Thank you for staying with us. Thank you. This is our final guest session for this year's conference. We're turning with... To something that every single one of us deals with, which is every day, which is food. And eating well with ADHD can be surprisingly Lawal hard. Planning, shopping, cooking, even remembering treats, run straight into executive function, overwhelm, and impulsivity. We've got here. She's a GP. She's trained as a GP. She's a nutritionist, she's an ADHD UK celebrity ambassador, which we're very grateful and very excited.

You probably know her from the telly. She's been a presenter on Channel four's Food Unwrapped. She co presented Channel four's How to Lose Weight Well. She was a resident doctor on Steph's Packed Lunch, and she was the medical expert on BBC two's Britain's Best Junior Doctors with Joe Brand. And Helen was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. She brings her own lived experience of ADHD and autism to work. And today she helps late diagnosed ADHD women make healthy eating feel doable. And I'm thrilled to have her here. And today she's busting the myths around healthy eating, sharing practical shortcuts for shopping and cooking. And please welcome Helen.

Hello. Hi, Henry. It's good to see you. Well, it's wonderful to see you and thank you for closing out the conference and being our celebrity ambassador and doing all you do for people with ADHD. So it's a big deal. Now I know we've got some slides for you, so I'll hand over to you and I'll bring up the slides.

Shortly afterwards, you'll see me disappear and then the slides come up. Thank you. Am I okay to share the slides at my end? Hopefully that'll be okay. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on and last but not least, hopefully, and it's been an amazing conference and I caught the end of the last talk in a very sensitive and important subject. And so, yeah, thank you to ADHD UK and for you, Henry personally, for creating this platform and giving people the space to really share some really important topics. This will be a little bit lighter and a nice note to end on hopefully with loads of practical tips. You might have to keep me in check with the time given we've started a bit later, but I believe I've got until about half five ish.

But I'm sure we'll muddle our way through. So let me share the slides, make sure that's all working okay. Hopefully, someone can confirm at that side that everything looks okay. Yeah. Seems to... Oh, hang on a minute. We'll start again. There we go. So I'm Helen. I'm an NHS GP and a nutritionist as Henry said. And I'm really pleased to spend this time with you and hopefully we're gonna get a lot of practical, you're going get a lot of practical tips out of this today. I work in a number of different areas. I work both in the NHS and also as a nutritionist. So running my own nutrition clinic, working with a lot of ADHD and ADHD clients supporting them with their food. I've worked for the National Autism Training Programme. I've.

Worked in an ADHD clinic as well, as well as working in a weight management clinic and prescribing some of the GLP medications. I'm moving my slides, they don't appear to be moving on what I'm sharing. I don't know if there's a bit of a lag there.

It won't be like you'll... I think you might need to share again because I think there's something... An issue is it? Oh, there we go. And we're back. And back.

And we mentioned as well that I have worked in the media about ten years now working various TV shows. Although I know we've slightly fallen out with channel four about the recent documentary. So we'll swiftly move on from that. I wanted to do a bit of a mindset check-in first with everyone. So we're going be talking about some topics around eating and some of you may be joining and have eating disorders and be struggling with disordered eating or struggling with your body weight. And so let's just first of all, approach all of this with curiosity and without judgement. So we're trying not to judge ourselves and be self critical towards ourselves and also extending that kindness and compassion to others and remembering that the.

Difference in neurodiversity and very much seeing this as a difference rather than a disorder. This isn't a problem we're trying to fix. We're trying to really understand ourselves and navigate various aspects of our health and our life and today we're going to be talking about health and nutrition. And let's really celebrate and embrace the diversity within new neurodiversity, but also different and we're all going to have very different experiences when it comes to eating and nutrition. I always like to share a bit of my personal story, so I don't just appear as a doctor that seems to have got their act together with their health and food because that's, that's doesn't represent the reality.

This is a picture of me as a baby and then starting primary school as well, and I spent my early years in Nigeria. And the reason I want to share this slide is because any any of you who are living with ADHD or any other neurodivergence won't have known at this stage that that was something that was within you. And in a way that time of our lives when we're a baby and we're young and we're a small child, you know, we're loved, we're accepted for who we are, for our tantrums, for our struggles and I.

Think it's important to remember that. And also when we're thinking of our own struggles in our own life and trying to be kind to ourselves and give ourselves that compassion, it really helps to visualise ourselves in our younger years as a child and it really helps to really soften some of that harsh criticism we have for one another. And I've had my highs and lows as well and it very much feels like that living with ADHD can very much feel like we're living that roller coaster of highs and lows. And so, although I consider myself to be determined, ambitious, creating and sensitive and almost that inner engine that a lot of us describe that drives us forward. You know, I really have had my struggles and continue to.

Navigate some of this with migraines, chronic pain, friendships, feeling... Going through times when I've had periods of depression and anxiety. And you will have also had your own struggles too. And most of us have a breaking point, don't we? Whether that's a mental health crisis or something that as an adult, if our diagnosis was in adulthood that tips us towards really seeking help. Mine was after the birth of my first and my newborn, sorry, my eldest, who's now 6.5, during the global pandemic as well. For some of you, it might be an illness that's tipped you over the edge going through menopause. We know that a lot of ADHD women present during menopause and due to the negative impact of the hormonal fluctuations on ADHD symptoms.

