Great. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of the podcast. All the things ADHD. Oh.
It cut in and out again. I don't know. Why
does my stupid headphones are trying to protect me from loud noise? I guess they're trying to protect you from loud noises.
Yeah, too late.
Seriously, right. It's, you missed that boat A while ago. I am your co host Lee Skallerup Bessette.
And I am your co host, Amy Morrison or Amy hope Morrison, as we discussed last time.
In my mind, I didn't say what did I say what my notes I'm Elaine. That's my middle name. The middle name is Elaine. I like it. Yeah, I think it was my grandmother's middle name as well. Or my great grandmother's it was come some from somewhere in there. It's a family name. Well,
my mom's Elaine is like very euphonious.
I know, and when your mother says it in that tone.
A little more terrifying than physical at that point. Yes, yes. But I'm just asking is there
Yeah. I'm just happy that it was like they took the middle name because my grandmother and you know, it was the time but my grandmother's first name was Mildred. Yeah, yikes.
Yikes. My grandma's had like, well, I'm in my bio one grandma's alynn, which is like a ridiculous name that nobody named their kids even when she was named that. But my other grandma was Emily, which as it turned out, like became a very popular name after so it wasn't a very grandma sounding name at the time, but my grandpa's were like Ernest and Herbert.
Yeah, it was it was Mildred and Gerald. Oh, wow.
It's for sure. Yeah.
millet million Jerry though. That was Jerry. Yeah, really injury that works. Yeah. So um, we should give a little bit of a content warning before we get into today's topic. So we're going to talk about food and eating and moving and and I don't want to use the word wellness. But no, we don't want that. Yeah, no, I'm definitely not. Yeah, yeah, they can go but, but as we are, again, transitioning out of COVID depending on where you live, but certainly here in the US, they just opened up the vaccines for 12. And over the Pfizer vaccine has been approved. Basically, the CDC has come out and said, if you're vaccinated, then you don't really have to wear a mask anywhere. You know, people are taking that as it goes. Depending on where you live in the States, the states themselves have had their own rules and cities and all that kind of stuff. But anyways, there is there is hope. And I've seen, I don't know how Ontario is doing but I know Quebec, they reach the 50% threshold.
Yeah, I mean, the population is doing well enough to now begin to wish to reopen the constitution and make some amendments there. So Quebec is ready to move on to others. Yes, that are COVID.
Yeah, right now. But as we as we move into today's topic, our content warning like comes with an assertion to that this podcast is body neutral, your body is fine, just the way it is. Maybe it is healthy, at Every Size. That's cool. Maybe it is unhealthy. at Every Size, some bodies are unhealthy. And that's a thing that happens. Maybe you are worried about your weight, maybe you are worried about your nutrition, we are body neutral, all bodies are amazing. We just want to talk about some things that are difficult for many people with ADHD, especially sometimes those who are medicated, but also especially sometimes those who are not, which is making sure that you managed to get food into your body that makes you feel that you can function in the ways that you want, or how you can manage your levels of activity. To get an amount of movement in your life that feels good to you. We've become aware where like we're focusing a lot on this podcast on the kind of mental and neurological and cultural aspects. But of course, like we all walk around and meet sacks, right, and your meat sack, dear listener, is awesome. Just the way it is. We don't need you to change it. We don't need you to change it for somebody else. If you want to change it for yourself. Go ahead, you can do that. But we think all bodies are just right. Just the way they are. We will be discussing food we will be discussing probably calorie deficits and calorie accesses. We will probably be talking nutrition and macros and we will be talking about exercise. And if that's not your jam, and you can't listen to that and be in a good place, then we will see you next week. But we're going to try to do this as inclusively and supportively as we can. What do you think? Yeah, does that sound about right?
