9 Tips to Manage ADHD Impulsive Eating

Impulse eating and overeating are the most common challenges women with ADHD come to me with. Let’s face it, resisting temptation and dealing with our emotions complicated relationship with food isn’t easy for most people. But throw ADHD into the mix & it gets 10x harder.

While every person is unique, I have put together some of my top tips and advice I use with my 1:1 clients so you can pick & choose what apples to you. 

As always if you have any questions then please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]

Accept you will struggle to resist temptation.

You have a brain that is constantly seeking dopamine. Instead of fighting against it, learn to accept it and acknowledge you will need different ways around your obstacles than someone without ADHD. Make a list of foods you typically impulse eat or overeat and make sure they aren’t in the house.

Switch out the un healthy foods you impulse eat.

If not having foods in the house that you impulse eat is too much, or you live with others that make it difficult, then try this. Look at your list of foods you typically overeat or impulse eat. What can you eat instead that is healthier? I’ve had health coaching clients switch from chocolate & biscuits to pita or veggies with dip. While it may not solve your impulse eating it will limit the damage to your waistline & health.

Avoid TV

tasks that don’t stimulate the brain often lead to reaching for the food cupboard but what your brain really wants is stimulation. Schedule in fun activities that will engage your brain and keep you stimulated without the need for food. You could also try multitasking. I had one client who bought a walking pad and put it in front of the TV. She’d watch her favourite shows, get exercise & never reached for the food cupboard.

Schedule meal times and set reminders.

Overeating in particular can come from forgetting to eat or putting off eating only to find you are starving and have low blood sugar. Causing you to reach for the nearest thing to hand, which is usually not healthy! And to overeat at your next meal. By sticking to regular meal times you will maintain a stable blood sugar level. This will help reduce those pesky cravings & make you less likely to overeat.

Make meal times easy.

The fact is healthy eating requires a bit more forward planning than eating a supermarket takeaway or ordering Pizza on Deliveroo.

Fortunately, eating healthy food is easy once you have strategies in place that work with your ADHD rather than against it.

That means having quick & healthy foods to hand. To do this you can use meal delivery service like Gousto, Hello Fresh or Simply Cook. Or you can use my free recipes from 10 Quick & Easy Recipes for ADHD Women Who Want to Lose Weight. By having low effort snacks and meals in place. you can ensure you are eating food that will benefit your body, assist with managing your ADHD symptoms & make it less likely you will overeat.

Make a note of how you feel when you impulse eat.

Emotions play a HUGE role in what and when we eat. Keep a journal and write down how you feel each time you reach for the cupboard. No shame, this is not for you to beat yourself over the head with. Think of this as a fact finding mission. Then once you have gathered all the data you can see what patterns emerge.

If you find you are impulse eating when you are bored then think about other ways you could stimulate your brain & keep busy?

If low mood impacts when you eat then ask yourself what are other ways I could boost your mood that don’t involve food.

If you find you are reaching for chocolate, then ask yourself what other ways you could boost your serotonin levels. Chocolate boosts serotonin and women with ADHD have lower levels. Your brain is asking for serotonin but there are other ways to get this part from chocolate. Exercise is one brilliant way to boost serotonin and dopamine. Why not try a walk outside, a 10 minute exercise session instead or blast your favourite music that makes you want to get up and dance.

Work on holistic ways to  reduce to better manage your ADHD symptoms.

Reducing your stress, exercising and eating healthy food can all help reduce your ADHD symptom (since it’s ADHD causing you to impulse eat anyway). Particularly reducing stress. Stress can make your symptoms worse and some people find it reduces the effectiveness of their ADHD medication. By taking just 15-30 minutes out of your day to do something for you, wether it’s taking a yoga class or home video, getting your nails done or having a foot spa. This time out for yourself is not selfish. It can help you de stress and reduce the chances of burnout. You will be away from your family and other commitments a lot longer if you burnout. Trust me I’ve done it!

Exercising and eating healthy, regular meals can also help you manage your ADHD. In fact exercising is the most effective way to help reduce & manage ADHD symptoms.

Don’t try to change too many things at once.

When we expect ourselves to change everything overnight it will always lead to disappointment. Making too many changes can leave you feeling overwhelmed, struggling to keep up when life gets in the way & ultimately leading to quitting. Because if you can’t do everything, why bother?

Instead of this all or nothing thinking, start with 1-2 changes. Once you have those down then you can add in another change or two. I do it this way with my Mind & Body Transformation clients & it is so much more successful because they are able to build up and nail in these new habits so they stick long term.

Accept things won’t change overnight.

With ADHD it’s common to want to go from 0-100mph. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when this is an advantage, but not when it comes to making changes to your diet. Building new habits takes time, it can be frustratingly slow, but it works! Expecting to implement a new strategy and to never impulse eat or overeat again is unrealistic. What is realistic is implementing a new strategy and understanding that there will be times when things get the better of you and you slip back into old habits. That’s completely normal and it’s ok. The goal is to reduce the amount of times you overeat and impulse eat so it stops sabotaging your weight loss and health.

Building new habits to help with impulse eating and overeating isn’t easy. Especially if you have ADHD. You will have a much higher rate of success if you make sure you also have the right support system in place and guidance which is exactly what I do in my Mind & Body Transformation Programme.

ADHD does not have to sabotage your health.

By making small gradual changes and understanding the reasons why you impulse eat then you can absolutely get back in control, stop overeating & learn to manage your weight. ADHD does not have to sabotage your health.

If you need more help with impulse eating & overeating then you can book in a call for a free, 30 minute session via Zoom. In this call we will look at where you are now and the struggles you face and where you would like to be. From there we can put together a plan for you to move forward. You can book in for a free session here.