Have you just tried eating better?
People like to say, “You’d feel better if you just ate properly.”
They have no idea how complicated food can be when your brain forgets you have a body.
For years, my diet looked like a slow-motion crash. Breakfast was a coffee and a Diet Coke. Lunch was usually the same, with a packet of crisps from the vending machine if I was feeling faint. I oversubscribed my calendar or ran over in meetings, not leaving time to get food.
I ate at dinner time because I was starving by then. I always liked cooking, but mostly as a people pleaser. By the time I served up, I was sometimes too tired or wired to eat much myself. Evenings were wine and snacks. The wine to quiet my mind, the snacks to make up calories.
I lived most of my adult life on four Diet Cokes and three black coffees a day. I had no time for feeling tired, so I would top up with more caffeine. I never drank water; It held no interest for me.
It is not new. University had been ramen noodles, Irn-Bru, Red Bull, and caffeine tablets, partly due to lack of money management and prioritising nights out over food, partly due to lack of awareness of my body’s needs. It has been the same pattern since childhood, surviving on nervous energy and stimulants. At the time, it felt normal: a razor edge of attention, going at a million miles an hour.
I felt like a shark; if I stopped moving, I would stop breathing.
It only really broke down and became a problem when I started ADHD medication.My psychiatrist warned me that stimulants do not create energy, they use it. “You will be able to use your brain more efficiently now,” he said, “but you will need to fuel it.” He was right. The problem was, I couldn’t feel when I was hungry. I never really have. Even before medication, I only knew I needed to eat when I started to feel faint or shaky, and after starting meds it got worse.
My appetite vanished, and the cues I used to ignore disappeared completely. Within a month I had lost six kilos. I have never been a big person. I think I have lived most of my life on adrenaline, but now I was watching the weight drop and realising how little fuel I had been running on. I look back now and thank the meds for showing me how bad a diet I had been living on. It opened my eyes to the need to make some serious changes.
Once the medication gave me some executive function, I went all in. I downloaded MyFitnessPal, did a deep dive into calories and macros, and turned eating into a kind of game. I tracked everything. For the first time in my life, I was consistent with breakfast and lunch. Mornings were eggs and smoked salmon; lunch was a raw salad with poached chicken, hummus, and olives, healthy crunch, bright flavours, about six of my five-a-day in one go.
It was light on carbs, though, and by nine at night I was topping up with a bowl of Shreddies and raisins. I was still drinking wine then, but for the first time in my life, I was being honest enough with myself to track that too.
Over time, my weight stabilised and I started going to the gym. That made me hungrier, although I sometimes got light-headed mid-session, more from the lights than the lack of food. The exercise made me double down on healthier eating. I swapped my eggs and salmon for Greek yoghurt with fruit and honey, and I stashed oat bars in my desk drawer for a post-gym boost. I even added protein powder to keep things steady.
By then, I had cut out caffeine completely. The first day I took medication, I stopped coffee and Diet Coke cold. Any caffeine at all felt like being up all night on Pro Plus and Red Bull.
Within a few weeks, my new way of eating had turned into a ritual, and I embraced it. I was talking to someone at work recently who is in that early stage of weight loss after starting medication, the part where nothing quite fits yet, and I recognised myself in what they were describing. My routine keeps me fed. Without it, I just do not eat.
On workdays, breakfast and lunch are part of the same process as getting ready for the day. I do the same things in the same order every morning. If one piece of that routine slips, even something as small as missing an ingredient for my salad, I immediately want to give up on both meals. I have had to learn to force myself, to let myself swap or drop ingredients, but it still feels like the day is ruined and I have to work hard to get back in the groove for the day. I persevere though, and it’s ok if I just can’t make it one day.
Weekends used to throw me completely. Without my weekday routine, I would graze mindlessly through the day, barely aware of what or when I had eaten. Once I noticed the pattern, I stopped treating weekends differently. Now I eat the same meals every day. It might look repetitive from the outside, but for me it is stability and a way of keeping myself fuelled and functional.
