 Image reference: https://www.adhdevidence.org/blog/eight-pictures-describe-brain-mechanisms-in-adhd It’s not always obvious from the outside, but ADHD and eating disorders often share a tangled relationship. Many people are surprised to learn how frequently these two conditions show up together — and how much they can reinforce one another.
In fact, several of my clients only came to suspect they had ADHD once they started navigating recovery. After conversations with friends, learning more about ADHD, and then following up with a professional, many have gone on to receive a diagnosis, which has massively supported their eating disorder recovery. At first glance, they might seem like separate challenges. ADHD can contribute to reduced attention, impulsivity, and poor emotional regulation (amongst other things). Eating disorders, on the surface, seem to be about food and body image. But when we dig a little deeper, But dig a little deeper, and the overlap between eating disorders and ADHD starts to make sense. Why ADHD Can Increase the Risk of an Eating Disorder ADHD makes it harder for the brain to filter, organize, and prioritize information and sensory input. That means everyday tasks such as deciding what to eat, remembering to eat, or noticing hunger cues, can quickly become overwhelming. When we add in factors like time blindness (losing track of time), decision fatigue, and visceral emotional responses, food can quickly shift from a source of nourishment into a stressor. After forgetting to eat for a long period, someone may feel intense hunger, causing them to eat large amounts of food in a reactive way. They might turn to foods that are rich in calories to meet their unmet hunger or use food to create a numbing or soothing effect. However, these eating patterns can result in guilt and shame, making the emotions or intense overwhelm they were trying to avoid significantly worse. For others, the complete opposite can happen. Eating might be forgotten altogether, or the act of buying, preparing, cooking and eating food can feel too complex to deal with. Restriction or avoidance of eating can also be used as a coping mechanism to numb the chaos ADHD can provoke, providing short-term relief but long-term a much deeper issue. Additionally, the use of purging behaviors may be used to manage ADHD symptoms – including regulation of emotions, increasing dopamine or the need for somatic release. While these behaviors may not seem linked to ADHD management on the surface, when we dig deeper, the connection is often present. The important thing to note here is that navigating recovery with ADHD is not about willpower or inadequate motivation. It’s about executive function, which is the brain’s ability to plan, regulate, and follow through. When ADHD symptoms are present, combined with common co-occurring issues such as trauma, food, and body can be used as a tool to cope and manage the overwhelming dysregulation. Next week I'll be talking about some of the common behaviors I speak to clients about about how their ADHD shows up in their eating patterns. Stay tuned for more insights and advice!  If you're someone who’s been in the furnace of recovery from an eating disorder, you likely have come across the phrase “mechanical eating”. If I’m completely honest, I think the phrase and what it implies could use a little updating.
To me, “mechanical eating” sounds robotic, like we are encouraging individuals to suppress their emotions when relating to food. In reality, that's not what we’re looking for in recovery. Suppressing emotion is too often a function of disordered eating in the first place. As humans, we have tastes, preferences, likes and dislikes and, ideally, we have internal cues that signal when we’re hungry and full. For those engaged in eating disorder recovery, those cues may be shifted or absent - and our preferences may be hard to sense or know. Eating in a consistent way and at regular times is a key feature of initial recovery work. With that in mind, I would like to challenge some aspects of “mechanical eating” and reframe this critical tool as “non-preferential eating.” Mechanical Suggests Emotionless, Recovery Requires Emotion The term mechanical eating reinforces an inhuman, robot-like relationship with food. While the term does suggest eating for function, throughout the recovery process we also want to help people develop a sense of autonomy with their food choices. We aim to do this in ways that feel very different from the default patterns of their eating disorder. Using the term “non-preferential eating” points to the fact that, while we may be engaging in eating at a time or an amount that we would prefer not to, we can both eat AND stay in contact with the emotive angle - a reality check almost - that doesn’t attempt to override the difficulty. Non-preferential eating suggests that yes, eating at this time or in this way is not something we want to be doing. And this is okay, we don’t have to want to do it, but we realize that it is necessary for our recovery. It acknowledges the fact that it is still our choice to be eating, while also holding awareness that we may not want to in that moment. It allows both things to be true and okay. Non-Preferential Eating Recognizes Emotion As a dietitian specializing in eating disorders, a key feature I see for many navigating recovery is, at some point, grappling with the acute discomfort of eating. For some, it might be that their hunger cues are lacking, for others it’s the fear of the perceived physical or emotional consequences that eating may cause. These are just a few of many reasons. Some common things I hear from clients that you may relate to include:
Non-preferential eating acknowledges these possibilities and says: Yes, I feel this. I see my resistance, and I’m going to eat anyway. It honors your distress and provides a certain amount of distance without requiring you to entirely suppress emotion. When Does Non-Preferential Eating Matter? Whether you are transitioning from inpatient to outpatient care, or if you’re navigating recovery alone, when it comes to eating during eating disorder recovery, you are ultimately the one to make the decisions about when and what to eat. Hunger and fullness cues often disappear under disordered behaviors, leaving it very hard to reliably sense into and act based on those cues. By employing the skill of non-preferential eating, you create a consistent behavioral anchor that enables you to meet the difficulty and support your physical needs at the same time. This anchor doesn’t deny your feelings, it allows you to fuel yourself appropriately in order to navigate the emotions that arise. If we engage in regular eating, we position ourselves to better heal what lays at the root of the disordered eating. We are able to develop a profound internal resilience that shifts the quality of our lives. How Can Non-Preferential Eating Support Recovery? When mechanical eating feels like going through the motions, non-preferential eating invites you to be gently aware of your mind and body. When disordered eating arises, it allows you to intervene and get back to your baseline by having awareness of your emotions while not being consumed by them. It allows you to:
