The Midlife Feast
The Midlife Feast
#168: ADHD, Menopause, and The Messy Middle with Diana Reid RD
Menopause can scramble your mood, planning, memory, and appetite cues, especially if you’re living with ADHD. My guest this week is Diana Reid, RD and we dive into how shifting estrogen affects dopamine in the brain and why that can make meal planning feel impossible, grocery stores overwhelming, and evenings vulnerable to emotional hunger and snacking.
Together, we map the hidden steps that turn “what’s for dinner?” into a 30-step project and show how to lower the cognitive load and decision fatigue. Think forecasts instead of rigid schedules, two to three-day meal windows, and a “nutrition capsule wardrobe” you can refresh monthly for novelty.
We also get real about dopamine seeking, emotional hunger, and the link between ADHD and binge patterns. The antidote isn’t restriction, it’s regulation and pleasure. Learn how to prevent primal hunger with predictable protein and fiber, add texture and heat for sensory satisfaction, and plan pleasure on purpose!
If this conversation helps you feel seen, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more midlife listeners can find food freedom and confidence.
Learn more about Diana at www.theglobaldietitian.com and on Instagram at theglobalrd.
Like what you learned? Check out these other episodes!
- Story Session: Navigating ADHD in Midlife & Menopause
- Finding Your Movement Rhythm with ADHD & Perimenopause with Christine Chessman
- Listen to Episode 167 - Part 1 of ADHD and Midlife with Dr Jen Wolkin.
What did you think of this episode? Click here and let me know!
➡️ Click here to save 50% off the The Midlife Feast Community in October (exp 31/10)
Or use the code OCTOBER50 at https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/themidlifefeastcommunity
📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause is out now! Order your copy today and start thriving in midlife.
Looking for more about midlife, menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links
Welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast that helps you make sense of your body, your health, and menopause in the messy middle of midlife. I'm Dr. Jen Philip Hooper, intuitive eating dietitian and actropathic doctor, and author of Eat to Thrive Your Menopause. Around here, we don't see midlife and menopause as problems to solve, but as invitations to live with more freedom, trust, and joy. Each week, you'll hear real conversations and practical strategies to help you feel like yourself again, eat without guilt, and turn midlife from a season of survival into a season of thriving. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dig in. Welcome to part two of my little mini-series on ADHD and perimenopause and menopause. If you haven't listened to part one with Dr. Jen Woolken, I highly recommend that you do. But today's guest is Diana Reed. And Diana is a fellow dietitian. She's originally from the US, but she now lives in Europe in Luxembourg. She also has a master's degree in public health nutrition, and most relevant to this conversation, she herself has ADHD. She has kids with ADHD in neurodiversity. And this has become the focus of her work in the last few years. And so I wanted to bring Diana on because we want to understand how do we live with this? How do we learn to work with our neurodivergence when it comes to things like meal planning or emotional eating or dopamine seeking? And how can we start to look at maybe some of the habits that we've been told are bad for us and really start to dig a bit deeper into what are what are they serving? How are they helping us? And how can we learn to work with the needs that we have around food while also respecting that sometimes our brain is just working a little bit differently. So tune in. I look forward to hearing what you think about this because I know that I got so many wonderful ideas from Diana that I think you will too. Hi, Diana.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Midlife Feast. Hi, Jen. Thanks for having me today.
