Welcome to ADD & Fit!
This website is about EMPOWERING YOU to become aware of your unique brain wiring, accept and honor your nature, and find your own answers to REACH THE FITNESS GOALS you’ve been dreaming of!
Scientific evidence, practical wisdom, & true inspiration brought together to help wonderful women with slightly wandering minds find the support they need TO GET A FIT, STRONG, and HEALTHY BODY!
Do you want to get in great shape for good, live a healthier, happier and more functional life? Since you’ve landed on this page, big chances are this is exactly what you’re aiming for!
We all know that it’s not that easy to get in shape and most importantly, stay in shape. Of course, you don’t have to have ADHD to struggle with a weight loss and getting fit.
- Our bodies don’t really like changes overall. And they definitely don’t like losing weight. It’s uncomfortable and anti-survival.
- Anyone’s brain can get hijacked by modern food and block weight loss.
- Any person that underwent a number of crash diets over the course of life can have issues with poor digestion and slow metabolism which hampers the positive body transformations.
- We all have our daily hassles, jobs, families, and chores that seem to leave us no time for exercising, cooking healthy meals, and simply taking “me-time” to relax and recharge.
- Anyone can get lost in the flow of contradictory information on what to eat and how to train for the best results.
- Any woman can have stubborn 5, 10, or even 20 or 30 pounds that just won’t leave no matter how hard she works for it.
Why is it challenging for people with ADHD to control their diet and lifestyle?
Lack of motivation.
We are naturally deficient in the excitatory neurotransmitter called dopamine in the parts of the brain responsible for executive function. Dopamine has a variety of functions one of which is motivation.
It’s not that the personal steam completely is completely absent. The problem is it only occurs when we anticipate a great (and preferably instant) pleasure or reward or when we fear something unpleasant to happen unless we do what we’ve got to do.
We have zero motivation toward the tasks we perceive as boring, uncomfortable, or attention-consuming and keep procrastinating until the last moment. But it’s not really something we can control! It’s not just a matter of willpower.
Our brains lack the required chemicals to get us going if that’s not something we have a strong and immediate interest in. No wonder why it’s not easy for most of us to elicit and maintain positive lifestyle changes like spending time and energy for meal prep and exercising regularly.
Adults with ADHD often hear criticism from the people around, like “You’re lazy,” or “You just don’t want it that bad.” And it always feels really unfair because we often push ourselves as hard as we can, but it’s just still not enough… It’s like to tell a person with Type 1 Diabetes whose body doesn’t produce enough insulin, “You just need to try harder.”
Anything that uses up our executive function like overcoming a stressful situation, decision making, controlling emotions, restricting food we enjoy or pushing ourselves to do something we hate rapidly depletes dopamine levels, often leaving us both physically and mentally exhausted.
Dopamine crash has a detrimental effect on mood, cognition, and behavior. That’s the time when we start making some bad choices to feel good again. Sugar, caffeine, or tobacco, for example, are some of the easiest and the most popular ways to restore dopamine. Unfortunately, these are not the ideal options in terms of health though…
We struggle with planning and doing things in order.
Without a good plan that suits the current health and fitness level, desired outcomes, and personality type the chances to sustain the efforts are quite slim.
Rather than starting from the beginning, we tend to jump in the middle of the task and work in all directions at once. We are the people who can go from not stepping a foot into the gym and eating whatever we want to
Insecurity.
Since nothing really gets done the person with ADHD can often become discouraged and unmotivated. She starts running these conversations in her head about being so weak-willed and what that means about what kind of person she is…
Unfortunately, feeling like a failure over and over again can make anyone drown in sabotaging thoughts like, “Why am I even keep trying?” and eventually give up on the dreams.
Poor time management.
ADHD brain is never at rest. We keep ten different things to do in our minds and having troubles estimating how much time they will take. They call it “time-blindness”.
Just try to remember: how often have you committed yourself to too many activities and wasn’t able to focus on and do properly neither one of them? How often it happened that day after day, you skipped a planned workout because you had all these other tasks that you thought you could handle just before you leave?
Or you might feel so overwhelmed by everything you’ve got on your plate and don’t even know where to start. So… you don’t. And instead, spend countless hours on something insignificant convincing yourself that you’ll start on Monday for sure. Classic.
We can push ourselves to the limit only to fall apart right after.
We CAN handle stressful situations and crises with ease. Because we have that ability to “hyper-focus” and go all-in to solve the issue. But the question is – what happens after when things become routine again? Productivity comes to us at a high cost.
For a lot of people, these “break” times can be very problematic because they stop getting those stimuli that drove and motivated them and started to feel like they’ve deserved “a little reward” (or maybe a big one). The next thing they know – their diet is all over the place and they are completely off the track with their training.
Speaking of training, the habit to push ourselves to the limit often manifests in choosing high-intensity workouts. If you’re following me on Instagram, you know how much I love them myself. We feel like we need to “kill it” every single time we go to the gym because this gives us that adrenaline rush and makes us feel good. But the problem is the moment when we come back home and want to devour any edible thing we can find…
Or combined with a high-stressful environment that we often tend to pick for ourselves to stay engaged and energetic throughout a day, additional stress that comes from high-intensity training can quickly throw us into adrenal burn-out. And our bodies actually tend to keep or even gain more fat because it’s one of their main survival mechanisms when put under a lot of stress. I’ve seen this so many times at the gym when women work out so hard only to see their bellies grow bigger. For me, it’s one of the hardest things to convince them that maybe it’s a sign they need to lose that grip a little.
