More Than Nutrition: An ADHD Client’s Story of Food, Insight and Change

Introduction

Food. It is never just what is on the plate, is it? Every meal for those of us with ADHD is loaded with intention, memory and mood. When I first met Ben, his eating habits told an interesting story. This is the account of how Ben came to see food not as a constant adversary, but as a companion on his journey to self-understanding.

Early Days: Chaos in the Kitchen, Confusion at the Table

Ben’s history with food was classic ADHD. He could plan for healthy wraps and greens, then get derailed by a box of doughnuts at work or midnight cravings for something fried and regrettable. There was a sense that food rules changed according to the season, the boss’s mood, or pure exhaustion. Cooking for himself, Ben felt quietly triumphant, briefly. The moment someone else provided food or work got busy, all that discipline melted away. He would let himself indulge and then stew in guilt, worrying that one slice of pizza cancelled out weeks of effort.

The push and pull between intention and reality became exhausting. Ben described his relationship with food as a swing: comfort one minute, regret the next. The idea of meals as sources of stability felt alien. Instead, eating seemed to highlight his sense of being out of step with himself and his environment.

Not Just Fuel: The Emotional Weight Behind Food

Ben eventually recognised that food in his life filled more roles than any decent actor. Sometimes it was a reward for making it through the day, sometimes a distraction, often relief from isolation. He found himself chasing comfort food when he was tired, overworked, or feeling disconnected. The days when meals turned into ready-meals confessions became more frequent. Underneath, he recognised that those patterns echoed old family scripts about never quite measuring up.

The perfectionism that haunted Ben in his work snuck its way into his choices about food. There was always a voice whispering “not good enough,” whether directed at an underwhelming salad or a missed target. One slip became a personal indictment. Each choice he made could set off a spiral of self-doubt.

Food Meets ADHD: All Plans Go Off Script

Planning meals when executive function is on the fritz? Ben knew this pain intimately. A barrage of meetings or demands at work spelled disaster for his best-laid eating intentions. Healthy food was an early casualty the moment the schedule went off piste. Brain fog and junk food often held hands. More of the latter always meant more of the former. Unfortunately, foggy minds have little patience for preparing lentil curry from scratch.

Ben also found his eating habits sinking during low moods, burnout and social droughts. When he skipped meals for work, he would often find himself at the mercy of the nearest takeaway. Meals lost their nourishing quality and became mere “filler”.

Noticing Patterns: Insights That Changed Everything

Real coaching didn’t begin with advice. The breakthroughs started with Ben tracking his eating, sleep and energy for a few weeks with an attitude of amusement rather than discipline. Instead of judgement, there was curiosity. He joked about his “data experiments” and the often comic futility of resisting free office biscuits.

This practice helped Ben spot that food was more of a barometer than a cause. A lapse in eating well was a flare signalling something else was off, usually sleep, boundaries, or mood. Instead of berating himself when things slid, Ben started to ask what had changed around him. He discovered that most “bad eating days” had surprisingly little to do with willpower, and far more to do with a tired mind, fraying routine, or unresolved stress.

Breaking the Cycle: Setting Flexible Boundaries

Ben’s perfectionist streak had saddled him with impossible standards. We worked to swap his “all or nothing” mindset for something gentler. He created guidelines flexible enough to survive workplace temptations and late-night cravings. For instance, if someone else brought snacks, he allowed himself to enjoy them guilt-free, saving his discipline for meals he cooked himself. This small shift turned out to be liberating. Guilt no longer wrote the whole script. Ben stopped disqualifying himself from healthy routines just because of one off-plan snack. Mistakes were no longer catastrophes.

Outside the Kitchen: Rediscovering Routines and Social Connection

Much of Ben’s progress happened well away from the chopping board. He realised that environmental tweaks, like setting up a proper home workspace or squeezing in a morning walk, made healthy eating more likely without a monumental effort. When he managed his sleep, movement, and work demands, the dominoes of good eating fell into place pointing the way towards a virtuous circle.