And what I want you to do and what you probably have already done is once you get that diagnosis or you have that realisation whether it's self diagnosed or formal diagnosis, we see life differently then don't we? It's almost like in that moment, nothing really changes, life is still the same, but yet everything changes because the way we view ourselves, the way we view the world changes and I call this the retrospectoscope. We look back at our lives, don't we, through a new lens. And for some of you, you may start exploring different parts of your life through this new lens and some of that may be to do with healthy eating. I wanted to share some of the.

Science, some of the data, some of the research we have on ADHD when it comes to healthy eating. My background is as a nutritionist, not a dietitian and so I help ADHDers to achieve that healthy balanced diet. And this is something I stumbled across following my own diagnosis and I was very aware of these struggles and yet really struggled to find much research that had been done in this area. But what we do know, and there was a meta analysis, which is one of the highest forms of evidence. What we do know is that ADHD is our increased risk of all eating disorder syndromes including anorexia, bulimia and binge eating. I see a lot of binge eating in the work that I do. And.

Also disordered eating. So you may have disordered eating without having a formal diagnosis. I've shared the link there in the QR code, if you are struggling or know someone that is with an eating disorder that you can go to the BEAT website. And I was really pleased to see an article in the British Dietetics Association where one of the dietitians actually highlighted all the things that I'd been seeing and all the problems I'd be supporting people within my programs and communities. And so just really great to see that validation of we can have difficulties ADHDers with meal planning, forgetting to eat, distractions whilst cooking, cooking feeling too much, the unplanned eating dieting and that changeable motivation.

So I want you to really feel validated and heard and seen in all of this. This isn't something that is in your head. This is a real challenge that you're really facing that a lot of us are. And we know that we can face and we're more likely to experience obesity, type two diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, ADHDs versus non ADHDs. And I've been working in weight loss clinics, medical weight management clinics prescribing Mounjaro and Wegovy and a lot of the patients I'm seeing are ADHD. And I'm really pleased that we then have an additional tool in the toolkit and additional medication that could be really helpful in managing obesity, which we should see as a disease, not a personal blame.

We also know there's common nutritional deficiencies in the, some of the literature, including magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, iron, omega three fatty acids and I see that most of the ADHD as I work with aren't eating enough protein, aren't eating enough fiber. And there's the ADHD tax, isn't it? Isn't there that we'll experience in many different areas of our life or the hidden cost. So there's this hidden cost or tax to some of these struggles. There's the money that you might be spending on takeaways often up to... One of my clients was spending up to £500 a month And not because she wanted to, but because it just felt like that was the only way to get food in and almost that impulsivity of ordering the food and needing food urgently.

The unwanted weight gain, which we've we've spoken about obesity already and diabetes. The food noise, a constant food noise that can be so draining to constantly be thinking about food and thinking about chocolate and sugary foods and thinking about our next meal. Or in contrast, to actually find that we don't get the hunger signals and we forget about food until it then becomes very urgent when we're ravenously hungry. So all this that we're managing behind the scenes, you know.

There's a lot going on there. And so what I wanted to do is really help you to understand why you're, why you might be having some of these struggles and to share some of the common themes that you might be navigating in your own life. And then what I want to do is share what Healthy Balance Diet looks like and to share some really practical tips to help you overcome some of the overwhelm around this. So the first thing is we've to remember executive function or executive dysfunction can create challenges around daily food decisions. So if we actually think about what executive function enables us to do in the brain, it enables us to prioritise, make decisions, initiate tasks, complete tasks.

All of these things and all that is hugely relevant, isn't it, to the foods that we're eating. You know, we have to decide actually, okay, what is a healthy balanced diet? What are the foods that should be on my plate or on my weekly shop? Then we have to select the recipes, again, decision making. We have to make a list of ingredients, decide on the items that are needed, then do the actual food shop, go to the supermarket. I don't go to supermarkets anymore, I do everything online. You've got the sensory elements of the freezer aisle, the noise, the lights being tempted, impulsivity around other foods in in different aisles, the shiny marketing of the food industry. I think, and then that that's before we even think about the cooking.

And then that everything's in your fridge that you've ordered from the food shop and then you open the fridge and then you're just hit by that sense of overwhelm. So executive dysfunction can explain some of the challenges that can be faced around healthy eating. As come that emotional dysregulation and this emotional roller coaster. And if we think about what emotional dysregulation is, it's that rapid mood shift, that ability to experience a range of emotions at any one day, emotional overreactivity and that difficulty in recovering from stress and almost feeling like we're in chronic stress. And what many of us are doing therefore is using food to cope with that.

And so it's important to express gratitude for our body and for what food has given us. It's given us that comfort, that consistency, a way of coping. It might give you the comfort, feel like it's giving you that dopamine hit. It might give you the stimulation when you're bored or the destruction when you're trying to get through a difficult tax, like a tax return. A way of almost feeling like it's soothing our nervous system. But of course it's not really helping us to process those things. It's just giving us a short term fix and actually can create more problems in the long term. The other thing that I see a lot is this confusion around what to eat, about what to eat. We're completely bombarded online about.