That sounds about right. Again, the the whole we're not medical professionals. We are just meat sacks fumbling through this world. trying to trying to make the trying to make the best of it, you know, given given everything that is that is going on, and everything as well as externally and internally. So, and I've been I've been actually thinking about this because you know, it you you've noticed that you reference New York Times article, but I've noticed it in my algorithmically suggested advertisements on the social medias where it's a lot of stuff about weight loss. And, and as it as it usually is, in the spring with its bathing suit season. Yeah, but also just, you know, that we've The, the pandemic has been a struggle, and for the first time ever, I went in for a checkup and they said, Well, given the pandemic, let's not worry about the weight loss, like, oh, gosh, oh,
given a pandemic, right. If this was not a pandemic, would we be worrying about the weight? That's like we would be? Yes. Hmm. That's it. Yes. Sideways? Dig?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. But I mean, that's the you know, we know that, you know, it thin, thin or lower weight equals greater health in most medical practice. So, you know, it's Yeah, no, but, but yeah, so there's been, what it what was the New York Times article saying, because
I know, I've noticed, it was like, all of these, like, rebranded, they used to be diet companies, but now they're wellness companies, because we know that we're not supposed to, you know, we're not supposed to say you should get thinner, we're supposed to say you should get healthier, which is like another whole layer of bullshit, we can unpack perhaps, but, you know, sort of saying, as people are making this transition into real pants again, right, they're finding, I mean, there's a study done early in the pandemic in the US, that's that people were many people were getting rate at about weight at about a rate of half a pound every 10 days, right? from the various kinds of comfort eating, we were doing along with the toilet paper hoarding, in the early days, I mean, it also had something to do with like access to school meals, or lack of access to school meals, or like all the rest of that, but people, you know, it's kind of a known thing, the quarantine 15 that people talk about, you know, and there was a discussion around the time about, like, maybe people are just gonna, like, live their lives now. And it's gonna be great. But now, no, it's all comes sort of roaring back, right, you need to, you know, order food from an internet company that's gonna deliver it to your house for $200 a week, and you're gonna lose X amount of poundage, you know, every so and so number of days and stuff. And people were really happy about that. And it was kind of triggering for me, because I struggle with eating my, my vyvanse knocks my appetite out. And for a while, every time I had to go to the doctor to get it renewed, they were weighing me with some idea that if I, you know, dropped below a certain threshold, they were not going to give me any more of my drugs. And I was desperate to keep my drugs because they allowed my brain to think in a straight line. And so I developed kind of a combative relationship with food, where most of the time I really did not want to eat it because my appetite was suppressed so thoroughly that it was difficult to put food in my mouth, because I didn't like it. And, but at the same time, thinking that I had to, to shove enough food into my face, so that the doctor wouldn't cut me off from my therapy, right? And like, it sounds like, Oh, no, poor Amy, what a problem to have, you know, you're you normally I'm normatively thin, right? Like I have fin privilege, for sure. But it messed up my relationship with food. To make it be this, this thing that other people were going to check in, if I didn't do it correctly, something was going to be taken away from me that was important. And I'm trying to work my way through that now. Right? I'm trying to find a way to to readjust my relationship with food where I'm not afraid of it or afraid of what not eating enough of it will, will produce in sort of my medical charts that will make me a non compliant subject. Right. So that's like a big mess for me. And I walk around with a huge amount of body privilege, right? Around fitness, but still a bit messed up from that.
Yeah. And I think like for me, I've had I've always had a messed up relationship with food. So I used to swim competitively. And if anybody knows a competitive swimmer, we eat like we just did we just go through calories in part because of the exercise, but in part because we burn so many calories trying to stay warm in the water because the water is always freezing. Which is the point and I mean, it's not freezing. It's safe, but it's not warm. We're not swimming in a hot tub. Right. So our body actually Yeah, no, it is it's totally gross. Like it's because I know my swimmers are ready to like move on to the next level of serious is when they start complaining that the water is too warm. That's right, right. Like that's that that's, you know that when they're eight and under or even nine and still, you know, smile, they look warm water. Oh, this is so great. No, I don't want to go into the cold pool. And then then you know, they creep up and it's like it's really warm in here is Rose, we are in the cold pool and I'm like, you're ready. You are so ready. Go on to the next group.
Here's a plate of spaghetti.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's it right. And, you know, we, we both grew up in the, you know, 70s 80s where, you know, this is this is back when I always love tell. I used to talk about this about rhetoric and composition students about like, meaningless words. The I grew up in a time when margarine was healthy. Right, right. We both grew up in a time when Marjorie was the healthy choice, or was, yeah, but you know, and so but I was always hungry, right? Because I was I was a swimmer. And I had a younger brother, who was not interested in meeting, he was very small and thin, and just didn't want to eat ever. And so like he was being told to clean his plate, and I would be like, look at me, I'm cleaning my plate on our arm. And then, you know, and then it was, we would get home from Practice, practice ends at 730. At night, you'd been there since 430. And we weren't allowed to watch TV until we were done with our dinner. So basically, you would come in the door, eat as fast as you possibly could, so that you could watch primetime TV this started eight o'clock, right? And like, I never like people's like, listen to your body. And listen to that. I never learned how to do that.
Like I have no idea what my body is saying. There's a new idea here. There's a point right there. Right? So we've discussed on this podcast before how many people with ADHD have kind of lousy balance, right? And we also tend to crash our arms and legs into things because we have poor proprioception poor sense of our own bodies and more sort of proprioception. proprioception means a sense of your body in space. And we also have poor often interoception because the buzzing noises in our heads are so loud, right? We're so easily distracted by everything and constantly fidgeting and looking for extra stimulus that we will sometimes not notice. Oh, I have a bruise and it hurts or Oh, I'm actually really hungry. Or I'm thirsty. Or I'm full, right? Or I'm full, right. So we're on full. Yeah. And and especially if we are in sort of like environments where food is linked to something else, right? Like I'm starving, because I've been at swim practice for three hours. But my TV show starts in 15 minutes. And like you could ask you, I'm sure, halfway through The Cosby Show. What did you have for supper? Li and you would not remember, right? Because you ate it so fast. And with your mind already on the next thing, right? Well,
it didn't matter. It was just like, it didn't matter what it was. Yeah. Right. Like it was just food. Like that's, you know, then, you know, you're like, there was always a vegetable. There was always a starch, there was always a protein, right? Like, that was the kind of you made sure the major food groups were there. You always had glass of milk with dinner. You know, it's so the, it was interchangeable, right? Like it was like it'll be potatoes or rice and some kind of potatoes serve in some kind of way. It'll be some kind of protein. You know, and then some kind of veggie steamed vegetable, right? Like a frozen steamed vegetable like right, you know, growing up in Canada, right. That's all you got. It wasn't a boiled vegetable. No, it's true. No, we were good with the steaming at war cans, cans, rifle. Canned green beans. canned corn was okay. But the green beans like those were nasty.
