Intuitive Eating for ADHD: A Neurodivergent-Friendly Approach
As a nutritionist and intuitive eating counselor with ADHD who works with people with ADHD, I’ve noticed a lot of confusion around how to practice intuitive eating when you have ADHD.
Ultimately intuitive eating offers us tools so we can improve our relationship with food and our ability to take care of our bodies and ADHD brains long-term.
Traditional intuitive eating focuses on improving interoceptive awareness (a type of body awareness) —your ability to recognize and respond to inner signals like hunger, fullness, and satisfaction cues. But for those of us with ADHD, these internal signals may not be as clear.
We often need to modify the principles of intuitive eating to make them more accessible and realistic.
This blog post will walk through the 10 principles of intuitive eating with ADHD-friendly strategies. Keep in mind that intuitive eating is not a step-by-step process—everyone’s journey will look different, and you can start with whatever principle resonates most with you at this time.
Caution Around Wellness Trends
Diet culture is sneaky and has unfortunately largely morphed into wellness culture, through promoting restrictive approaches under the guise of health.
Intuitive eating shifts the focus from following external food rules, which change all the time based on trends and marketing, to being able to respond to your body’s needs.
For people with ADHD, diet/wellness culture can be particularly harmful because so many of us have spent so much time, energy, effort and money trying to find the right tools to support our neurodivergence, and so many influencers and companies will take advantage of this.
For both neurodivergent and neurotypical people, intuitive eating offers support that focuses on inner work, not through products or other quick fixes that are so often promoted through social media.
One way it does so is by helping you tune into your own body’s signals rather than relying on external expectations set by people selling products like supplements, diets and lifestyles.
2. Hunger Signals
Many neurodivergent people don’t experience traditional hunger cues.
Instead, your body might signal to your brain that it needs fuel from food that may be noticed through things like thinking about food, low energy, headache, light-headedness, or experiencing more severe ADHD symptoms like worsened focus and brain fog, impulsivity, irritability or rapid changes in mood.
Improving your interoceptive awareness (the body’s inner awareness that signals its present needs to your brain) takes time.
With time and practice becoming better at recognizing certain symptoms as your body signalling that it needs more energy from food also comes the ability to respond to these signals better.
Often introducing structure—like setting reminders to eat and having a basic and flexible meal plan—can also be helpful here. As does working on improving access to more nutrient-dense foods that are lower effort to prepare, that you like and will eat. Building an ADHD-friendly diet is a gradual process, not an overnight change.
3. Permission to Eat
With the exception of allergies, intolerances and food sensitivities, making peace with food ultimately involves giving yourself unconditional permission to eat - which can be challenging, especially if you have a history of restrictive and/or binge eating.
One really common concern with this principle is that folks often think if they give themselves unconditional permission to eat anything they will only eat highly processed foods like chips and cookies.
Remember that becoming an intuitive eater is a gradual process that takes time, and when you allow yourself to eat all foods, you can begin making choices based on what truly makes you feel good which will typically be more nutrient-dense foods as your body and brain need these to thrive.
If you do have allergies, sensitivities or intolerances, reframing food restrictions as boundaries (rather than deprivation) can be helpful for preventing a scarcity mindset.
4. Challenging Food Morality
Diet and wellness culture often teach us to label foods as “good” or “bad,” which can lead to guilt and shame around eating. Observing and challenging these thoughts can help shift the focus to what feels good for your body, what foods do for supporting your energy, mood and ADHD symptoms rather than following what external rules set by wellness trends or marketing campaigns say you should eat.
Healthy eating for ADHD will look different for everyone, and that’s okay! The reality that you need to eat multiple times a day for the rest of your life can feel overwhelming—so really allow yourself to celebrate the wins, even if they seem small.
5. Satisfaction with Food
As you probably already know, ADHD brains are typically more dopamine deficient than neurotypical folks. This explains a lot of the dopamine seeking activities people with ADHD will do as a result of having an interest-based nervous system.
I love this principle especially for folks with ADHD because finding enjoyment in our daily activities can be such a profound strategy for managing our ADHD because enjoyment in tasks is such a dopamine positive action.
In terms of intuitive eating for ADHD, finding satisfaction in food means giving yourself access to foods that you like! Foods where you enjoy and are excited about their flavours, textures, temperature, aromas, and how these foods make you feel.
I think this principle is a great place to start for anyone with ADHD who would like to become more of an intuitive eater - focusing on giving yourself more access to these foods that you like as a foundation, and over time gradually adding in more nutritious foods to eat with these foods so your body and brain are getting the nutrition they need but doing so in a way that still provides you with satisfaction and pleasure in your food choices.