Diets, food trends and there was so much misinformation out there. There's one study that looked at TikTok and found that the majority of information on TikTok, on this topic is misinformation as convincing as the people are delivering it. And so we have to be so careful about that. There's these food fads and trends that come around, whether it's powdered forms of food or whether it's fasting or intermittent fasting and diets and things like that. And what this does is this confusion is.

Actually what should I be believing? And it adds to that overwhelm and what it can do is it can stop us from actually taking action because we don't know where to start and you don't waste all your energy starting on something unless you know that what you're following is actually evidence based and there's truth in it and it's actually gonna work. It's actually gonna improve your gut health, improve your energy and help you to feel better. And the other thing I want us to remember is some of these additional things that some of us may be dealing with every day. This is sensory sensitivities, textures of food, liking crunchy food and maybe.

Even needing that crunch in your jaw to do that crunchy feeling as a form of almost stimming, not liking certain foods, textures, sloppy foods. There's the emotional regulation I've mentioned, the executive function, the time blindness, losing track of time. No, it's it's, you know, it's actually 05:00 and I've not eaten all day. And that interoceptive awareness, which is the ability to... It's like the sixth sense in the body, the ability to be tuned into what the body needs, whether that's hunger, needing to go for a wee. And some of us may have been reduced interoceptive awareness, which means that maybe the hunger cues aren't as obvious until we're an eight out of 10 on the hunger scale.

And so all these challenges that we're facing and so we're viewing them through a neuro affirming lens. We're not saying they're problems, disorders, there's anything wrong with us. We're just considering that these are challenges we're facing and thinking about how we can work with these. And that's what I'd like to share is some of the strategies. But before we do that, it's really important to remember this thing that you would have heard of called the gut microbiome or the gut microbiota, which describes all the bacteria we have in our gut or you might have heard of the gut brain axis, but either way, is new information that we've learned in the past decade and is still evolving.

But we now know that the gut and the brain communicate directly. They communicate, it's a bi directional communication both ways and it's communicating through nerves. You'll have heard of the vagus nerve, the biggest nerve in the body, which runs down and goes into the gut. We also know that neurotransmitters are produced in the gut. So dopamine, serotonin, not necessarily the same ones that are in the brain, I'm not suggesting that they travel to the brain, but, but we know that they, they are produced in the gut. We also know that the brain has its own nervous system, it has its own brain and you might have heard of this term, the second brain called the enteric nervous system.

And so it would be wrong of us to ignore the gut and our gut health and therefore the foods we're eating, if we're living with a difference or a condition that affects the brain. And so really, really important therefore to think about the fibre we're eating in our diet and the stress that we're facing in everyday life. And so let's get into the practical elements. I want to really share some things that have been helpful for my clients in the group courses and the group programmes that I run. And the first one is thinking about executive function friendly, healthy eating strategies. So the first one is, and some of these you might go, oh, I can't do that or it doesn't feel accessible.

This is about experimenting, trying different things that work, that work for you, remembering that everyone is different. Even just spending ten or fifteen minutes every week to just think about the week ahead, looking in the diary, what's coming up can really, really help. Create a ritual around this, go to your favourite coffee shop and just spend ten minutes with a notepad, thinking about some of the meals you want to eat, whether you need a packed lunch that week and whether you're gonna organise takeaway.

Whether you need to do a little bit of cooking, whether you want to plan a food shop, just taking some time out just to think before it gets to the point where you're ravenously hungry and then you don't have time to think there's an urgency and an impulsivity around it. That can really, really, really help and it doesn't need to be much. You don't need to sit there and plan every single meal of every day. Just start by planning one meal or one snack and one lunch and build slowly and it will become easier. I promise you it will become easier. The second thing is if you can avoid going to the supermarket and it is accessible to you to be able to organise an online food shop.

Then really consider doing this because what you're doing therefore, and most of the apps for the supermarkets will allow you to just rinse and repeat and just duplicate a food shot every week. What you're then doing is you're taking the thinking out of it, you're automating things and you're not having to go into the supermarket. And if this feels like a big task to think about, oh god, now I've to pan on my meals for the week ahead. You don't have to do that. Just think of the weekly essentials. The things that you know you eat every week that you basically need to eat to survive. So bread and.

Some fruit, milk, cheese, eggs, these things. Put those on a food shop. So at least those things are turning up every week and on your doorstep at the same time, same place. Make it the same time, same place. So Sunday morning, booked my nurse Sunday morning at 07:30AM. I know it's quite early. I've got young children aged two and six, I'm up anyway. It just feels like a really nice way to end the week and to have a fridge full of food and saves me hours having to go to the supermarket. And then lastly, when you're cooking.