Impulsivity.
People with ADHD tend to act without thinking or anticipating the potential consequences and have a hard time prioritizing long-term goals and learning from the past. When we run short on willpower we can turn to unhealthy choices that are meant to restore it without even giving it a second thought.
Above other functions, dopamine provides feelings of pleasure and satisfaction as part of the reward system. So we love things that spike it up and make us feel good. Like sitting on the couch, watching the favorite TV-show with a bowl of ice cream on the lap, for example. At the moment, this idea seems much more rewarding than getting up and going to the gym, right? Or grabbing a pack of chips at lunch instead of taking a short walk outside to recharge and clear the head. Or reaching for another cigarette when bored. And so forth.
The desire to act on the urge can be so strong at times that we totally forget about who we really want to be and what we want to achieve.
Then, of course, the guilt comes. Feeling powerless in front of the cravings leads to less motivation and more bad choices. And before we even know it we’re spiraling down thinking, “What a hell… I might as well eat everything under the sun since I already messed up my diet anyway.”
Higher predisposition to disordered eating habits.
Our brains learn pretty fast what are the easiest and most certain ways to get that dopamine rush. Sugar as well as processed foods, in general, are the most socially excepted “drugs” so there is no surprise that we get hooked on them quite easily. We also have a much harder time to get off of them because our brains keep craving an immediate reward and they know exactly how to get it fast. This is essentially a mantra for food addiction.
Issues with sleep.
It’s hard for many people with ADHD to quiet their minds once it’s time for bed, especially if they rely on stimulants during a day to keep them alert and focused. It’s a vicious cycle of staying up late because they just can’t relax, waking up drained and unmotivated, and using coffee and meds to fight the sleepiness and brain fog which interferes with their circadian rhythms. Sleep deprivation, in turn, further worsens the symptoms of ADHD and inhibits fat loss and muscle gain.
Keeping all that in mind, there is no surprise why ADHD is linked to poor eating habits, sedentary lifestyle, and obesity.
Again, I’m not saying that other people don’t have any of these problems or each person with ADHD struggle with all of the issues listed above.
But for ADHDers trying to bring dopamine to a functional level is the every-day battle. Yes, we shouldn’t use our brain wiring as an excuse but we can’t just ignore it either.
I honestly think that in terms of sustaining a healthy, structured lifestyle we have to put twice as much effort compared to other people. We have to follow a more rigid plan and be much more careful about our daily decisions because our chances to fall off the wagon are higher from the start.
But it absolutely doesn’t mean we can’t get what we want!
I also have to mention that while there are many common personality traits that ADHDers might share, we’re all still very different. We have different health, age, genetics, fitness level, body composition, families, jobs, and so forth.
The website designed for women
As a personal trainer, I mostly work with women. I’ve studied women’s body and how it responds to changes in training, eating habits, and mindset from all the possible perspectives. Because of my knowledge and experience, I think I can be at a much better service when it comes to female physique and health.
There is no doubt that the exercise and diet protocols for women won’t look the same with the ones for men. We have different hormonal levels, the way we store body fat, muscle fiber-types distribution, the weak areas of the body, the body parts that we like to develop better, the psychological aspect of the training, the list can go on and on.
My personal interest is in helping women transform their bodies. This is where I have the highest level of expertise. This is what I’m passionate about!
Another big reason why I decided to make this website for women is that there seem to be differences between symptoms and behavioral patterns in men and women with ADHD.
Signs of ADHD are often overlooked in girls because they tend to fall onto the attention-deficit spectrum rather than hyperactive. Of course, there are always some exceptions to the rule. But without early diagnosis and treatment, we’re more likely to carry the symptoms and comorbid problems into adulthood.
Even though the research in ADHD in females is still limited, at this point it’s fair to say that women are more prone to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, weaker emotional control, mental fogginess, dysregulated eating patterns, and obesity. We face exacerbated symptoms of ADHD during periods and menopause when estrogen levels drop leading to greater irritability, poor mood, sleep, and concentration. We often try to compensate by developing different coping mechanisms and reaching for perfection but still live in a constant state of overwhelm and desperation. Women have a tendency to struggle with their symptoms in secret and isolation because they feel ashamed of not being able to self-regulate and pursue their dreams.
As women, we need to learn to accept and love our nature, embrace our unique strengths and capabilities, let go of guilt and shame, and build our environments in which we can thrive!
My goal here is to encourage you to expand self-knowledge and discover the actions that are adapted to your specific situation to find out what works best for you and what doesn’t.
No matter where you’re right now, I want you to know that there is never too late to start taking care of your body! Your future is in your hands! You have the power to effectively rewire your brain and become the best possible version of yourself!
You can also apply for my “ADD & Fit” private online consultation and get an opportunity to receive personalized fitness assessment & guidelines!