Nasty.
Yeah, but so my, my and it. So my thing is, is that like, there's also that very reason real now like, especially for like snacking, and that kind of stuff. There's a very real also dopamine hit of that, right? Like the, like, salty or sweet or even just I was I was talking about it on Twitter the other day, and, and somebody noted even the most even the satisfying feeling of chewing. Yes. Right. Like, it's that movement and chewing and not and I was like, I never really thought of that. Well, you know, probably because I don't take the time to chew. But
something I learned through like various research into running and stuff about, like this weird trick that your tongue is actually sort of connected to brain, right? In the sense that athletes gain almost as much benefit from putting water in their mouth, swishing it around and spitting it out as they do from putting it in their mouth, swishing it around and swallowing it, because you trigger your body into thinking you're hydrated, right? And so putting food into your mouth and chewing it is one of the fastest ways to activate the reward circuitry so it doesn't even have to be swallowed first. Right? So you know, like they say like, you can inhale from a cigarette and it takes like, X number of microseconds for the nicotine rush to hit your brain. Will Oreos work faster? shows? No they do. I mean, that was the dreadful that they used right? Is that just putting that food in your mouth is a kind of instant gratification and like I don't know if you know anybody with ADHD we but Instagram vacation is kind of like our whole thing because there's now and there is not now and when I want it, I want it right now or it's way past the time when it should have been. So I need the fastest possible thing with the most instant sort of feedback loop, right and the feedback loop that you get from putting a roast in the slow cooker in the morning and then making gravy at 6pm and then mashing the potatoes at 615. And then like serving a full meal is nothing compared to popping an Oreo in your mouth when you discover you haven't eaten for six hours. Yep. Right and and so I think like there's a lot of unhealthy food culture around like, you know, you from sports, or, you know, the many other ways like we know where school lunches are super, super abbreviated to when you're meant to do all the other things at the same time are people who watch TV while they eat all these other things. But like people with ADHD to very much prey to that instant gratification impulse and forget to eat and have difficulty planning like I see on those internet groups that you and I are both in a lot of people saying like, what can I make, to eat, it needs to be ready in five minutes. And also I don't know how to cook. But I don't think I can eat bags of candy for supper on an ongoing basis. Right? So people really kind of struggle with that. And part of that is not simply that we live like particularly in the West in a food culture that's based on satiate satiation cues from like hyper palatable foods available in packages much more cheaply than real food. I mean, all of us struggle with that. But ADHD people struggle, particularly I think with the amount of planning and delayed gratification that has to go in making food and also the lousy interoception. That means that we often don't notice when we are either hungry, or full. So how many of us managed to stay alive is kind of mysterious to me.
Well, and there's also the executive functioning, which is something that I've been noticing too, recently, were like,
I'll start eating.
And I'm like, I should stop Dom Nom, nom nom. No, really, I should stop eating nom nom. Like I'm seeing they're like almost watching myself going like, Oh, this is this is definitely like, it's the opposite of blurting things out. Right? Like, it's like, you can't stop yourself from saying the thing I can't like, stop myself from like eating and part of it is just like, I gotta eat until the plates clean, which is you know, it's one of those lessons you learn really early on, right? starving children. We also grew up and they they're starving. If
you're going to Africa. Yeah,
they're starving children in Africa and you're not eating all your food and you're like, I'm not sure what this has to do. But you know, when you're people pleaser, like, okay, I'll you know, buy food. Yeah. Well,
I think Gen X to where the generation, you know, of where a lot of our moms got divorced, I mean minded, you know, and did. Yeah, and, and these are mothers who were entering back into the workforce, and these moms knew how to cook, right, because they were raised like that, but they work full time. And I remember my mom would come home from work, and she'd get home like around 430. And she would start cooking and would not talk to me, she was like, get out of my kitchen. Right? Nobody is allowed in here. Don't talk to me, don't do anything, go somewhere else. Because it was such a race to get supper ready after having worked all day. So that not only did like she not really had the time to teach us how to cook. We couldn't even watch her cook, because we were not allowed anywhere near the kitchen when she was cooking. So I think like Gen X, it's sort of and that was sort of like the era to where they were canceling all the homak classes, right? So like none of us ever were taught by anybody how to cook sort of as an entire generation. And then the ADHD people were just like, well, I'm gonna open this bag of Oreos.
I used to eat a whole bag of like the equivalent of palm bread. Remember palm bread? That's like basically the Canadian Wonder Bread. Oh, right. Like Yeah, I used to just sit there and eat like a whole loaf of bread because spicery delight. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, and there's also the like, undiagnosed ADHD thing where if I did cook it was just a disaster. Right? Right. Do that I've i i've you know when you put the you in melt the honey. Yeah, in the you put it in hot water. I forgot about it and melted the pot into my stove. Oh, gross. Lee Young come in. And they were like, you didn't notice the smell. And I was like,
What? What? Like that smell? You didn't notice when the fire department came Lee What?
though? I don't even know how I didn't burn down the house. Honest to God. But it you know, so there was there was also this sort of, I would get in trouble when I was in the kitchen. And so I wanted to avoid the kitchen at all costs because I couldn't stay focus long enough. And I would forget that I put stuff on the stove or I forget that I put stuff in the oven and so the microwave was just so much safer. Right? Right. Because it would be when it was done.