I don't want you to feel you have to batch cook everything. Some of you may be there and it may work really well for you. What I would start by doing is making a note of the meals that you can cook and you already cook. So the common ones will be things like spaghetti bolognese, maybe a curry and maybe a chilli, a pasta dish for example. Think about your regular meals and then really just focus on what you can add into them. And I'll be helping, I'll be sharing some of the tips on what's important to add into make a healthy balanced diet. Just focus on what can I add into this recipe that I'm already used to cooking? Can I add in a tin of beans? Could I add in a handful of spinach? Can I add in some.

Whole grain pasta? Can I do some simple swaps? So focus on what you get to eat and what you get to add in rather than feeling like you need to plan a whole new batch of recipes from scratch. And then if you are cooking and it is within your weekly food budget, try and cook twice the amount you eat and either freeze the second, the leftovers or keep them in the fridge and have them for breakfast, lunch, dinner the day after. And that is a way of being a lot more efficient and saving time. And then when we think about, I've already covered that, then we think about sugar cravings because sugar cravings can almost feel like they sabotage our good efforts, right? And we can have really good intentions.

And so what I want you to do is I want you to remember that identifying emotional triggers and cues is really important. I'll touch on that a little bit later. But trying to stabilise your blood sugar by increasing the amount of protein and fibre in your diet is so, so important. And we're already on this emotional roller coaster, aren't we? And some of us may be on this blood sugar roller coaster as well, which really, really isn't helping with how we feel our energy, our brains access to energy. And so focusing on the two p's protein and plants or protein and fibre.

And trying to increase those week on week, this isn't something you're suddenly going to do and be good at. Week on week as the months go by, really trying to increase those can really make such a huge difference. And I'm thinking of one particular ADHDer in her fifties and she went from secret eating chocolate to now not getting any sugar cravings at all, being able to order a dessert in a restaurant if she wants and losing about 12 kg in weight. All through these simple additions of adding more protein and fibre into her diet and understanding her relationship with food a bit better. So absolutely it's possible with the right support and approaching it the right way.

And lastly, before I go on to show what healthy balanced diet is and talk about protein and healthy fats and fibre, we need to make sure that the information we're consuming is evidence based. Question everything. Is this person that's telling me what to eat? What are their qualifications? Even I get imposter syndrome sometime, sometimes as someone who's, you know, I've been a doctor for sixteen years, I've got multiple degrees, sport and exercise science, nutrition, health coaching and all of these things. And so make sure you get... Are getting your information from people like me and you're questioning where it's coming from.

You want to know it's evidence based, ignore the food fats, ignore the trends and the things we need, really need to be focusing on are protein, fiber, healthy fats, getting all the micronutrients we need, so vitamins, minerals and potentially targeted supplements. So again, a huge market out there, isn't it? Really, the supplements I'm taking, they're really targeting the areas where I think I may be at risk of deficiency or can't get the nutrients I need. So an example of that might be, if you're vegetarian, are you getting enough B twelve and folate? Thinking about the vitamins that are important for brain, the b vitamins largely. Are you postnatal?

Do you have heavy periods? Are you breastfeeding? You might need to think about ferritin and folic acid. Most of us need to take, think about taking vitamin D, some of us at much higher doses than others. So really making sure that those are the questions you're asking when you're getting advice from a nutritionist or healthcare professional. You're really asking those questions to know that when you're spending your money on supplements, they're the right ones for you. And of course you can often get blood tests to check for some of these things as well, which I'd highly recommend. So I'm going to do a brief overview on what a healthy balanced diet is.

So we're starting with protein. It's everywhere at the moment protein, isn't it? So when we talk about protein, there's different sources of protein. You've got your meat sauces, chicken, beef, pork and turkey and fish as well, which isn't on there. I've just missed it off as a bit of a typo. Specifically, if you do eat fish and you are able to aim for two portions of oily fish a week, so that's important only for protein, but to make sure you're getting a good amount of omega three fatty acids. So salmon, sardines, mackerel, anchovies, pilchards.

For those of you who, that just gives you the itch, you just can't, the smell, the taste of some of these fishes, you can still eat white fish, it's not going to give you the same amount of omega threes. That's again where you may want to think about supplementation. Trying to limit red meat to one portion a week because of increased risk of bowel cancer with that limiting processed meat if you can as well. And chicken is a great source as is turkey, they're great sources of lean protein, meaning minimal fat. So if you're on a weight loss diet, you're gonna get, you know, you can potentially get more protein for less calories. Dairy, so things like cheese, milk, Greek yogurt, eggs and whey protein powder. There is some evidence for that.

And that would be trying to go for an unsweetened whey protein powder without any additives and using that as as a supplement, not as a meal replacement wherever possible, trying to get 80% of your protein from foods and from food sources rather than powder sources. And all of us, whether we are vegetarian, vegan or meat eaters, this is the area that most of us are lacking in and most people I'm I'm seeing and meeting aren't eating enough beans and legumes and pulses pulses and aren't eating enough seeds. So nuts and seeds and butters, nut butters, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, all of these things, almonds, walnuts, pecans.