SPEAKER_00:I'm really excited for this kind of like part two punk podcast conversation about ADHD and the bigger picture of neurodivergence and how it crash lands, I guess, into midlife for a lot of people. And, you know, this is a, I think, a conversation that certainly you and I see a lot more of online. And recently had Dr. Jen Wolkin on to talk about the kind of neurobiology of what's happening. And, you know, just to recap that for anyone who may have missed that, what's kind of the Coles Note summary of what happens with our hormones that makes ADHD and the bigger picture of neurodivergence maybe feel a little bit more raw in midlife?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's a great question. And honestly, I think there's still a lot of research that is coming out. Um, there was a great summary paper this summer from a group of researchers throughout Europe and Australia. And what we know is at any point in a woman's life where there are really highly variable hormonal fluctuations, ADHD symptoms can be exacerbated. Things can just fall to shit. Well, am I allowed to say shit? Of course. Oh yes. Okay, things, things fall to shit. So what I think is really happening in perimenopause is a number of things. You know, one, we have the hormonal fluctuations, which as you know, it's not a straight line. You know, it'd be great if it was just a gradual things are diminishing, really chill, but it's sort of all over the map. And so I think there's there's that piece. And then we have just some general aging pieces. You know, cognitively, physically, we're we're not 20 anymore. Um, I think the third piece I would say is there's also a lot of big lifestyle changes. And so for me, when I talk to my clients about it, you know, we talk about the hormone piece that's really affecting our brain because we have estrogen receptors in our brain. And when estrogen goes down, we lose a lot of dopamine as well. So that can affect some brain function. And then we've got, like I said, the normal aging pieces. Even if we didn't have ADHD, our brain isn't the same as it was. And then when we look at, you know, sending kids off to university, like you and I both just did. We look at, well, am I still working and how long am I working? And am I retiring? We look at are we downsizing and empty nesting? I think there's just a lot of pieces for women that go on that start to make your brain go, bad enough. Like, just let me be.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And you know, that's not even talking about hot flashes and night sweats and swings, yes, and all of the symptoms of that shifting coronal landscape, right? That are also distracting.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, and that's one of the things that's one of the things, again, that I I tend to talk a lot about uh with my clients is that it's not just one thing, right? And there can be a cycle. Your your brain's kind of crashing, it's not maybe at its optimal. And I know you did that great podcast with Lisa Mackay, no, uh Sarah Mackay, about how some of those brain changes are relatively temporary and they can level out, which is great. But then we think about well, if we're not feeding ourselves really well because we're struggling with organization and executive function, that's not gonna really help our brain out. And then if we're not sleeping well because we have hot flashes or because we have ADHD brain and we're trying to do that one last thing before bed, um all of those things can really tie in. And then if all of those are happening, maybe we don't really feel like exercising because we're just exhausted and depleted. So it's it's kind of like going from one fire to the next little fire.
SPEAKER_00:So you and I are both dietitians, and we're both dietitians with ADHD. And and care for people and live with people who have ADHD. So we have a lot of personal and professional experience and all the different ways that this can show up. And you already mentioned executive functioning, and I want to start with that because that is what I think really, at least for me, what I notice is that the executive functioning, and not just me, but the people that I work with, the people in my community, we have lots of feasters who have ADHD as well, is just the planning, the what's next and what comes after next that can feel overwhelming and is also kind of boring, which is not a great combination. Totally.
SPEAKER_01:An understimulated ADHD brain is um a kind of a useless ADHD brain. Well, it's funny before we got on, and I'm I'm a big visual person, so I'm always drawing like infographics and things, and and so I know people aren't going to be able to see this on the podcast, but I just want to show you like how how messy my little infographic is. Um, I'm sure you and and Dr. Jen talked about this, but executive function, you know, tends to be around things like focus and concentration, planning and organization, memory, um, emotional regulation can can be another piece of that. We could also pull in motivation. Um, and so having all of those challenges already can make things that are really intricate and require a lot of steps really challenging. So, one of the things I often, you know, remind people like, okay, how many steps does it take to plan a meal? You know, and they'll say, Oh, well, you know, I gotta get the ingredients out and I gotta mix them together and this and that. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, where did this start? You know, let's go back and let's think about, oh, we have to decide what we're gonna make at some point. And that's a million decisions right there. You know, do I go online? Do I look at my recipe book? Do I talk to my family? So we've got that piece. And then we have to actually write that down and capture that somewhere, and then we have to go to the store, and so on and so on and so on. So the reality is something, a task that a lot of people maybe take for granted, or is just, ah, that's easy. It's probably dozens and dozens of steps. And if you have an ADHD brain that struggles with following directions or inattention, or you have some memory issues, there are a lot of kinks in the process on the way. You know, so some of the things that I wrote down here on my little chart are certainly um the planning piece, the deciding analysis paralysis. You know, like I have 300 recipes and now I have to choose. Um that can be one of the hardest things. Totally. And in fact, I've been interviewing, I've uh been for a project I'm working on. I've interviewed a couple dozen women now in in depth who are ADHD and going through perimenopause. And the biggest quote that I have is don't make me choose. Like, don't make me choose.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01:So true. I don't want, I don't want to choose. Um so the the decision piece is a huge part of it, I think. But we also sometimes forget that there's also um overstimulation, like going to the store. I hate this store. I hate this store. Like I I don't want to go grocery shopping if I can help it. Um, and that I will procrastinate and procrastinate because it just feels like too much. And so if even that that second step, you know, or that third step, planning, writing it down, and going to the store, I'm already blocked. Well, you know, I'm kind of screwed from from there. Um so I think there are a lot of pieces. Then we have to remember what we purchased, which is one of the things I also hear a lot from my clients. Well, I made this great meal plan and I got all the stuff, and then I got home and I didn't want to eat it. You know, so I ordered pizza.
