nutrition or ADHD and disordered eating.

03:37

I struggled with intuitive eating for my whole life up until a few years ago, when I started intuitive eating.

03:44

I struggled with disordered eating, body dysmorphia, orthorexia, which is like the obsession with food and I'd say that one was probably the longest because, as a dietician, we have all of this information that we have about the good and the bad of food and it's just very toxic. And so when I, when I finally got diagnosed with ADHD, I realized there's just a huge need for it and nobody's really talking about it. There was just, you know, a few dietitians that I knew about the time back in 2020. And so I was like I'm going to learn everything that I possibly can about this and I realized that intuitive eating was really what I needed, because eating is hard for us, really difficult, with all of our executive dysfunction, and adding the extra layer of like diet culture on top of it and all those food rules and stuff Like it really just makes eating seem impossible. So I use the intuitive eating principles with my clients to help them with eating, and so that's really how I got into the space.

04:54 - Sarah 

Awesome, definitely can relate to a lot of that, especially the. Is it orthorexia that you name? Yeah, especially that one, because it feels like that one would be really easy to overlook. If you're like, hey, I'm being healthy right, like I'm just now learning more about that one, and it's like, oh my gosh, that's everywhere. So yeah, let's say you have ADHD, you want to get into intuitive eating. What is the most important thing you should keep in mind?

05:27 - Nicole 

The important thing is that it's not a quick fix, it's not a diet, and I think that that scares some people, because with ADHD, like we hate structure but we need it right. It's like that's sort of like push and pull that we have, but diets kind of give this false sense of control and it kind of gives you structure, but it's it means that you're not listening to your body. So with intuitive eating, you have to be open to listening and trusting yourself, and that's really where you want to get to. And it's important to just approach every situation from a place of curiosity rather than judgment, and part of intuitive eating is getting out of that all or nothing mindset that we get stuck in. So I think the most important thing is to really, I guess, just be self-compassionate and be open to it and know that it's a learning opportunity and it's really about the long run. It's about getting to a place where you're at peace with food and you're not binging and you're using food for nourishment and also for comfort and you can use food to stim and all these other great things, but you're doing it in a way that feels very controlled and very or that you're in control and it just feels good mentally and physically. I think if I were to say one other thing about that because I get stuck on these questions, because intuitive eating it really is, it deals with so much I want to say that it's not a free pass to eat whatever you want all the time.

07:12

And that's the place where a lot of people get stuck on intuitive eating. They're like well, I've tried intuitive eating and it didn't work for me. I gained weight, et cetera, et cetera. And first of all, it's weight neutral. So whatever happens to your body when you eat intuitively is no one can tell you what's going to happen. Right, it's not about weight. It's about getting to a place where you feel good mentally and physically. But if you just get stuck on the I can eat whatever I want, anytime I want, without any regard to how it makes me feel, then you're not going to actually feel good. So we need to also get to the point where you're respecting your body and listening to it and responding to those messages that it's giving you, and then you will get to a place where you actually crave nourishing foods and you feel good. And it's not just all about, you know, eating a bunch of quote, unquote junk food, like they talk about something yeah.

08:11

Yeah.

08:12 - Sarah 

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08:42

And I and I think it's helpful for me as an ADHD, or it's helpful to hear that, because I don't want to be given a free pass. Like that's more upsetting than having too many restrictions. Like I want you know some sort of help here. So that's really. I'm really glad you made that additional clarification and it actually kind of brings us to our next question. Is you know what is a common misconception about intuitive eating?

09:10 - Nicole 

Yeah, I would say the biggest misconception and I think I kind of combined those two questions together, totally fine yeah the misconception is that you can just eat whatever you want without any regard, you know, to how it makes you feel. We know that we struggle with forgetting to eat and with not eating enough. We tend to use food for stimulation, all of these different things. So the most important thing is really just listening to your body and kind of becoming aware of what your triggers are and getting to a point where you're eating consistently. That's much more important than like worrying about what could go wrong with intuitive eating, like there's so many amazing things that come out of it. Yeah, then it's important to just kind of, you know, get to that place where you are. You actually understand what's going on with your body and your mind.

10:08 - Sarah 

I love that because we definitely can be perfectionists about it. Like, oh, I'm doing intuitive eating wrong. Well, it's intuitive.

10:17 - Nicole 

So yeah, there's no way to do it wrong, there's no pass fail, which is like the beauty of it, because everyone can eat intuitively. And I have a lot of clients where they've done that. They're like they feel like they're failing at it and they get upset and it's like, no, you can't fail at it, you only can take it as information and then move on, and it really allows you to start trusting yourself more and to really just live intuitively rather than just eating intuitively.

10:47 - Sarah 

I love the sound of that rather than just eating intuitively. I love the sound of that. And so if you think you have ADHD I mean if you have ADHD and you think intuitive eating might be for you, what would be a good first step to, you know, start?

11:02 - Nicole 

exploring this. Yeah, so I always say for people who are interested in intuitive eating, obviously it would be like amazing for everyone to work with a dietitian. I know that that's not always a possibility. It's obviously, you know, it costs money and a lot of people might not have access to them. So, with you know, with social media these days there's a lot of great information online, but I'd say, just be cautious about who you're getting your information from Because, like I said before, because it's becoming more of a trend online, there's a lot of misinformation out there and there's a lot of people turning intuitive eating into a diet. So if you see any information that's telling you to count anything or restrict anything or losing weight, these are just it's kind of like diet culture in disguise, almost. So I'd say it's much more important to work with somebody who is a registered dietitian or an intuitive eating counselor, and then the first step that you could start to take, even before you do that, is just to start checking in with yourself Every few hours.

12:06

We all need nourishment for our bodies every three to four hours minimum, because that's what it takes for our blood sugars to stay in a good range. So just eating consistently is going to help minimize those sugar cravings that we get. You know, the binging that we do, the stimming with food, the preoccupation with food, all of those things start to decrease a little bit when we're just eating consistently. So check in with yourself have I eaten today? Have I drank any fluids? What do I need? What does my body need in this moment? And that will just give you a lot of information and, like I said, intuitive eating really is for everyone no-transcript.

13:20 - Sarah 

Where can they go?

13:21 - Nicole 

So people can find me at eatingwithadhdcom. I have the link to my online course, to my coaching and also to the community as well. So when you join the online course, you get access to my private community, where people are going through the same thing as you and I with you know, struggling with eating and having ADHD, and I'm just learning the ropes and figuring out how to improve their relationship with food. And then you can also find me on Instagram at eatingwithadhd Excellent, Nicole, thank you so much for being here today.

14:01 - Sarah 

I thank you so much for sharing this information with our community, and I know it's going to be so valuable to so many people. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, and I know it's going to be so valuable to so many people.

14:09 - Nicole 

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

14:13 - Speaker 4 

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