And I always say if you're to buy one piece of kitchen equipment, it's a pestle and mortar, you can get them from TK Maxx or somewhere like that and quite cheap. You can just add a handful of mixed nuts in, grind it down so that you can just end up sprinkling them over. Savoury dishes. It goes quite well with Thai food for example, or some of the more spicy foods. Sprinkling over porridges, salads, and the same with seeds. Seeds are seeds are easy to sprinkle. So making your own diversity jar, jam packed with all these nuts and seeds and just having a handful of that on a couple of meals a day will really help you to increase the amount of plant based proteins, as well as fiber and and healthy fats that we see in nuts and seeds.

Adding in tinned beans wherever possible, frozen edamame, as long as you're cooking it before you eat it and tempeh tofu and tofu of course is great sources of soy. How much to eat? One to two, between 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kg of body weight. And if you're... And that is a range and for a reason, but that's what the literature suggests. If you're you're you're unhappy with your current weight or your BMI is elevated, you want to base this on your ideal body weight, not your current body weight. This is when I wish I could take questions, but hopefully at the end, if there's anything that comes up off the back of this, I'd be happy to share more.

And fiber, so talking about carbohydrates, but actually I prefer to talk about fiber because most of us are overeating carbohydrates like bread and pasta and actually, let's remember that the carbohydrates are in vegetables and and legumes and beans. And so we're focusing on fibre and aiming for 30 grams of fibre a day. In The UK, most of us are failing at that and getting more around 15 grams, actually women seem to be less successful in achieving that than men. But really thinking about all these different groups of whole grains.

Fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, I've already mentioned and you can see that you've seen overlapping food groups are going to appear in a lot of these categories. So beans and legumes have appeared in proteins, are also appearing in fibres and nuts and seeds as well and will also appear in the fats group. So thinking about fat, to really simplify this down, there's no such thing as a bad fat apart from a trans fat, which are the fats that are added to foods which have really long shelf lives and some of the shop bought snacks and and things. Although the guidelines and regulations have changed around trans fats in The UK, so we're seeing less trans fats appear in food. It's not that saturated fat is should be demonized. It's just that.

We need to make sure we're getting the monounsaturated fats or MUFAs and the polyunsaturated fats or PUFAs in our diet as well. We really need to make sure we're getting the variety of fats. So just to highlight a few of these, I always think of monounsaturated, the m for Mediterranean diet. So thinking about nuts, almonds, pecans, extra virgin olive oil and making sure we are going for an extra virgin olive oil, and avocado. Interestingly, lard actually contains some monounsaturated fats. I'm not suggesting you add lard into your diet, but it just goes to show. And then the polyunsaturated fats, this is when the omega threes and omega sixes come in really, really important for brain health.

And so really making sure we're getting the oily fish in if we can. And if we can't, then then there are certain types of spirulina algae, which will contain omega three fatty acids. Sunflower oil and walnuts are also a great source of polyunsaturated fatty acids as well. And then just before I talk about shortcuts, I haven't covered this because I can't cover everything today, but we do need to make sure we're eating the rainbow. So we're getting that range of colors in our diet through fruit and vegetable. So reds, oranges, yellows, purples, blues, whites, the full spectrum because by doing that, we're making sure we're getting the diversity and variety we need for true gut health and it really is about variety and diversity.

We're getting a range of antioxidants and polyphenols in, which is so important for gut health. And by getting a range of colors, we're also getting a range of vitamins and minerals, which is super important. So really thinking about the colour. You could even each week think, this week I'm going to focus on, I'm going to add red into my diet more, I'm going to add purple. So purple cabbage and purple grapes, you can get purple sprouting, broccoli for example, and approaching it that way. So eating the rainbow super, super important. And I want to give you permission, we've just got a couple of slides left now, but I really want to give you permission to take shortcuts. Listen, shortcuts are okay and this is where we have to really remember.

What we're dealing with on a daily basis when when we're ADHD or autistic. There was so much that we're trying to navigate and deal with. So we need give ourselves a break. The expectation is not to cook every meal from scratch and that is not what I do. But what we can do is be smart. We can use our creative minds, our amazing creative minds to think about shortcuts. So it's okay to take shortcuts with food if that is gonna enable you to actually eat, to eat when you're hungry rather than, you know, starving yourself and then potentially binge eating. If it's gonna allow you to add extra nutrients to your diet, extra fiber, extra protein.

It's gonna ease the burden of having to think about three meals a day, especially like if you've got a family, you've got children to feed and potentially like people with different preferences and different food allergies and food intolerances. So here are just some simple ideas. Use the freezer. For lunch today, I had an omelette, a four egg omelette because I was also cooking for my husband as well. I used frozen edamame beans and frozen mixed peppers. I sprinkled some turmeric in there and some paprika because remember spices are plants too and.

It was delicious and a handful of cheese and I know that that will have given me around 25 to 28 grams of protein. It's also given me the color I need, but I've used some frozen food and I'm okay with that. Buy those packets of microwave grains, have a look at the back of the packet, make sure you are just getting what you want in it, so possibly a little bit of oil in there, but the grains and things, but use those and those are great They'll give you two portions, you microwave them for a couple of minutes, you can add them in to any meal to give you the grains and so they might have quinoa in them or brown rice or different types of wild rice in them. So make the most of using the microwave, Using tinned foods I've already mentioned.