Maybe the microwave Lee is an access technology. Hmm. Right. micros and the instant pot to because these are two technologies that it's almost impossible to fuck it up while you're using it because this features on them are fairly extreme. They make food fast.
Yeah, we got, I just got to as an accessibility like as that we just got a convection oven. So it's this really small thing. It's about the size of a microwave fairly large size microwave, but it's and it sits on the counter. And it's small. And it's it heats from all sides. So it cooks things a lot faster and a lot more evenly. But it's just, it's right there, it opens up, you'd like set it again, it beats there's an app on your phone for it too. So like, you can even do it that like they have recipes and you like press a button. And it'll just like do all the things because it's because some of them are complicated, where it's like, oh, you want to cook it this way for 15 minutes and then cook it that way. But if you just press this button, it will do all of it for you. And like I love the one button cooking like if Oh yeah. And my daughter loves it. I love it. Like it's it's clear rate is very clear right on the thing, what the temperature is how it's being cooked. Okay, but I
have to ask you, how long would it take to do a baked potato in? it?
depends on the size of the potato. Oh my god. Really? Yeah. We do the little ones. So they go faster. There you go. There'll be tiny little ones. That was that was the funny thing that might I tell the story. I don't think I yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay,
I listen to our podcast, so that there can be a through line. And,
and I don't so I can have moments like these where I'm like, wait.
Yes, you did. You told it on the episode that launched today. So
or no, but yeah, I mean, I think that that's but but again, it's it's the, you know, the kitchen was not only, you know, like, I just spaced out, and so I get in trouble. Or I'd make too much of a mess. Or, you know, I wouldn't do it properly. And so I was just like, you know what? kitchen is not for me, I'm not, you know, like, I don't want to be in the kitchen. I don't want to like, you know, I can microwave things. You know, I'd have cans of Chef Boyardee like that would be like the, that's how I tell these things to my kids. And the kids are just like, what did you What was your childhood? I was like,
I don't know. But videos.
Yeah. But but that would be it. Because I'd come home from I come home from school, I need to eat something before I went to swim team. And like, it was just easy cracked open the Can you popped it in, you put it in the microwave for three minutes, and then you like it was done. And again, all of that it was lovely and processed. And I'm sure had a whole ton of high fructose corn syrup in it that it didn't need. But they added anyways, because you just put it in everything. Well, I
mean, that's the thing. Like, it's great to have convenience foods. I mean, the thing with convenience foods is that they are convenient, it's in the name, right, which means they're less bother to make than other foods, which is good, if you like, you know, don't have the executive function to sort of be the Chef de Cuisine in your own house, you know, making from scratch meals every time six hours too late, you remember that you're hungry, right? So convenience foods are great for that. And they should be it's just the thing with most convenience foods is that they're full of things that exacerbate ADHD problems, right? Like they're, you know, sort of high glycemic index. So like very easy to digest carbs that just whoosh into your system all at the same time. Like Never mind, like the sugar just like the kind of like super processed refined flour and stuff like you just see, like, great, I love that stuff too. But like you can't base an entire system around, like eating those foods because they're tasty, but almost like nutritionally void, most of them, right? And but they also make you crazy, because they give you like a very quick hit of like goo and then like a super big crash where you have to nap after and I think our neurodivergent friends struggle enough with energy management and sort of like brain activity level management, right, like so one of the things that I tried to do is because I have a very high tolerance for repetition, and maybe because I'm autistic, but I eat almost the same things for breakfast, lunch and snack every day. So that I just have to kind of make it and they're fast to make but I don't have to think because for me it's like I don't even know like for Mother's Day and my husband was like, You know what, we're going to take it like what do you want? I'm like I don't know. He's like, would you want like Mexican or do you want burgers and like i don't i don't know i don't know i don't know don't like and I was like getting very stressed out because I couldn't even decide what I wanted to eat like now just imagine I'm at home like I have to decide what everybody's going to eat and so I pull the trigger on like deciding which exact kind of meal I'm going to make and then I have to make it like it just feels like too much so like almost every day I have these breakfast shakes I keep I think I've been telling people yeah, next to my bed because I have this like major blood sugar crash right when I wake up in the morning so these like of course ensure shakes and Just chug one of those before I get up. And then I do my little routine. And then I go downstairs and have breakfast. And it's like single packages of steel cut oats. So like not the instant oats, but like the steel cut ones that are a little bit harder to digest a little bit more fiber in them that I microwave those and I have them with blueberries and pecans and 2% milk like they'll buy every morning. And then for lunch every day, I have two eggs scrambled with like a fistful of shredded cheese, and a piece of toast with butter every day. And then some point in the afternoon, I have a bag of candy that my husband makes for me individual sized servings of candy is 250 calories of candy. So it gives me that and then I will, you know, have a like a little container of Greek yogurt, and then mix up like that everyday because like for me, that is healthy ish enough. But those foods are all incredibly fast to prepare, because like you make scrambled eggs, you spend longer cracking the eggs into the cup to scramble them than you do cooking them, right. So it's very fast. And yeah, it's the same thing every day, and some people might kill themselves from boredom, but I'm just happy that it's real food. And I don't have to use any executive functioning to do it. So I try to eat at the same times every day and I eat exactly the same thing. And that usually keeps my blood sugar even enough throughout the day that I don't start skipping meals because I'm so hungry. I'm nauseated. Yeah, because the meds do that to people. Yeah.