SPEAKER_00:Who's a member of the rotting vegetable club? I know that all of them have time membership with that, right? What is the best? Absolutely. Even though I complain all the time about our Dutch European tiny stupid fridge, and I say that in Canada, the thing that I cannot wait for is my big fridge. I also kind of love it because it doesn't hold as much and it's it's harder to lose food, you know, to time. 100%. So 100%.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I I hear that a lot. You know, there's the I had these great intentions. I went to the store, I planned a whole week's worth of meals, and then I didn't have time to make it. I forgot to make it. I didn't feel like making it because I'm so exhausted and burnt out, you know. And as I like to joke, Sunday me that planned and went to the grocery store, and Wednesday me are very different people, right? Um, so yes, rotting vegetable club is a is a huge one.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's kind of take it back a little bit too, and just I want to kind of bring in this conversation about meal planning and into the eating because a lot of the people that listen to this podcast, a lot of the people that work with me are people who are trying their darndest to uncouple from diet culture. And their only experience of meal planning has been like trying to plan it to within a calorie of their life. You know, everything is trying to like meet their macros or points or whatever. And so when they're learning to be intuitive eaters, often this idea of bringing back some meal planning can feel really overwhelming and can be kind of triggering for people and gets them back into that diet mentality. Now, I think that there's a difference between meal planning for you know the purposes of following a diet and meal planning as a way of self-care and practicing kind of self-kindness and respect. And especially when you're trying to add foods in because of how they make you feel, not because of what they're gonna do to your body on the outside. But you know, you want to add in more protein so that you're not hungry all day. You want to add in more fiber so that you know you can do all the good things that fiber does. I think that it's a really um relatable thing for people if you your initial reaction, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh my God, meal planning, I don't want to even think about it. That meal planning does not have one look, right? When we say meal planning, what we're just talking about is putting some kind of process to how you are going to feed yourself for some indeterminate point in the future, right? It could be meal planning for the day, it could be meal planning for a couple of days, it's not one way. Um so I just wanted to kind of insert that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I think that's really important. And even just the word planning, I think, for a lot of ADHD people is like, oh crap. Like I can I can't do that. Or I love to plan, I just don't like to execute. That's kind of me, where it's like, well, now that it's all written down, I'm not sure that I have the energy to do that. Um, but I do think that, you know, having some structure is one of those things that is so helpful. And when you think about ADHD brains, they need it, but they don't want it. There's that constant push-pull. But I think, especially for women, the idea of having a little bit of structure also allows you to take off some stress. It allows you to just like, I don't have to, the cognitive load, I don't have to carry that around every day. Like, oh my God, what are we gonna eat? Oh my god, what are we gonna eat? I don't even know, I don't have anything. And so I totally agree with you on it's self-care. It's a way of saying, I'm gonna try and get myself some good nutrition. I'm not gonna aim for perfection. And yes, I'm gonna pick a certain number of days, and I almost never tell my clients and patients that you should meal plan for a week. You know, we usually brain, we usually brainstorm and I say, okay, well, let's pick maybe two or three days of meals where you know what you want and we'll we'll brainstorm through it. And often we keep the breakfast the same. We maybe make a different dinner and then we make leftovers for lunch, but we keep it very, very small and sustainable. And so you know at least a couple of days a week that you have an idea of what it's gonna be. You know that probably it's gonna be nourishing and something you enjoy. And I feel like there's something about that where you just have this relief of I don't have to stare down the barrel of seven days a week, 21 meals till infinity, right? Which I think is one of our a lot of people's challenges.