When we cook foods from a tin, you're gonna maximise the nutrition you're getting out of them if you're just using them straight from the tin, if they're already precooked. If we're reheating them again, then potentially we're gonna be depleting some of the nutrients by cooking them off. Something to think about. Some common tin foods, Mike, we've got our bottom cupboard and one of our like country cupboard is full of tins. So we've got black beans, lentils, haricot beans, red kidney beans, baked beans. We've got sweet corn in there. We've got the microwave grains and we've got tinned fish as well.

Using the meal kits pictured here and if that helps you, absolutely and some of them are really good now at saying this is how much protein you're going to get, how much fiber you're going get. I know they can be costly, but there is a way to use them in that on balance. Personally, I find that that there's often not enough food to end up cooking extra anyway. So they're not always cost effective, but there are some really good ones out there and it's worth experimenting. You can also get some great well balanced ready meals. As long as we're happy that we recognize all the ingredients in there and that the there's minimal processing, a lot of them will will cook them as you would at home and then just freeze them.

And so using those when needed, supplementing them with a portion of brown rice, you know, cooking off some quinoa and steaming some broccoli and some sweet corn and boost them and add to them. These are great options if you're wanting to break a takeaway habit, you could invest in some of these ready meals because they can be expensive and it's a great way of adding in nutrition and keeping the cost down from takeaways as well.

And giving yourself permission if you, you know, it is okay to get takeaways, plan ahead, think about what takeaway you're gonna get. Is this giving me a well balanced meal? How can I grade my takeaway in some of the the other ways I've mentioned by adding in extra veg? I'm gonna do my own brown rice and quinoa at home or use one of those microwave packets of grains. So hopefully these are some shortcuts that will give you some really good ideas and really giving yourself permission to just make life easier. And lastly, didn't want to finish without mentioning the emotional regulation strategies. The more that we can build up the non food related ways of regulating and coping our emotions, the less we're gonna rely on food. Like for me.

Going to the gym is is one of the key ways that I manage my emotions and also doing work and having a career that is really stimulates me in a good way. But there's lots of other small things that you can do, whether that's taking a bath to unwind, using breath work, mindfulness meditations, affirmations, restorative yoga, sound baths, some more extreme things like flotation tanks somatic dance, whatever it is to you, really work hard on finding what works for you that helps you to to cope and process your emotions. Don't skip this bit, it's super, super important and there's only so far that nutrition can get you without really spending some time on this.

And that's a bit of information. And if you want to scan the QR code, you'd be able to find out a little bit more about me and a bit more about the courses that I offer. I've got an healthy eating with ADHD course, which is available, which is just self paced. I've got a healthy eating boot camp coming up. I also offer one to one support. Please do give me a follow on Instagram and if you do have any questions, feel free to email me directly at hello@doctorHelenLawal.com. I'm happy to take any questions, Henry. I think I've done quite well with the time. You've done fantastic.... Questions.

Yeah. And that's actually been fantastic. That was a wonderful that was extraordinarily informative and useful. And obviously, this is something that touches us all.

Like, it's... Yeah. We have to eat Yeah. A.

And it's like... And when you're challenged in that area, it's... The impact is so enormous. Mhmm. And I thought you covered a lot very thoroughly and engagingly, so thank you. Oh, thank you. It's kind of you to say. We have a bunch of questions. I really do. And let me go with the most top voted one. I really struggle with executive function around food, which you touched on directly because it is important. Planning, prepping, cooking, and eating are all enormous separate tasks that I cannot often do on the same day. Eating itself can be extremely difficult in the moment. Breakfast can take an hour or more to eat. How can we trick ourselves into eating food right in front of us?

Interesting. Almost two different questions mixed in there. There's the executive function piece which hopefully I've touched on enough that we've covered a lot of that, but there's the tricking yourself into eating. I guess that's around the challenges of the meal being in front of you, but you're not being able to face that meal, and that could be for a number of different reasons. Am I actually hungry? Am I in such a high stress mode that actually, when we are in a high stress mode, you know, our body prioritizes putting blood to our brain and away from our gut. Is it that I don't want to actually eat the foods that are on my plate, it's just that I've been told that these are the foods I need to eat.

Do I have an eating disorder? Is there an element of disordered eating? Do I really need to check this out? But what I would say is, think about what foods you really enjoy. Really think about the foods that you enjoy. The foods that make you happy, and and the foods that bring you energy, the foods that you enjoyed looking at, you enjoy eating. What are the textures that you enjoy and that feel easily... Easy? And prioritize those before you start to think about what should I be eating. So think about what could I eat rather than what I should I eat and is there enough... Is there... Am I enjoying my food enough here?

I think that's really super important. And also remembering, I'm sure we'll come onto this, that maybe you'll find it difficult to eat because of the side effects of the medication medications you're on, whether it's ADHD stimulants or other medications that you're taking. Sometimes it can really impact on that appetite in the morning, which can have a huge impact because if we're skipping breakfast, this then means that it's sending us on that blood sugar roller coaster right from the get go, which can impact us throughout the day.