Oh, gosh. Yeah. Well, it's funny to like just see the effects that meds have. So my son has always been fairly small as well. And when they put him on whatever stimulant I don't even remember now because it was the generic name of it anyways, they put them on the stimulant and they're like, we have to monitor his weight because it'll suppresses appetite. And he's already kind of small. Well, he actually ate more and gained weight because he was able to sit still long enough to eat. Like I we had a no toys at the table roll. Right and anything could be a toy. So it was basically like nothing except his fork and the food in front of him on the table. Because if there was anything else on the table at all, he would just like play, and you'd have to sit there and coach him through the entire meal. Okay, Leo, no political food on your fork. Okay, good, cuddly. Oh, no, that's really great about the Pokemon. But now put the food into your mouth that's on the floor. Okay, great. Now to the food. Like you had to coach him through the entire thing. And it's his sister who's more like me and uses like Nom, nom nom, I'm hungry. She's, she's good, though. Like, we tried to be like, listen to your body until you're full. If that cleans up, like, great. If not, that's fine, too. And so my daughter would be like, I'm done. And Leo, who's in the meantime had two bites of food to be like, I done too, right? Like, no, dude. Like, you're not done. Um, you know, and, and then once he started on the medication, he could actually sit through an entire meal, right, and like to actually get down the food. And so it was this. It was though this really interesting thing where he gained a whole bunch of weight once he started the medication, because, and not really, because he would eat dinner. Yeah, I mean, I think
that's a great story. Because like, it shows you it's not like, you know, sometimes people characterize these medications as like, quote unquote, diet pills, which I really hate, because that's kind of like you're using a side effect to achieve a goal here. And the side effect is like a not pleasant side effect. But like, also the medications when they're being prescribed to people who really need them, can help you have a better relationship with food if you're the type of person who was so fantastically under stimulated by mealtime that you could not manage to get through your own supper, right? If you can now focus enough to stay at the table long enough to eat the food that somebody else has made for you. I think that's great, right? Again, I know for me, if I don't manage the times of day that I eat, and I get like enough protein and enough carbohydrates and enough like fiber and stuff, like my energy will tank or I get very emotional, I get super irritable. I've noticed sometimes when I finished my runs, I'm angry. I'm like, so angry, like, I'm legitimately mad at the whole world. And I hate running and I hate myself and I hate the sidewalk. And I hate Poland and I hate that car that just went to close to me and I'm so angry. And I'm like, you know, I think I'm hungry. But I don't feel hungry with what I feel is a blistering peel the paint, kind of anger. And the only get that when I run when I haven't eaten quite enough, but then I always like have to count back on my fingers. Like, what did I actually eat? And then I looked at my Fitbit, and my Fitbit is like, well, we think you burned about this many calories. I'm like, Oh, I see I'm about like 300 off the pace. So I am home and have something but like, I do use the Fitbit to tell me roughly what my energy expenditures have been because sometimes my stomach still does not give me the right cue and the work for me now is to like listen, when that happens. Don't be like, I don't believe you Fitbit. Right? I'm probably not hungry. And also to not fill those needs with like potato chips, right? Sometimes be like, yogurt instead. But I will say that when I do that work, I feel more in control of my emotions. And my energy is better. So I'm like, kind of agnostic on what it does to my body because I've noticed I don't function if I don't eat correctly, right. But that's, that's still the struggle is managing the executive function around the cooking, managing the decision making around am I hungry? Am I not hungry? The interoception happening? They're trying to find the time and not get distracted, right. But I'm super into playing the song on the piano right now. I don't want to eat even though, like my hands are getting shaky, right. But I'm really into what I'm doing. Like, like,
we all really want to finish this dress. I really want to finish this dress.
Like, oh, my seams are crooked because I can't hold the fabric straight because I'm shaking so much. But like, I'm not having a snack. Forget it. I'm busy right now. Right.