SPEAKER_00:And part of that is I think the expectation that we've, you know, grown up with that you that somebody is capable of following a meal plan to the letter for any period of time. You know, there's never been any built-in flexibility around what what is actually, I think, humanly possible. Totally. Unless you have a chef who is cooking and cleaning and doing all those things, you know, we really have to lower the bar and give ourselves a break for sure. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I mean, when I typically, when I talk to clients, you know, we do sort of start with gentle nutrition. We look at, you know, what else is happening in their life, whether it's health issues or, you know, other things associated with perimenopause or otherwise family stuff. And we kind of do an audit of the lifestyle and figure out like what do you actually need nutrition-wise? And then maybe, yeah, are there some goals? Like, are you really trying to work on getting more fiber? Um, you know, are you lifting weights? Let's let's work on your protein. So we'll we'll kind of map that out. And then one of the things that I love to do with people is, and I know you talk about this a lot kind of on your Instagram, we're not gonna plan to fail, but we're also not gonna plan to be 100%, right? And and so I like to look at like, what are a couple of meals that you could throw together on your absolute worst day? Like when things have absolutely gone to shit, like what are some things that are super easy for you to just open up, put in a bowl, pull out of the freezer? And then we literally write those down, and I sometimes we laminate them and we put them on the refrigerator. And then sometimes we'll also brainstorm, okay, well, that's our low capacity day. What is our, you know, our ultimate dream? Like what's our favorite fancy family meal or company meal? And we highlight that and we put that someplace too, because a lot of times, you know, you decide you want to invite somebody over, and then you then you have oh, decision fatigue and analysis paralysis, because it's like, I don't know what my special meal is to serve company or something like that. So we have the sort of aspirational, I like to joke New York Times cooking meal. And then maybe we kind of have this middle level of day-to-day, like what is the amount of time that I might typically have to prepare a meal? What are the amount of ingredients and steps that generally kind of work for my brain power on any given, let's say, workday? And so we kind of plot those out and keep them as simple as possible. And then if somebody really feels, because as ADHD brains are wont to do, they're like, well, that's boring, or I need more, then we switch them, right? You know, and so we allow for novelty and we allow for rotation, but I try and keep it super simple. Um, you know, maybe for a month, and then we switch it for the next month. And even with the vegetables, I do that too. I'm like, I want you to buy two vegetables this week, no more. Right? And you're gonna use those two vegetables in everything. Um, and then next week you can get crazy and pick something else.
SPEAKER_00:So we don't have the rotting. It really reminds me of like the old recipe boxes, right? When we, you know, like our grandmothers used to have these recipe boxes with like the a recipe card that you would have, you know, at like in a more accessible place than a saved bookmark or a Pinterest board that we're not gonna remember is there or that we even started in the first place, right? I love that.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. And that's that's one of the things, and I've learned this honestly from my family, my husband and and my son, as well as some of my clients, that this whole idea of visibility is absolutely critical. Like object permanence, it seems seems to be a little bit of a struggle for some people. And when my husband retired from work and he started taking over the cooking here, he rearranged all my spice drawers and everything. And I was so enraged because I was like, wait, I I don't know where anything is. And he had to move everything, so it was just one one level deep. Because if there was stuff hiding behind the other things, yeah, you couldn't see them. He didn't know they were there.
SPEAKER_00:So and I've had to be.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I probably have eight of cinnamon. Um, that's exactly it. And then I have some clients that will tell me, you know, when I get home, this idea of even opening up the refrigerator just feels overwhelming because there's too much stuff in there, and then I don't know what to make. And so I actually have some clients where we write down what's in the fridge and put a note on the fridge so they can see that before they open up the fridge. And these are all things that I think help reduce, you know, they create some visibility, they create some reminders, but they also can just reduce that decision paralysis and that, oh God, now what? And then if you combine that with, you know, ADHD hyperfocus and maybe they missed a meal or low introsceptive awareness, maybe they didn't really notice they were hungry until now. They're like, I'm hungry. And then if you add complexity to feeding yourself on top of I'm starving, I forgot to eat, I'm exhausted, my kids are, you know, being a pain, the odds of us scrounging through the fridge and iron chefing it are next to none, right?
