Healthier living, healthier eating, weight loss while Neurodiverse.

[WeirdPookah]

Can we have a thread here to discuss the unique challenges, difficulties and strengths of living a heathier life whilst being Neurodiverse?

(also love to have a space without NT's reading what the hell they think into simple advice!)

I think we can also have some specific things that will help us on this topic as well. I LOVE my smart spreadsheet for tracking that I eat over 40 varieties of plant foods a week. I kept it all last year and carried on so far.

Years ago, when I was single and had no children, I know I used my obsessive streak to focus on my weight loss and I had significant success, over half my body-weight!

Now I have a lot more to think about which makes things harder, husband, house, 2 children in school, activities for them etc.

But I have lost 25lb so far this year, continuing to work on plant food variety (which is fascinating!), got some exercises from physiotherapist to help my bad knee and trapped nerve in my spine so I can feel less decrepit!

So, please, it would be great to maintain a space to remind each other to drink some damn water, help find last minute recipes for those vegetables that your brain managed to forget existed, and celebrate the wins.

My recent success has been introducing porridge with a banana mid morning, when I wouldn't eat normally until the evening. I manage to do this 5 days out of 7. I have real struggles with food and eating.

@Mabelface that is a great success, it will help keep your body stable through the day. Oats are great for you. We had them with tinned prunes this morning. I leave them to soak in the prune juice and extra water overnight, so they just need heated through in the morning.

Really struggling with eating as all of my family have been ill with sickness bug. It's been so hard to manage and upset at all the end of term things my children have missed, including expensive music lessons!

It is so tiring thinking constantly about what is right to do.

I'm not a fan of oats unless they are made into something like cookies or flapjack unfortunately, but I would be interested in what the variety of plant foods you're eating are.

I definitely forget meals and individual foods exist. I'll eat them regularly for ages and then I don't for a bit and my brain just forgets about them. Several years ago now I lost 4st in about 6 months, I know I was calorie counting, I know I ate courgetti at least once a week. Can I remember what else I ate during that time? Of course not!

I also struggle with the delayed gratification if dieting. It's only recently listening to some podcasts on neurodiversity that I've realised that it's probably harder for me to wait and get the satisfaction of losing weight than to get the short burst of dopamine from eating some junk.

I have been doing Fast800 and the principles are great. Protein, good fats and my favourite - half fill your plate with veg. It's so simple and works for my ADHD brain.

Keeping low or no added sugar is also absolutely essential. I get massive brain fog on sugar.

@Skyliner1 I think I get great sensory joy from eating, crunchy stuff, or hot or cold... it's hard to pick better choices when I know how much I would enjoy eating a bowl of crisps.

The plant food variety tracking is really quite interesting to me. I made a simple spreadsheet, grouped some things to make it easier alphabetically, like citrus lemon, citrus orange, or nuts brazil, nuts cashew etc.
I aim for 40 different plant food varieties a week, but sometimes I have hit 60!
It encourages me to think to make different choices, we have bean burrito's for breakfast 4 days a week, but now I pick two different beans instead of just one. Or choose berry mixes for our weekend waffle breakfast instead of just a single fruit.

WeirdPookah I also like crunchy food, hot or cold. I cannot eat foods of certain textures, I'd describe my worst one as mushy, which I why I can't eat oats.

im going to try and record the different plant foods I eat this week and see how many I manage.

@Skyliner1 that's great! Remember different varieties of things count, like red cabbage or white, they have different nutrients etc so count as different! And tea counts as one!

My big texture squick is gritty, my youngest loves fresh figs, it just makes me shudder.

I don't like tea. I drink coffee, which I grind from the bean, would you count that?
I have had 13 plant foods today 😁
My problem is I will probably also have those 13 plant foods tomorrow.

I think it does count when ground from the bean, I usually only have that a weekends, I guess I should count it too!

It's been the easter holidays, it's a lot harder to eat better when my children are home and needing snacks (I give them pretty healthy stuff, I just don't need the extra they do!) and also the fact they were gifted a mountain of chocolate.

I'm excited by the blue masa cornmeal arriving today, going to make blue taco's with my tortilla press! well, when the weather is warmer and seems more like eating taco's!

I'll give this another try, bit sad there isn't an interest in it.

I'm down 44lbs now since January.

It's clearly sinking in to people it's rude to use somebody's body or weight as a topic of conversation, but a couple of other Mum's at school gates are clearly busting to ask, and keep dropping conversation starters of how they want to lose weight, or are losing a bit for going to wedding etc,. It's quite funny as I am not interested in discussing it publicly like that!