Well, and I think that that's so for me what ends up happening. I think for me, a lot of it is portion control. Right? Like, it's just like, I don't know how much is enough. I don't know how much you know. And I've done I'll say this I've done so many different quote unquote diets. I did Weight Watchers back in the day and like this is this is one of the big things, again with swimmers is that we stopped swimming, but we don't stop eating because we have no idea. That's like football players too. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Like you just you literally have no idea. And so some are more successful than others. But I find that swimmers like really struggle with this once they're done swimming. And I even struggled a while I was swimming, but that's another so so I've done you know, I've done Weight Watchers, I've done different kinds of diets I've done and I just I, I I don't know that like the strictures of it. Like at first it's sort of like I have I have rules and I can follow these rules. And it's easy to follow these rules, and then I start resenting the rules. Oh, and then I like, like, a few rules like that, like me, too. I heard was it too in a way that if they weren't requiring me to eat this way, I wouldn't be bored with it. You know, like,
You're not the boss of me rule. Yeah,
yeah, exactly. And then, you know, and then I get, I get super cranky as well. Like, I'll just and, and I'm like, Okay, well, I need calories because I feel like shit, but like, apparently I don't need them because this program tells me that I don't need these calories. But, but it is like when you talk about that control, and that's how I've been feeling lately and I don't know what to do about it. This isn't please don't This isn't a solicitation for advice listeners. This is an advice free zone. Yeah, this is this is but I'm struggling with that because I'm like I'd really like to be in more control of this right. Like I'd really like to be able to to figure this out because we good food right? Like we cook almost all of our own food. When we get takeout we get like real takeout. You know, I mean, and you know sometimes there's some frozen stuff but like not often
but it's just nope you know? Which one Yeah,
yeah, I had frozen empanadas but they're locally wood locally made
in a boutique freezer,
Whole Foods which is basically the same right? But it's just like sort of figuring out and like I have the same thing with lunches so I they empanadas today because we are out of leftovers because usually my lunches last night's dinner. Oh, I love her. I love leftovers. Right. Like I love it too. Um, so it's it's lastly stir. I get up I have a coffee with a heavy non dairy creamer. Because the the cream helps. Like that's fine. Yep. And so it is. It is also like they talk about mouthfeel right, that kind of the cream the
yummy of that. We're coming back to butter. Lee Yeah.
Marjorie has a lie. Right? Yes. Yeah. So you know, I have that and then I'll have an early ish lunch, right? Which is usually last night's dinner. Um, and then thankfully, you know, partially because of timing, partially because he loves cooking and I hate cooking. My husband is usually responsible for dinner. Also because I go coach, right? So I go and coach and I bring the kids to swim team and then you know, we come home and dinner is made, right like that's just because, you know, if the and he likes cooking, and I'm very good at reassembling what he is what it is that he cooks so Tuesdays and Thursdays depending on when he can come when he's going to come home from work. He'll cook or all reassemble Something so it's like, they know if mom's cooking or we're probably gonna have hamburgers, right? Because like, you know, I can sort of do that and it's or or we'll have tacos basically, with Krauthammer. Mom can do groundhog rickerby really well. Um, but, but again, it's just sort of like, do I need an extra taco? Yes, I want an extra taco. Yeah, yeah. It's like, Oh, look, we made tater tots tonight. And I'm now theater dogs.
And doing like hellofresh. Right? Oh, yeah. Because that way, I don't have to decide what we're gonna have to end. It comes in, we have the box that has like meals for two. But there's three people who are in this house. And it's always enough food for three people. Like it's always enough food for three people. So I don't know what they think their portion sizes are. And it's weird because like, there's so much food in these boxes. But I think the where we're at now is we always want there to be a little bit more because we don't want anyone to say that they're not full, right? And so I think like there's a difference between, like eating until you're satisfied and not hungry, right? And then eating until there's there's nothing left. And I think it's very easy to get confused about that what that feels like, because, like the way our food system works here is that it's cheaper to sell us something bigger. Right, then something smaller. That's just how our food system works, right, like the supersizing of everything means people feel that they're getting their money's worth, but it's cheaper food. And it's like enough for an entire day's worth of calories and one sort of Applebee's entree, right? But then we begin to think that that's like, what people need to, to eat that that's a regular meal, like so our ideas are like, so think about like interoception as your own capacity to interpret your body's signals around hunger, thirst and fullness. But then there's this sort of like, cultural funhouse mirror effect, where, you know, portions come out from the restaurant, and it's enough for two people eat one entree, but they also want you to get an appetizer, like me calorie drink in a desert with that, and because that's normal, and it is normal, because that's how how people eat. And then every time we have a meal, we have this sensation of fullness that is so extreme that we begin to associate that with what you're supposed to feel like every time you eat. And I will tell you like the foods that are hyper palatable, like I have a real thing for Miss Vicky salted and malt vinegar chips. That's my a number one thing and I keep them in my basket in the kitchen that has my like reading gels and my running supplies in it and stuff because I always have the laughter I run because it's like a quick hit of carbs. But like, I could open a family size bag. And I don't know when I would stop eating them because they're delicious, right, and you pull them out one at a time. And you're like That was delicious. I could have another one that was delicious. I can have another one. Like what I do now is I have a bowl, and I take the bag out of my bucket. And I open the bag from the chip clip that I have on him and I pour the same size, amount of chips into the bowl. And then before I start eating though, I close up the bag and I put the bag away and then I take the bullet chips into another room. And after a certain amount of time I've like become really satisfied with that amount of chips because I could very easily continue to eat them not because I'm hungry. Because they are delicious. But like also salt and vinegar chips are a self limiting binge because the inside of your mouth will get torn up.
Yeah, we did this while my son will do this. We actually had to we actually stopped buying chips for a while because like it's particularly early on in the pandemic, he would just get them and you know, he's getting tall and vague. And so there's nowhere though there's nowhere to hide it there's no place high enough to keep them where they can't where you can't get it. And so he would sit there with his friends playing video games with one of those giant Costco bags of chips and I come downstairs because of course I'm working I can't you know, I come downstairs. I'm like, Jesus, you made that whole bag. He's like, did I and he's like covered in like, Chrome just like everywhere. And I'm like, Oh, dude, I'm so. So now it's like, Can he can I have some chips? Now? We started buying them again. Because we told him I'm like you can have a bowl. Or we got jalapeno ones we miss Vicky. He's like, and he said Mom, I can't eat many
dairy smells up.
