ADD and weight ---- ADD Tip o the Day 312

[doug puryear]

How many of us with ADD or ADHD have trouble with our weight?  Makes sense, because we tend to be impulsive, lack willpower, have lots of stress and anxiety (and try to eat it away).

Tangent - do we really lack willpower, in the sense of having less than normal,  or does our lack result from the fact that our ADD or ADHD causes us to need more willpower than normal?

Anyway, I must report that, for the moment, I have reached my goal weight, and not the most recent one, which I had adjusted upwards in surrender, but my original goal!  How, you may be asking. New strategies, of course:

1. drink water before lunch

2. substitute wine for scotch - fewer calories

3. alternate bites - usually have several foods per meal; try not to take two bites in a row of same food.  slows me down and I enjoy it more.

4. increased exercise - try to get it in those small open time slots on days I would've just skipped it before.

5. minimize bread

6. small lo calorie snacks between meals

7. watch out for the trap- " well, I -----, so I can------."  (ex had small breakfast -  have extra desert)

and I try to remember that this is a health and vanity issue, not a moral issue.

Note that this is NOT a DIET!!  Diets do not work, you almost always put on more than you lost.  This is a change in eating pattern.

Worked for me - lost  15 lbs.  This post is an attempt to "lock it in".  Think how embarrassed I will be if I have to tell you that I put it all back on over Christmas.

doug   

 

[Anahi Ortiz M.D.]

Good going Doug! I agree with you and most of the medical community does too - diets don't work! Common sense does - water, less hi cal foods and snacks, exercise and less carbs.

[doug puryear]

thank you.

i forgot to mention the ginger candies after lunch and dinner.  stop the appetite and the munchies

good luck

[Donata Joseph]

This is excellent. This is my biggest problem.... no consistency. I'll start off strong and in a few weeks on to the next thing. Thanks for this post.