Something changed recently. Since I started walking to work, I decided to stop taking breakfast with me and eat it at home instead. What began as a practical tweak has turned into one of my favourite parts of the day. Breakfast has become a ritual of quiet time, a calm start before the chaos begins. I sit with my decaf coffee and yoghurt and fruit, sometimes writing Instagram posts for my coaching page, sometimes just breathing. It is the first time in my life that eating has felt peaceful rather than pressured.
Once food felt more stable, my curiosity drifted to all the online promises of optimisation.
I have seen the wave of biohacking and microdosing stories that flood social media, but I have never gone down that path. I know how addictive my brain can be, and I have always been wary of anything that feels like it could take over. There is still no reputable research that supports microdosing, or anything like that, as a treatment for ADHD. The evidence is clear: prescribed medication remains the only well-supported pharmacological option (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2018). Even then, it is just one piece of a wider picture that includes structure, sleep, food, and self-care.
I stick to the basics. I still use protein powder, we need more of it as we get older, and I take electrolytes most days. Vitamin D was a doctor’s recommendation; living in Scotland, it feels like a survival supplement. I also take cod liver oil because my joints ache if I do not. None of it is glamorous, but it works. It is less about optimising now and more about maintaining my body, giving it the things it is quietly asking for now that I am listening to it.
Since I stopped drinking, I have been searching for something to fill that space, the calories, the ritual, the “something to do” in the evenings. For a while, that turned into bingeing on junk food. I still do it often. But I have made peace with the idea that I swapped something bad for something less bad. I am coming down from a lifelong habit, and that takes time. What I am noticing now is that the need for junk probably is not about craving sugar; it is my body asking for something it is missing, maybe simple calories or carbs. I will figure it out. For now, I am learning to listen instead of judge.
When I look back, most of my life was about running on empty. Food was an afterthought, a variable to control rather than a way to care for myself. It has taken me decades to realise that eating better is not about eating perfectly. It is about understanding how my brain and body actually work, and building systems that keep me fuelled and operating properly.
The research says what experience confirms: ADHD and autism make hunger signals quieter, decision-making harder, and shame louder. Dopamine pulls us toward quick fixes; sensory differences narrow what feels safe. Structure helps, but only if it stays flexible. I have learned that routine can be freedom, until it becomes armour.
Coaching has helped me see food differently. It is not just about what is on the plate; it is the relationship between body, brain, and attention. The question is not “Am I eating right?” but “Is this still helping me?” Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is not. The point is to keep noticing.
Some days, eating is not about mindfulness or enjoyment. It is about the discipline of care, feeding yourself whether you damn well want to or not. It is the same compassion you would offer someone you love, making sure they eat, rest, and recover, even when they have lost the energy to care. That is what nourishment really is. It is not indulgence or control, but a quiet act of self-compassion repeated over time.
If I were working with someone who struggles like I have in the past, I would remind them that nourishment begins with noticing. Notice when you forget to eat. Notice when you over-control. Notice what feels good, not just what looks good on paper. Then choose one small thing that makes eating easier tomorrow. That might be a pre-packed lunch, a regular breakfast, a refillable water bottle filled up in the morning and drunk by lunchtime, a healthier snack, or even an unhealthy snack. Progress is not measured in macros; it is measured in consistency, in how kindly we look after ourselves over time.
Eating better, for me, means I finally remember that I have a body, and that it deserves looking after.
If you knew that looking after yourself wasn’t about getting it perfect, but about listening to your body and adapting, what changes would you make next to make yourself feel better tomorrow?
References
Kaisari, P., Dourish, C. T., & Higgs, S. (2017). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and disordered eating behaviour: A systematic review and a framework for future research. Clinical Psychology Review, 53, 109–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.03.002
Kinnaird, E., Norton, C., & Tchanturia, K. (2019). Eating as an autistic adult: A qualitative study. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 839. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00839
Nazar, B. P., Bernardes, C., Peachey, G., Sergeant, J., Mattos, P., & Treasure, J. (2016). The risk of eating disorders comorbid with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Eating Disorders Review, 24(1), 6–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/erv.2399
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: Diagnosis and management (NG87). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng87