Meals also became a way for Ben to regain a sense of connection. Shared food with flatmates offered comfort, even when the menu was not exactly what the nutritionist ordered. These moments reminded him that eating well is more sustainable when rooted in joy, belonging and routine, not just self-control.

The tug between fitting in and eating well never disappeared entirely. Ben accepted that there would always be the occasional doughnut run at work and that was alright. Rather than battling to win every food encounter, he learnt to pick his moments, aiming for balance rather than victory.

Relapse and Reset: The Power of Getting Back Up

No journey of change is without stumbles. Periods of stress still saw old eating patterns creep back. The difference now was that Ben treated lapses with more gentle humour and less drama. The aim became to recover, not to punish. With each reset, he got better at spotting the early signs and righting the ship before drifting too far off course.

Ben’s toolkit for these moments included a quick review of recent routines, mood, and boundaries. If pasta at midnight appeared, he could meet it with a nod and a plan to get more rest or reconnect with a flatmate the next day, instead of shame and despair.

Curiosity Beats Control: A New Narrative Forms

Through these ups and downs, Ben shifted his narrative from one of strict control towards curiosity. He started asking better questions of himself:

• How do I feel after this meal?

• What am I actually craving: food, rest, connection or a break from stress?

• Are these rules really my own, or have I absorbed them from elsewhere?

That last question stood out as a turning point. Ben sifted through the expectations and standards he’d been handed down by family and culture, keeping only what made sense in his adult life. This willingness to “own his rules” made his approach to food and routines more sustainable.

The Many Discoveries: Ben’s Key Insights

To keep things crisp, here are Ben’s main discoveries from his explorations:

• Food journeys are rarely about food alone. Atmosphere, routine and self-worth play powerful supporting roles.

• Lapses in healthy eating flag wider life imbalances, like loss of sleep or rising stress, rather than failures of will.

• Guilt gets in the way more than it helps. Gentle boundaries support consistency better than iron-clad rules.

• Social connection and joy are as important as nutrition. Eating together, even if imperfectly, supports well-being.

• Getting back on track swiftly is more useful than ruminating on why things went wrong.

• Self-reflection and curiosity about habits empower genuine, lasting change far more than self-judgement ever did.

Coaching Meets Nutrition: Partnership in Practice

Throughout Ben’s journey, the blend of coaching and nutritional expertise proved powerful. Nutrition provided practical frameworks, while coaching was the space for experimenting safely, shedding inherited standards, and laughing at human foibles. Together, they allowed Ben to step back and redesign his eating habits from the inside out, building routines for the messy reality of life with ADHD.

Crucially, Ben realised that good nutrition and joyous living are not at odds. Rather, when coaching helped him untangle his motivations and habits, nutritious choices slipped naturally into place. Food became a mirror, not a stick to beat himself with.

Looking Back: From Battleground to Ally

In the early days, Ben experienced food much like a high-stakes test he kept failing. Guilt, inherited standards and an all-or-nothing mindset kept his relationship with meals tense and joyless. By the journey’s end, food had become a companion and a gentle signal for when something else in life needed attention. The focus shifted from perfection to progress. There were still chips and surprises along the way, but Ben felt confident that each meal was an invitation to try again, not a judgement on the past.

Conclusion

Ben’s story will sound familiar to anyone who has ever tried to rewrite their habits in the shadow of ADHD. Progress arrives quietly, sometimes with a helping of pasta at midnight, sometimes with a salad assembled while half-distracted. The real transformation, though, is in the shift from self-reproach to genuine curiosity. With support, laughter and a toolkit of self-awareness, Ben’s relationship with food has become not just manageable, but nourishing.

His journey offers a reminder that food reflects our wider stories, shaped by connection, rest, joy, and the willingness to begin again after each stumble. For Ben, and for many of us, that is a recipe worth returning to. If you would like to start to find your recipe, book your Introductory Call here