I ate too many sweets…

A C/W - intentional weight management (right at the end of the blog)

Almost three months in and I’m realising that medication isn’t everything. Without the skills I learned from Martin (my ADHD coach) at Zems Academy, I would not be where I am now. So one of the things that coaching doesn’t fix is my relationship with food. 

This morning I woke up feeling so nauseated and sick because I ate a buttload of sweets and chocolate last night.

We’ve had a big wicker bowl full of sweets and chocolate on the coffee table left over from Halloween. It’s within arms reach and I just snack snack snack all night and wake up feeling rubbish.

So today, I have put most of the sweets in Tupperware in a cupboard (out of my eyeline) and moved the fruit into the wicker bowl. 

Shopping tomorrow so there'll be more than lemons and apples

We got a lovely gift from the boys across the road last week - some cute and kitschy glass candy dishes, so I’ve put some wrapped sweets in the candy bowls and put them on the mantelpiece out of arms reach! 

How cute is the dish?

So now I can have a couple of chocolates at night, but if I want more, I’ll have to go ALL THE WAY TO THE DINING ROOM to get them! Who are we kidding? I’d be better burying them in a locked box in the garden! But I have to do something. Sugar has always been my biggest weakness, and I don’t want to end up with heart disease or diabetes.

Food doesn’t give me as much dopamine as it used to, but I still snack, and as I mentioned, it’s usually in the evening after work. The meds seems to be wearing off around 6 or 7 o’clock and then the ADHD paralysis kicks in. After I’ve made dinner, I lay on the sofa snacking on sweet stuff until bedtime, and then just scroll on my phone until I drop off (I even snack in bed some nights). It fills me with shame more than it ever has, because it isn’t even giving me any pleasure anymore… it’s just the default that my brain goes to when it is dopamine seeking. 

I think I might need to increase my dose slightly (I have an appointment with my psychiatrist on the 22nd) or split my dose a bit so I get an extra boost in the afternoon.

My weight is stable, so that’s one challenge I’m still managing, but I’m not able to exercise as much at the moment either because of my joint pain, so I’ll just have to keep an eye on it.