Over weeks and months, you’ll start to notice that resistance soften. You may not need to use the skill as much over time, but it is always available to you and ensures you stay on track with your recovery. A lot of my clients will ask about intuitive eating and whether this is something that they can engage in during recovery, but in my opinion this is something that should come at a much later date, if at all. Giving ourselves time to develop self-trust and understand our bodies within the context of regular and sufficient meals is an essential part of recovery. Intuitive eating relies on us to be in tune with and listen to our body, our hunger, our tiredness, our fullness, and these cues are often misplaced during an eating disorder. Go Gently with Recovery Recovery isn’t automatic, it's asking us to let go of something that has kept us safe for many years or decades. It can be messy, and some structure is useful to guide us. By practicing non-preferential eating, we give ourselves permission to keep going even when motivation fails. A gentle reminder: you are allowed to eat in a way that is quite different from the pattern of your eating disorder. You are allowed to do this and be angry, sad, afraid, you name it. You are allowed to separate from the choices that may have once kept you safe, but now feel like a cage. In fact, it is one of the most powerful things you can do - for your body, for your mind and for your future. Embracing Impermanence in Eating Disorder Recovery: A Buddhist-Informed Perspective for Queer Folks7/2/2025
 I first encountered Zen Buddhism almost a decade ago, but it wasn’t until I lived in a monastic community in Santa Fe, New Mexico that I really understood what it meant to sit with impermanence. For a year and a half, I spent my days in silence, staring at a wall with my eyes open, noticing how everything shifted - light moving across the floor, breath changing in its depth, birdsong coming and going. That time left an impact on me, and it still shapes how I show up in the world, especially in my work with folks navigating eating disorder recovery.
Zen Buddhism doesn’t offer quick fixes or neat answers, but it teaches us to be comfortable in the stillness. We learn to notice the small changes, and to trust that no matter how sharp, painful, or disorienting any experience is, it's going to change. Even when things feel overwhelming, we can look to physics, nature, and the world around us, to know that things are ever-changing and transforming. For me, that truth has become one of the most supportive tools I bring into sessions with clients. How Is Impermanence Relevant to Eating Disorder Recovery? Impermanence is not something that’s often spoken about in eating disorder recovery, but it’s a concept that underpins so much of the healing process I see in my clients’ experience. One of the hardest things about recovery, especially in a body that’s been at war with itself, can be the belief that the current state of things is forever. That the way you feel after a meal, the anxiety of trying something new or the discomfort in your skin will always be this way. But it won’t. That’s not how any of this works. In Buddhism, impermanence is one of the core truths of being alive. Everything moves. Everything changes. Even when it doesn’t feel like it. And when we start to notice even the tiniest shifts, that’s when we start building trust that we’re capable of moving through things. Sitting Still to Witness Change In Zen meditation (zazen), we sit still with eyes open to allow us to stay with what’s happening around us. That might sound simple, but when your mind is loud, your emotions are intense, or your body feels like a battleground, it can be very challenging. However, the more you stay, the more you realize that nothing stays the same. That each time you take a breath, something changes slightly. It might not be an enormous shift and you may not suddenly feel okay, but it’s a change and that’s what provides us with hope. You may notice yourself getting tired, you may become aware of an ache in your body, you might see the sun move across the wall. Sitting still in the moment teaches us that change is always happening, even if it's subtle. And when we bring that lens into recovery, it becomes a powerful way to relate to discomfort, urges, shame, and fear. How Impermanence Shows Up in Client Sessions I’ve had sessions where someone comes in feeling completely overwhelmed. Whilst that can be a difficult place to be, I never try to fix it right away. Instead, I encourage my clients to pause, notice, and at some point, when we’re not realising it, something shifts. Not everything, but enough to make space and to recognise the change. Enough to recognise that this moment is hard, but it’s not forever. A really important thing to note is that it’s not about denying what’s real. Instead, it’s about reminding ourselves that what’s real right now won’t always feel the same. That if we take time to recognise what’s going on, to dig deeper and to commit to supporting ourselves, things will become more bearable. Small Shifts Are Still Shifts I often say, if you were overwhelmed when the session started and now you feel 2% less overwhelmed, that matters. Our bodies and emotions are not static, which means there's always a possibility for change. It also helps in moments of intense physical discomfort. If you’re feeling uncomfortable in a certain outfit or bloated after a meal, it’s worth naming that discomfort while also wondering if you can gently shift your focus. Maybe you can focus on the world around you or a memory from a happy time. Not forever, just for this moment. Then come back and check in later and see what’s changed to remind yourself nothing lasts forever. Final Thoughts Impermanence isn’t about only having positive thoughts or pretending things don’t hurt. Eating disorder recovery is challenging, and there will be both good and bad days. It’s not about telling yourself to “just wait it out”, but about holding space for the fact that things can change, and that you are already changing. This path isn’t easy. But it’s real. And if you're here, reading this, you’re already in motion and I’m so pleased to have you with me. If you’re looking for support that makes room for nuance, for change, for the messiness of being human in a world that demands perfection, I’m here. Feel free to drop me a message [here]. |