And I think interesting your point on that there seem to be too, as you say, the executive function around planning, prepping, cooking, eating, and the and the eating, which... And it's been, you know, some of that... Do you think you... It's been twenty... Tell me hours now. I'm definitely getting forgetful. I can't remember if I've got the film up, which is the breaking... The the really groundbreaking research a while back around autism and eating and... Well, eating disorders and autism, where there was discovered to be an extremely high percentage of those who were very significantly impacted by certain heating disorders were in fact autistic. That's right. And needing to look at that. Yeah. It meant that some of the interventions.

Were completely not fit for purpose because they were focused on hadn't considered texture, color, and other aspects that were really impacting people. Absolutely.

Yeah. I'm so glad you raised that. I think you're slightly alluding to avoidant restrictive food intake disorder as well, which is very common in autistic individuals, but also with anorexia. And what we see is with a... There's a large proportion of patients who ended up being admitted as an inpatient for eating disorders that end up having undiagnosed autism and having that... A condition that's not diagnosed does prolong those stays, and it does mean that the approaches that are being used just aren't suitable. So raising awareness is so important before it gets to the stage of needing to be an inpatient. Yeah, this yeah. Is.

Yeah. No. It really is. And it was one of those pieces of research that I just... Just so important. It make such a difference. Was also one of those which where you went, that feels like that was... Could have been quite obvious. But now it's been discovered. Obviously, you took the inspiration and the work to discover it, then once you... It said, you're like, that does sound about like that.

Yeah. I think we see that a lot, don't we, with like... Research is great because off the back of research, it means often then guidelines are changed and and services are created to support specific things. But most of us know what we're experiencing and what the struggles are and we can see that. And so this idea of our lived experience is so so important, isn't it? And something I think we need to be really confident to push and advocate for when we're speaking to a doctor or healthcare professional that this is my experience. There may not be any evidence for this yet, because no one's actually done a study on it because there's no funding there, but actually this is something that I'm experiencing or a pattern I'm noticing.

And that's sort of where my journey began with all of this, is I was speaking to the ADHD community and noticing the challenges they were having and the evidence... This research wasn't yet there, but this is what I was seeing and being told by them. And so, yeah, super important to remember that and really advocate for that if you feel you're experiencing something. It's totally valid even if there's not a study to back it up.

Lots of people are... So next question. Lots of people I know have with ADHD are now on Mounjaro or Wekovi. I'm like twenty eight hours people. I'm just... You are doing well. Yeah. Amazing.

Was like... Have you slept?

No. I did sleep. Oh, good. Part of the wonders of this is Australia takes over. Okay. And so I can get to sleep. And this year, they did not call me in the middle of the night, which was good. I don't think it was last year. I think it was prior. We've we've worked well together. It's nice. It's still a long couple of days. Yeah. Absolutely. Hang on in there. We're nearly there. No. It's wonderful. Honestly, it's a joy, a genuine joy. And I get to talk to you. I get to talk to many people. I get to listen and learn. And it's an absolute privilege. And it's it's it's absolutely wonderful. And all the comments that come in, the questions, the... It's it's something. And.

People genuinely from all around the world. Like, we have grown to a 150,000... A 150,000... 150 countries Yeah. With livestream in significant numbers, but I can talk to him the closing. The Monjaro, Wigavy, etcetera, can you take alongside ADHD medication? And what should someone think about before starting one? I think the bigger question just around those and ADHD.

Yeah. Yeah. I do. So I'm working in a wet medical weight management clinics prescribing these medications as well as... Yeah. So I do have experience in this.... Thoughts. Yeah. I do. I really do. And so they... These medications aren't a quick fix. They're an additional tool, so it's still important to remember and focus most of your energy and all the things we've discussed today alongside sleep and exercise. However... Reminds me of some other medication that, like, not a quick fix, but, like, really just is a helping hand. What one could I be thinking of?

It's ADHD medications.

Yeah. Well, it's really... It's the same. It's exactly the same. Yeah. They can be just... They can potentially be lifesaving. Yeah. And really effective. So first of all, there's no actual evidence, no research what we were saying about these medications specifically in in off license use in ADHD. But what was... What I'm seeing is that people are reporting that with these medications, Mounjaro and Wegovy, and there are other ones available, and the food noise is silenced. And so that that... Yeah. So it takes away the food noise largely.

I'd never... I only recently heard that phrase and I thought... And I... About food noise and people talking about how impactful it is that it's quietened down. Yeah. And it it made me recognize actually the good fortune I have that I don't have that. Yeah. And and actually how intolerant and difficult the discussion's been and about people who are struggling with something that's very different from what others are struggling with, but they are getting measured against the same. That's what Ben reminds me of something else. What could that be?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So they can be really effective. They act on the brain, don't they? And if you think about that acting on the reward pathways in the brain, if we think about ADHD and those reward pathways. They're also acting on the gut, and if we think about gut health. And so we know that they reduce food noise, they reduce appetite, and therefore cause us to eat less and eat in a calorie deficit and lose weight. We know that they increase insulin sensitivity in the body, which helps us to metabolise sugar in the body and help with metabolism. Other things we're seeing like they reduce inflammation generally, so people are reporting that, oh my aches and pains are going.

