Regain, ADHD and medication help

[Smanky 757]

I went away for a long time, got diagnosed with ADHD (suddenly my life makes so much sense...), and over the last five months I began to lose my grip on my diet and regain. My lowest was 65kg, my "happy place" was 67kg, and I regained back into the 70s at 73kg. The culprit? I allowed sugar back into my life. Never let sugar back in! It has no manners, touches your stuff and doesn't want to leave. Problem is, thanks in great part to my ADHD, I get addicted easily and tend to eat the same thing every day. When that thing is chocolate, I have a problem. I also have impulse control problems and when the food noise is raging, that's bad news.

Solution: GLP1s or Contrave. I have a great GP who understands me and didn't reject my request for help to get back to my "happy place" 67kg. We decided against GLP1s and went with Contave instead, which works on countering addiction. The food noise that was driving me crazy has stopped, I quit sugar week 1 and am back in control. I'm nearing the end of month 2 (of 4) and am just over 1kg away from being back to where I need to be. I've stopped being hard on myself for needing help, because even if I could control my impulses there's nothing wrong with medication that's designed to help.

Oh and the other thing that's been a game-changer for me: my partner got me a Fitbit. I realise I'm so behind on this it's like screaming "cars have computers?!?!" at a dealership, but being able to track my calories and see the deficit has made a huge difference.

So if you're neurodivergent and regaining, hopefully my experience with Contrave can help a little.

[SpartanMaker 1,465]

I'm glad you found something that's working for you. I tried Contrave years ago and it worked for a while, but then the effect faded. Hopefully that won't happen for you.

I also wanted to comment on sugar. There's a lot of evidence that our bodies were designed to seek out calorically dense foods (like fat and simple sugars), since historically food was a lot harder to come by. We see this even today in traditional hunter-gatherer societies. Honey is sometimes a significant part of their diet.

Imagine having to climb a tree, meanwhile getting stung multiple times, just to pull out a few handfuls of honeycomb. Interestingly, these people know to only take a part of the hive because they want the bees to stay at this location so the hunter can return to it over and over.

My point in telling you all that is that it's perfectly normal to crave sugar. If avoiding it for the rest of your life is something you're able to do, then I think that's great. If you know it's not something you can do forever, then you may need to make peace with the cravings and find a way to have some when you can, but be sure to "leave some of the hive alone" till next time.

Personally as an endurance athlete, I do consume a lot of simple carbs and so completely avoiding sugar just isn't really something I could do. Keep in mind that glucose (a simple sugar), is the primary fuel that your body uses. It stores glucose in the form of glycogen, but the reservoir is somewhat limited. This means that for longer, harder endurance efforts, it's important for me to consume simple sugars during those runs or rides that will help replenish my dwindling supply of glucose. My normal diet also consists of about 65% of my daily calories coming from carbs to help keep my glycogen supply as topped off as possible. This is a combination of both simple sugars and more complex carbs like fruits, vegetables, bread, Pasta, potatoes and rice. If I didn't do this, I simply could not exercise for the duration or at the intensity that I do.

My point here is that I've had to come to grips with the fact that for me, carbs are not the devil. They are in fact a necessary and healthy thing. This was a big change for me since historically as an obese individual, I tried to eat low carb most of the time. I now believe there are no bad foods and the best thing for me is to eat a wide variety of foods like most normal weight healthy folks do.

Please don't think I'm trying to tell you what you should do!

If what you're doing is working, that's fantastic!. I'm more responding to the comment you made that sugar was bad and we shouldn't eat it. For you that may be true, but it's not true for everyone, and certainly not for me.

Edited May 29 by SpartanMaker
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[Smanky 757]

I'm not talking natural sugars that occur in fruit etc. I'm talking processed. Totally understand what you're saying about sugar's role in a balanced diet, but for me, with my ADHD and tendency to get fixated and addicted fast - avoiding processed sugar is my fix for my situation.

As always with all things, YMMV.

[learn2cook 639]

Cars have computers?

I totally get you. White flour, processed sugar stuff just makes me dump. Even in small amounts I get crabby. Peace to you on your journey ☮️

[SpartanMaker 1,465]

1 hour ago, Smanky said:

I'm not talking natural sugars that occur in fruit etc. I'm talking processed. Totally understand what you're saying about sugar's role in a balanced diet, but for me, with my ADHD and tendency to get fixated and addicted fast - avoiding processed sugar is my fix for my situation.

As always with all things, YMMV.

Sure, I understand. It was just the way you worded your original post. It came across to me as if you were telling everyone else to avoid sugar. I wanted to make it clear that we're all different and some of actually do legitimately need it (or at least perform better when we have it).

[WendyJane 101]

With ADHD, your focus is get something in and get moving to the next task. You need to learn mindfulness and remember as a bari patient forever, you need to know your true hunger cues that happens below the neck. Sometimes you have hunger that is in your head. Head hunger is very true, and sometimes you need to take a pause and figure it out. When taking that pause, you must decide if the hunger is above or below the neck. If it is head hunger, which the Contrave will help with, you still need to make the decision to eat or not to eat. If the hunger is below the neck, then eat slowly, small bites and mindfully as well. Emotional eating is one of the biggest problems that bari patients have, and one must slow it down a bit and think and be mindful. This is really hard when you have ADHD but hopefully your doctor has you on ADHD meds to help you focus on your person. And I would be remiss to say that community is important and therapy can be done in a community with like minded and like surgically changed people. I would suggest some mindfulness though about joining BariNation and attend some of the groups they have run by professionally licensed people to help us through the rough times and learn mindfulness when it comes to food obsessions. I tried the Cinnamon Premier Protein shake and loved it, took my sugar urge away. Be well.