SPEAKER_00:No, no, not at all. I mean, all of that, anybody who's listening, especially from the feaster community, will recognize, you know, I like to use the word forecast instead of plan. Yeah. So like let's assess your capacity and let's forecast your needs for the next few days. And we have a need to eat, right? So let's choose some things and work on, we call it a capsule wardrobe, like a nutrition capsule wardrobe, but like let's have a capsule wardrobe of things that might change with the seasons, right? So everybody here knows that like I'm gonna die on an analogy hill because it is how my brain organizes life.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, you and me both, my clients just sort of look at me like, really, that's a new one.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, like this idea of a capsule wardrobe that you know, I have a few things that are versatile and meet everyone's needs for breakfast. I have a few things that I can either make a meal or as a meal for other things. And so, and I think that people overestimate how much variety we need on like a daily or weekly basis in order to be healthy. They see things like 30 plants and get like, you know, like all the colors of the rainbow. And nobody is saying that that's not a health-promoting idea, but I think the way that a lot of people, and especially if you have an ADHD brain that is already kind of wired to like black and white, all or nothing, is you're like, I have to get them all in by lunch, otherwise it doesn't count. So when we can lower the bar, like I love your idea of like two vegetables for the week or two fruits or whatever it is, like really keeping it simple, but not overly simple. Like it's simple enough that it's still gonna matter, it's still gonna make a difference in how you're feeling, but it's not so simple that, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think um, you know, one of the reasons you and I connect because we have such similar mindsets and and backgrounds. Um, you know, I often tell people like variety can come, whether it's children or adults. You know, I work with a lot of kids that have uh eating challenges or ARFID or things like that. And I'm constantly reminding parents and you know, adults, number one, Fed is best. You know, so let's get some food into ourselves. And over time, we can work on variety and optimizing all of the specific macro and micro nutrients and getting all the different colors and things. But variety can come over a long frame of time, right? You know, we can get 30 plants in six months if we need, you know. What I tell people is like each time pick something kind of different, you know. Yeah, pick green this week. Maybe next week you're picking purple, you know, again, trying to tap into the dopamine of the brain, or pick something really crunchy this week, and next week you're gonna get leafy, um, so that we can still find some interest in it without feeling overburdened by, oh my God, yeah, I have to have 20 different vegetables in my fridge right now, and then I open it up and find that they're all wilted.
SPEAKER_00:So I want to go back to dopamine because you just said kind of dopamine seeking. And let's talk a little bit about emotional eating, emotional hunger, dopamine seeking. A lot of people that I work with, whether or not they have ADHD, we get to midlife, there's a lot of attunement disruptors, there's a lot of things feeding emotional hunger, you know, that sandwich generation, all that kind of stuff. But can you explain that relationship between eating and food and dopamine?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I think the reality is, and probably Dr. Jen talked about this, there's a lot of discussion in theory around ADHD brains and either quantities or efficiency of dopamine and norepinephrine. I'm not the person to go into all the details and science of that. But what we do know is that ADHD brains struggle with having enough dopamine. And so that is one of the things, along with other factors, that can lead to that lack of focus, impulsivity, hyperactivity, planning, all of the things we talked about at the beginning in terms of executive function. I think one of the other pieces that we really know about ADHD brains is they're kind of a little, I don't want to say erratic, but they're a little inconsistent. We can be super, super energized and really, really go, go, go, or completely uninspired, can't move back to the all or nothing black and white thinking. And and so to regulate between those states can be really challenging for people. And so we kind of are often self-medicating or trying to find the thing that brings us up or brings us down or calms us or energizes us. And I think, you know, one of the things we know about food is well, A, it's delicious. You know, B, it is really tied to emotions and love. You know, you think about who was the first person to feed your kid? Well, you know, we were. Culture, you know, there's lots of pieces around food that make it a very important comfort. Um, and so I think it's also highly accessible, and you don't have to call your therapist to get it. Right? Yeah. So there's a there's a lot of reasons that I think food can be that dopamine piece. Um, so that's just a general. What I also really find, and I love figuring this out with some of my patients, is if somebody's brain is understimulated, and I learned this with my son, if somebody's brain is understimulated, like there's nothing worse for an ADHD person than being bored. Like, there's nothing worse than having to start a task that you effing do not want to do, right? And so that's hard for anybody, but for an ADHD person, it's like climbing Mount Everest. And so again, often we find, well, before I do that task, I'm gonna go to the fridge, or before I do that project, or whatever it is, I need something. And again, food is typically highly accessible and it's a great distraction. What I notice for a lot of people, um, ADHDers tend to be sensory seekers. And again, this is a generalization. My