I've got patients who have come off their cholesterol medications, they've off their blood pressure medications. And so, potentially, really really helpful if you meet the eligibility criteria. It's different in the NHS to what it is privately, but if you're going to... For a private provider, what I would say is just make sure it's a validated private provider where you're getting these medications. It's from, there are some fake drugs out there, so one that you recognise. And you would need a BMI of over thirty or over twenty seven with some of the other comorbidities like pre diabetes, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, etcetera.

And so potentially an option for people, but what's interesting about them is they, in a way, some of the side effects are different to some of the stimulant medications. Right? This making you not feel hungry, reducing your appetite, but then it leaves you with the new problem of, now I'm not eating at all or thinking about food at all, but I still need to eat. And so, yeah, and so this is when we need to think of more practical strategies for how we really approach that. Make sure And that the weight management for stimulant medication is a... Is obviously something of concern.

And recently had my medication review, and I've had to weigh myself. Because there is... But essentially, I think what you're... In terms of answering some of the... You've answered actually a lot more than the question and been very informative for people. But in terms of taking alongside ADHD medication, I think the answer is talk to your physician. Yeah. Yeah. It's not something that is not inherently possible. There's no absolute contraindication.

It's assessed on a case by case basis based on other criteria, other medications that you might be taking, and other past medical problems that may exclude you or include you in being able to take these medications, but potentially worth a discussion with your GP or a private health care provider.

We've had another question similar to one previously. I really struggle to even get the appetite to eat. I'm 14, I've been diagnosed with ADHD this year. I'm female, single, have no children to feed. My ADHD report stated I basically neglect myself. I just get so overwhelmed, and then I can be really picky and fussy. I think I'm also autistic, but that is a journey for another day.

Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. And those are some of the real challenges, aren't they? And often we talk about obesity and weight loss, but actually there is the other side of not wanting to eat, not needing to eat. But we do need that nourishment. We need the energy, don't we, to fuel our brains and our bodies and to keep our gut healthy. And I think that's why it's definitely worth exploring what support is out there. And then you don't have to navigate this alone. There's always support out there. And exploring what could work for you personally. And remembering that it's okay to have five small snacks a day if that helps you to eat. You don't have to think about food as three set meals a day. And.

You can find out what works for you and just be flexible and open to experimenting with different ways and not necessarily feeling you have to do things and not the neurotypical the neurotypical way of That's a lot.

Like, you know, recognizing that maybe you're gonna be doing something a bit different, but it's... Yeah. This is what works for you. And actually, that is... That's a big deal. Yeah. For those of us with ADHD, is there any specific nutritional support available to help with food overwhelm? My relationship with food has always been very all or nothing. Either I don't want to eat, or I crave food that isn't particularly nutritious. I love food, but I hate cooking. And my distractibility can even make cooking unsafe. Mhmm. I'm on... Actually, I can't... Yeah. I'm on Concerta XL.

Which in need to be suppressed my appetite, but it's now back with a vengeance. I'm struggling to know where to turn for support. My GP doesn't seem to take it seriously. What help is available?

Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sorry that you've reached out, and it's hard when we reach out about a problem and we're told, sorry, there is no help. And that's partly why I've created the course I've created, the boot camps I've created in my one to one programme, because I saw that there wasn't anything out there for individuals who don't have a eating disorder diagnosis and don't fit that criteria, and who really are recognising that this is a struggle. And what I would say is that it's always worth exploring if you're not already on ADHD medications, because if you do struggle with binge eating for example, some of the ADHD medications, I'm thinking of lisdexamfetamine.

Can actually help with with that. It's actually licensed in The US to treat binge eating disorder. So, I always say that if you have unmedicated, untreated ADHD, it's probably worth considering that because sometimes treating that effectively with ADHD medications and therapy and the usual ways that you would treat ADHD can actually have a positive effect on eating. But separate to that, something that I... That's the sort of support that I can absolute absolutely offer and and help with, whether it's through my online course or through some of the support groups. And I I do a monthly support group for ADHD UK So as there is the support out there. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's... Yeah. Thank you for doing that. Yes. And all our support groups are free, but donate if you can. Helen donates her time and is there to help. And it's a wonderful thing that she does and we're very grateful for it. And she's an ADHD UK ambassador, she's a celebrity. You've seen her on your screens and all around just wonderful. I really grateful you've been part of the conference. Thank you so much for doing that. Thank you for having me. Very, very valuable. We've got to say goodbye to you. We need to give you the thank you. Oh, now, we'll have to talk amongst ourselves very quickly, once I discover that I take the bus in this. Now that I needed to do. I'm.

Very, very grateful. It's a big a big build up, Henry. It's a big build up. I need to, like...

Thank you. Oh, there we go. It's worth the wait. Oh, thank you. That's lovely. Absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Well, thank you so much. Thank you for for doing this. Thank you. This is the way conferences should end, like, when they're online. It's... Yeah. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you for being part of the conference. Thank you for being an ADHD UK ambassador. Thank you for all the work you do. Thank you for doing the support groups. Thank.