6. Fullness Cues
I find this can be one of the hardest principles for ADHDers because neurodivergent brains often process internal signals like hunger and fullness differently than neurotypical brains may. Certain medications can also make recognizing both hunger and fullness signals more difficult as well.
With ADHD there is a tendency to go a really long time without eating, then suddenly feeling ravenous when you do finally tune into the reality that you’re hungry and need food fast.
When we enter this state - after going several hours or the whole day without eating, it makes it even more difficult to be able to recognize and honour fullness signals.
We are also more likely to go for less nutrient-dense food options that are higher in carbohydrates and sugars because those will typically be more immediately available than snacks or meals that contain protein, fibre, healthy fats and carbohydrates.
Giving yourself more access to meals and snacks that balance blood sugar—aka contain protein, fiber, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates – is one way of reducing the impact that falling into this restriction/binge eating cycle has on the body, and can also be a very effective part of the strategy of starting to recognize fullness signals.
Not getting enough protein, carbs, fibre and healthy fats throughout the day causes blood sugar levels to drop, and when this happens our instinct is to generally go for any food higher in carbs and sugar, which spikes blood sugar levels briefly until they crash again.
Fibre, protein, fat and carbs together give your body the ingredients to keep your blood sugar, energy levels and even ADHD symptoms more stable for much longer.
Being able to recognize what fullness feels like in your body really relies on developing interoceptive awareness/body awareness, which is a process that takes time.
Working with an intuitive eating counselor can be especially helpful here.
7. Using Food as a Stim and Self-Compassion
Traditionally this principle is about finding alternative ways to cope with your emotions that move away from using food as a coping mechanism - and having self-compassion is key for this.
This absolutely applies for people with ADHD as well, and can also include the reality that many people with ADHD will use food as a source of stimulation.
Using food as a stim isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but more something to be aware of.
When you start to feel out of control around food and it leans more into binge eating patterns that occur frequently could be a sign that getting more support around this could be a good idea.
Eating with ADHD can be really hard. The last thing anyone with ADHD needs is more challenges, especially when they come from your own thought patterns criticizing you for not doing something the way you ‘should’ be doing it.
Developing self-compassion is an on-going practice that can be so effective and transformational for your relationship with food and yourself.
Food can be a great source of comfort - the goal isn’t to eliminate emotional eating but to build self-compassion and recognize the difference between using food as a source of stimulation versus feeling out of control around food.
8. Respecting Your Body and Brain
Having to exist, work and operate in a society designed for neurotypical people can be exhausting and frustrating for anyone with ADHD.
Recognizing all the progress you’ve made as an individual with ADHD existing in a society not built for us should be done more often and whenever possible!
Just as you should be recognizing and celebrating your neurodivergent brain’s ability to exist in a neurotypical society, recognizing and celebrating all that your body does for you is also recommended as part of the path of becoming an intuitive eater.
Shifting the focus to appreciation of our brains and bodies helps us make choices where we can take better care of them
9. Moving Your Body in Ways that Work for You
Movement/exercise should feel good, not like a rigid routine. This is especially important for people with ADHD - if movement/exercise feels like a chore there is way less of a chance that it’s going to be a sustainable form of self-care for us.
Taking the time to explore different types of movement and really noticing how they make your body feel will also improve inner awareness that intuitive eating is built on.
This can look like anything from walking, to swimming, bike riding in the warmer months, hopping on the elliptical at the gym for a few minutes, trying a new dance class, yoga, pilates, mobility, boxing, HIIT (however please avoid HIIT classes the days leading up to your period and on your period if you have a period), even walking to the grocery store instead of driving.
Introducing more movement into your life shouldn’t be thought of in all or nothing terms - but rather incorporating more variety that you enjoy or can tolerate that overall makes you feel more mobile, strong, stable and aware in your body.
10. Gentle Nutrition
Learning the basics about nutrition for ADHD is also a part of becoming an intuitive eater.
Understanding how foods are fueling your body and brain allows you to continue to make choices around foods that not only feel good for you but also provide your body and brain with the building blocks they need to function at their best.
This is called ‘gentle nutrition’ because its emphasis is to apply nutrition in a way that is not rigid and does not adhere to diet/wellness culture trends or marketing campaigns.
Rather it encourages using your understanding of basic nutrition and tying it together with your ability to eat intuitively in ways that make you feel good and give your body and brain the nutrition they need.
Overall, intuitive eating for ADHD is about flexibility, self-compassion, and learning to tune into your body’s needs in a way that works for you.
Becoming an intuitive eater is a lifelong skill. Since its focus is on giving you the tools to understand how to nourish your body in the ways that it needs, it can really be something that benefits every aspect of your life.
This is just an overview of ways intuitive eating can look like for people with ADHD, but it is by no means an extensive checklist - you may find that certain principles resonate more with you at certain times depending on what you’re going through at that time.