But like my goal is is running and my eyes are running and
the we the call them crack chips. It's the kettle. Oh yeah, the ones that are salt and pepper ruffled those ones?
I mean, they're delicious. Right. And we are allowed to eat them. They're not bad foods, right? Oh, but like, all I want for people to be able to do is to be happy with their own food choices. Right? So if like, that whole bag is like you know, once a week, I sit down on Sunday, and I'm watching the sports ballgame. And I'm gonna eat an entire family size bag of Miss Vickie's and that's what I want in my life and I'll be like, good for you. Because Yeah, your desires are batched by your behaviors, and you are satisfied with your life choices Good for you, right? But I think so many of us really struggle with, I wish I could eat, quote unquote healthier. Or, you know, I wish I didn't make it to the end of every day. So hangry that my hands are shaking, and like really feeling powerless to alter their behavior, they're right. So some of the strategies might be like, as we both discussed, like the portion control where you, you put the amount of food that you intend to eat in a dish, and then put the rest of the food away. So you can't just pick at it or like, like, I do have like a regular schedule of exactly the same foods that you eat, just to make sure that you get enough foods. I mean, I wonder about about learning to cook or if there are, like, I really liked the instant pot, you like your convection oven, like the instant pot I can make, like our go to meal when we're out of stuff to eat is like shrimp risotto with lemon, which sounds really fancy, but I throw everything into the instant pot. Right? And then I turn it on, like, and the shrimp are frozen. And I chuck them in like, Yes, everything goes like out of the fridge and the cupboard directly into the instant pot. And I close the lid. And I set it for like 11 minutes, and then half an hour later, something is done. And okay, great. And that's fairly healthy. And I put it on spinach. Right? So I'll have a bit of vegetables in there. And yeah, but like, Are there like ways that we can forgive ourselves for not being gourmet chef pot roast makers, like, I think in grad school, I never made like a meal that had sides. I only ever did one pot dinners. Like I would do a passage that had protein in it and a bunch of vegetables, the end. Or I would make like a chili with a piece of bread. The end. Like I never made potatoes to go on the side because it's always bad to cook three things at the same time. So like, I think one pot dinners are really great are like those shake pan dinners.
Yes, I would do sheet pan dinners. That's what I did. I was the master in college at rolling a chicken breast in a bunch of foil with some sauce. Mm hmm. Right, and then maybe put vegetables in there as well.
Yeah, like something that has a limited number of kitchen dishes that you're going to get dirty. Right? And a limited number of temperatures and timings you have to remember on the range and the other. Yeah.
But it was also like, this was the the other thing is that like, as long as it tasted good enough, you know what I mean? Like all the vegetables are a little overcooked, whatever dough are. So you know, one of the things down here in the states that I thought was amazing when I discovered them when we moved to California, they're all over the states as the Trader Joe's frozen meals, right? You just have to reassemble. Right? So it's like one frying pan, right? Like, yeah, you know, and it tells you do the chicken, put it on this do the chicken for this long, they'll throw the veggies in and then throw like, and it's so funny too, because my my husband's the chef, right? He's the cook key. He actually worked in kitchens, in high school and in college. So and he loves food, his dad taught him how to cook his dad loves cooking too. So he's like the, he's the guy. He could not ever for the life of him. And still to this day, do any of these pre prepared meals, like money? The kids would always sit there like Could you just let mom make this because like cuz he couldn't. Because they're made to follow the directions. It doesn't matter a mental model. It doesn't it doesn't match his mental model at all. Because for him it's like by you sort of feel an instinct, and I'm like, No, no, just follow the just follow directions instinct.
My instinct is to like zone out on my phone while something is boiling.
Yeah, well, exactly. And so and but those like Trader Joe's meals that like his you can get the little single serving like microwave ones, but then there's ones that you actually have to prepare. Right? And so it's like one bag and you got a bag of sauce, and you got a bag of this and a bag of that. And then you you know, throw this in, you know, put some olive oil or butter in the pan. He did throw them in, saute it for, you know, seven minutes and then add this and then another two minutes and then add the sauce and then boom, it's done. Yeah. Right. And I could sort of do that. Yeah, you know. I think it helps like, again, the phone as a kind of adaptive device. Where growing up, you would put something on the stove or the oven and then go watch TV. That's right. Yeah, right now at least I could be standing in front of it on my phone. That's true.
Right. You can set a timer on your phone too. Right? Yeah, that's Yeah, remember, check the eggs in two minutes. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think because it's funny because I see my son doing it when he makes us he fries eggs every single morning. My kids my I go on and I see this in my own kids. I go on, like, we go on sameness bitches, but then at a certain point and it's unpredictable. It'll just stop. Like, I cannot eat this anymore, right? Like, I want this kind of cereal, great serial 000 cereal, I'll buy a new box, they'll crack it open, they'll have one bowl and be like, nope,
yeah, I'm done. This is breakfast.