son puts hot sauce in absolutely freaking everything ever since he was three. Um, and so that is his like he needs all the stimulation. I'm a little bit of the opposite where I'm like, I need less because my brain is all the stimulation already. Um, but then I have another another client who's like, I don't know why it is, but I have to crunch. When I I I can't stop snacking, you know, at night when I have to work during my work meetings. And I'm like, well, are you tired? Are you trying to stay awake? Like, what's what's happening? Yes, all of it. I don't want to be working, I'm mad, I'm tired, I'm having a hard time doing something I don't like to do, and I need to chew, you know, and she's very firm about it, it has to be crunchy. So I think long story short, food, just from a general perspective, can be highly regulating, comforting, self-medicating. Where I think it can be problematic, and I'm sure you've you've talked about this before, is when it kind of combines with the impulsivity pieces, um, where, or a lot of ADHD are struggle with kind of food noise, where these repetitive thoughts come in and the ADHD hyperfocus. Like I get an idea about a food, and it doesn't matter whether I'm hungry or not. It doesn't matter if I just ate, it doesn't matter if I'm doing something else. I cannot get that out of my brain, and I have to go get it. Um, so I hear that a lot from my clients.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:There can even be a, you know, there are a lot of connections between ADHD and binge eating, kind of related to this impulsivity combined with what we were just talking about, kind of um dopamine seeking or comfort seeking. And then there's the piece of the impulsivity where you just kind of get in a groove and you can't necessarily stop. You know, part of your brain's going, we're not hungry, we should probably stop. This actually doesn't feel good anymore. But the other part of your brain's like, Woo-hoo, party, let's, you know, let's let's keep going. And you know, I'm thinking about somebody I talked to yesterday who told me, you know, it's not just like highly palatable foods for her, is is the case for some ADHDers. You know, that really stimulating sugar, fat, salt kind of thing can can really light up the brain. But I think for some people, it's any food. She told me. She's like, I could I could eat three quarts of blueberries. You know, I don't even really like blueberries, but I was, you know, I was so frustrated with something and I was having such a hard time. And she's like, I looked down and I was like, like where'd the blueberries go? Right. So I think it's it's a number of different parts of the brain that can be activated or not activated at any one time that can sort of lead to some of those eating, eating challenges. The other piece that I would say we fold in is the, like I mentioned, the lack of introsceptive awareness or hyper focus on something else. And this is a big challenge. You know, you don't pee, you don't eat, you don't do anything because you're super, super focused on a project. And then you stand up five hours later and go, Oh, I'm about to wet my pants, and I'm so starving and can't see straight, right? And so when we get overly hungry, um, you know, as uh Evelyn Tripoli would say, you know, that primal hunger, we don't tend to just, oh, I wonder what I should eat, and oh, I need some vegetables that go with this, and oh, I think I'll saute some mushrooms to go with the steak. Like it's like, no, I'm gonna eat my arm off right now. And if somebody comes near me in my food, I'm gonna, you know, poke their eyes out. So that can also be a piece where we get overly hungry, we don't make the best choices, then we eat too fast, and maybe we just don't stop eating. So I think that's often another piece. Oh, for sure. And what I want to say, what I want to say before I let you ask me a question is as I always tell my clients, and I know you do, this is super normal, and these are not flaws in somebody's personality or their willpower. They are active brain changes, challenges. And feeling bad about them doesn't tend to help us fix them. So I think it's really important for people to just sort of know that things are are tough when you have ADHD or other neurodivergence. One of my kids has autism as well, and that brings a whole other sense of sensory issues and challenges with food where I can't get enough food into that child. Um, so I think it's just important that you know we we have some self-compassion, and you know, we find people like you and others in the world to help support um and scaffold some of these things and untangle them and take baby steps to to make changes to to feel good.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for saying that. It is so important to re reiterate to anybody listening that you know, this isn't, you're not, you're not doing something wrong. You're doing what your brain needs you to do to help your body to function in that moment. But that does, that also doesn't mean that you can't work on changing it if it's not working for you, right? And so I think a lot of people feel gets they get stuck in the suck, as I call it, of like, yes, I hate that I do this, it doesn't feel good, but it works, but I hate that I do this, and it's not and you just get caught in this loop, right? And that's resignation. And when you feel resigned to something, you don't you don't have the hope that there's an alternative, right? That there's another way of managing these things. And with and that's what I really hope people come away from our conversation with is that you know, there are strategies that don't involve 20 steps, that don't involve, you know, needing to follow and do all these things. It's just recognizing like if you have behaviors around food that you feel like I'm not sure that I love this right now in my life, acknowledging what purpose it is serving, like what part of you is served by that behavior. Because until you understand that, you have no hope of changing it because your brain