So like, I'm wondering when the Friday eggs and toast for breakfast is going to be like that for my son. But until then, until that's fine, keep doing it. But it's so funny because I caught him before and he's sitting there on his phone cooking, right? Just like, but he doesn't bring the eggs. And he knows what he knows what the consequences are, yeah, is that he has the shitty eggs or not have breakfast or have to re cook the eggs. So he's very good. And he's sort of developed the timing of like the toast and all that kind of stuff. I'm really proud of him for figuring that out.
So like Leo likes to make his eggs and read his phone at the same time you like to do these sort of make it yourself but from a series of packages Trader Joe's, your husband likes to cook from scratch. I like to order boxes from hellofresh because I don't mind the cooking but I hate menu planning and meal selection. You know, other people may batch cook, right? Like I used to do this when I was in grad school, I'd make a pot of chili and I would eat it every day for literally 10 days, right in a row didn't bother me. My husband did that. We've done that too. Right. So like I think there's a number of different ways that that people who may be feeling some shame around their incapacity to eat what they think correctly might be right is that there's a number of ways to succeed at eating and cooking. And it's okay to be like, I want to get the the artisanal soup in the like, mason jar from the grocery store that got made the commercial kitchen but looks more homemade than the Campbell Soup can Alright, great you do you write maybe homemade sourdough, that's your new hobby. Or like, maybe you're like I want to batch cook on Sunday, I'm going to make seven meals that I just have to then microwave for three minutes apiece for the rest of the week. Or maybe you're like, when I'm done work every day, I like to get the bag from the meal kit out and make something from scratch from a package. Like that's okay. Right? Yeah. And I think like people need to be supported in this idea that there's any number of right ways to eat and to cook as long as you're getting the feeling that you want in your body of like, I am not hungry and I'm not sick. I have the amount of energy that I want to have. I don't have sugar crazies that I don't want to have. I'm not feeling shame about anything. Like I think that's the most important thing, because I have often found like when my mood has been absolutely the worst, or when I've been the least amount of functioning, and it's because I'm not eating, I would say correctly. I'm not eating in the way that my body thrives on. Yes.
And everything else, right, what's right for me or for Yeah, I
should say what's right for me. And I think we're so inculcated into this idea that there's like one right way of doing things or that there ought to be sort of shame and moral judgment involved in, in what you eat. Right? So this whole diet industry that's transformed into the wellness industry, right? Like I really try to stay away from from saying things like potato chips are unhealthy. But a mandarin orange is healthy, right? Because then you're you're talking about foods that are inherently good or bad about choices that are inherently less controlled, or self sabotaging, right. And I think food is just food, somebody neutral, and I'm trying to be food neutral as well, like all food, if you put it in your mouth and you enjoy it is good food, right? Yeah. Cheating, the balance between the different types of foods you want to eat and the amount of time you want to spend cooking them and the techniques that you want to use and the amount of money that you want to spend on that. That's all about like, what fits into your life and your body and your needs and your culture and your desires. Right? It's not about a food being good or bad or a cooking technique being good or bad, right? Although we're often made to feel that way. And it's very difficult, I think to have a sensible and nuanced conversation about food. That doesn't sort of devolve into like, it should be more broccoli because broccoli is good. Right? Yeah. It'd be less ice cream sandwiches, because ice cream sandwiches are bad. And we start to judge people, especially those of us who are prey to rejection, sensitive dysphoria, wound and ADHD people in general to already feel like we do everything wrong. Yeah, that we're sort of too impulsive and have no self control. And I think diet culture really feeds into that idea of what you need is more self control, but it's not self control. Right? ADHD, people just have poor sort of executive functioning, and they also take medications that mess up their food systems. And so it's not about having more self control or being a better person. It's about just like with all the sort of workplace tricks we've been hacking out. It's about how do I make my goal? less hard to meet? Yeah, right.
That's all yeah,
it should be.
Yeah, that's a good point. And I think the return And since the RSD, cuz I always call it a sense always
call it rejection. You always have, like, some extra syllables in there.
Yeah, I don't know why, but there you go. Yeah, rst. Is that like there is something? I think particularly for women not that it doesn't affect one, but I think particularly for women, there is this idea, right? And there's an ideal that is presented of like, What? What a healthy body what a desirable body looks like, right? And you know, it's it's, it's sort of hard to grow up in that culture, and then be like, yeah, that's not what my body looks like. Yeah. And I think that there's, there's, I mean, there's a lot more diversity. So I got the book. This body is not an apology. And it's just one of those things where I got it, and I got the workbook to go with it. Because I've heard it's kind of like, highly recommended, and it's still sitting on my shelf. It's one of those. It's a great book. I'm not quite ready. I'm not quite ready for it yet. I don't think like I just, it's like not this time of the year yet. Not the end of this semester, like I don't need any stress. That's why working through this. And that concludes part one of our conversation around food and eating next week after a bunch of asides, we will get back to it and hope that this wasn't too difficult an episode for you to listen to. We would love to hear from you. So please email us at all the things adhd@gmail.com As always, I am ready writing on Twitter and Amy is did you want. We love hearing from you. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Thank you so much for sharing the podcast. And we'll hear you see you again next week. Bye