is going to be like, this works. So why do you want me to change it? Yeah. Um what I just wanted to add to that discussion is around pleasure. You know, so often the emotional eating and reactive eating that anybody, not not just people with ADHD, but you know, experience, it's often because we're pleasure seeking. And if you're an ADHDer and you have had a boring ass day doing stupid things that you don't want to do, but you had to do because adulting, um, you're gonna at some point your brain is gonna be like, enough already with the boring things. I want something fun and I want something impleasurable. So one of the strategies that I recommend for anybody, whether they have ADHD or not, is to plan that pleasure into your day. Like have the chocolate at breakfast. Like when I post pictures of my chocolate oatmeal, it is because I'm inserting pleasure first thing into the day. So absolutely. It is meant to be pleasurable. And, you know. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:And as women, we often sorry, go ahead. No, you go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, as women, we often, you know, put pleasure last. And so I love what you said. You know, I gotta get through the day, I gotta do this, I gotta white knuckle everything, et cetera, et cetera. And then that's another piece that often happens is at night everything just kind of falls apart because that is our only quiet moment, that is our only calm times, that is our only moment to seek pleasure. And so I'm 100% with you that we need to build in those moments during the day. There's one other thing I was just thinking about. Um, and that is a lot of times people really feel down on their brains, you know. Oh, God, I keep forgetting, or you know, I keep interrupting, or you know, the whole rejection sensitive dysphoria piece of ADHD as well. Like, I'm just too much. And what I want to remind people kind of in this situation when it comes to thinking about food and all of that, is rather than thinking of your brain as a hindrance, like I often tell people, like, when you're the most excited about something, when you're the most jazzed, when like you are on fire, what are the types of things that are happening? You know, so is it, and there's the acronym of pinch out there, you know, in terms of is it something that's fun and playful? Is it something interesting? Is it something novel and new? Are you competing or collaborating? So thinking about what gets your brain on fire, and then let's build some strategies for eating well or planning or changing your meals that that tap into those things because it's not gonna be the same for everybody, you know? And I'll tell a quick story. I have a friend who has ADHD, and she is constantly texting me, like, what do you think about this challenge? And what do you think about this plan? And like, I'm gonna do this 30-day thing. And it's always some new supplement and something. So, like for her, novelty and challenge are her jam. And so I jokingly said one day, I said, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna create you a meal plan for a month, uh, but then I'm gonna give you the same meal plan the next month, but I'm just gonna rebrand it. And so I'm just gonna add some new, I'm gonna add some new like crazy rules where you have to hang by your toes, you know, from the shower bar. Like, I don't, I don't know. But I said, we're gonna just do the same thing, but have it look different and feel different. And I was joking, and she's like, Would you really do that? Would you that is so great? And I loved it because she was so like she knows her brain so well. Like she knows that she it's not really helping her to go from thing to thing to thing, but that's how she works. So now she's kind of trying to figure out well, how can I build novelty and challenge within a framework that's actually a little bit more consistent? Um so I just I want to remind you, anybody listening with ADHD, that your brain isn't broken, it isn't wrong. It just needs some extra stuff, right? It just needs some more stimulation. Um, and that's a really awesome thing.
SPEAKER_00:It is. It is an awesome thing. Thank you so much for this conversation. Um, this was the perfect kind of part two to talking about ADHD and perimenopause and menopause. Um, so here's my question for you. What do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife, Diana? Fun. Fun.
SPEAKER_01:I think fun, because I think we've had to be grown-ups and we've had to be, you know, depending on where you live in your culture, good girls, and we've had to be hard workers and good mothers and good wives and all of these things, while at the same time, maybe our brain our brains aren't working so well in the case of some of us. So honestly, I think fun we all could use to laugh more and find joy. You know, back to the pleasure thing.
SPEAKER_00:Amazing. Thank you. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you?
SPEAKER_01:Um Yeah, so my website is theglobaldietician.com, and that's D-I-E-T-I-T-I-A-N. So it's the American spelling and not the the British spelling. Um, we'll have it in the um we'll have it in the show notes. Okay, great. Um and I'm also on social media, mostly Instagram, and it's at theglobal R D. Amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. Thanks for joining everyone. Thanks for having me, Jen. Have a great weekend. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Midlife Feast. If you're ready to take the next step towards thriving in midlife, head to menopausenutritionist.ca to learn more about my one-to-one and group coaching programs, free resources, and where to get your copy of Eat to Thrive during menopause. And if you've loved today's conversation and found it helpful, please share it with a friend who needs to hear this and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps so many more people just like you find their way to food freedom and midlife confidence. Until next time, remember midlife is not the end of the story, it's the feast. Let's savor it together.
