ADHD and Food: Understanding the Binge-Restrict Cycle
If your relationship with food swings between forgetting to eat for hours and then not being able to stop once you finally do, this episode names exactly what's happening. Jenna shares results from a poll of 700 ADHDers about their relationship with food and walks through what a healthy relationship with food actually looks like once dysregulation gets factored in.
She traces her own path from restrictive eating and body image struggles as a teenager to over a decade of intuitive eating, and ties that shift directly to the regulation work she teaches now. The swing between forgetting to eat and later bingeing traces back to a primal survival response. Going six hours without food registers in the body the same way an actual famine would, and hunger cues get easier to trust as regulation improves, no extra food rules required.
Here’s what’s covered:
Why binge eating showed up as the top food struggle in Jenna's poll of 700 ADHDers, well ahead of appetite loss from medication
How restriction doesn't have to be intentional; six hours without eating triggers the same response in the body as a famine
Why honoring hunger cues, not tightening control over food, is what actually breaks the restrict-binge cycle
How diet culture and beliefs about good and bad foods add pressure to the swing, even for people who assume body image has nothing to do with their food struggle
What's really driving emotional eating, and why the urge to reach for certain foods is often dysregulation wearing an emotion's face
Jenna makes the case that intuitive eating and nervous system regulation work as one process, not two separate solutions, in healing your relationship with food. Regulated, you can hear hunger signals clearly enough to trust food again instead of white-knuckling through another rulebook.
"Restriction, regardless of the reason, is like holding your breath and then expecting yourself to breathe normally when you come out of the water.”
Jenna also pushes back on the instinct to keep the pressure on as insurance against future mistakes. Letting yourself off the hook isn't the same as letting things slide. It's what actually creates the calm, clear-headed state where you catch the milk on the shelf in the first place.
Jenna's free ADHD Regulation Guide is a solid next step if any of this hit close to home.
For therapists and coaches who want a regulation-first framework for clients dealing with food and body struggles, the ADHD Regulation Method certification waitlist is open ahead of the September 2026 launch.
More on this approach is in The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, available at your local bookstore and library.
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More about ADHD with Jenna Free
ADHD with Jenna Free is a podcast for adults with ADHD who are done surviving their symptoms and ready to start thriving with ADHD, without the endless tips, hacks, and workarounds that have never really fixed anything. It's also the show where therapists, coaches, and counselors come to deepen their understanding of treating ADHD in adults and learn what regulation-based care looks like in practice.
Hosted by Jenna Free, a Canadian Certified Counselor (CCC) and ADHD therapist, this show exists to give you a completely different way of understanding ADHD in adults. You're stuck, overwhelmed, and exhausted because your brain is running on fight-or-flight. Willpower was never the solution, and once you understand that, everything changes.
I’ll answer questions like:
Do I have ADHD?
What is ADHD task paralysis, and how do I get unstuck?
Why is my ADHD getting worse in my 40s?
What do ADHD and perimenopause do to your brain?
How do I manage ADHD emotional dysregulation without medication alone?
Why do I procrastinate so much with ADHD?
Why don't ADHD tips and tricks ever work long-term?
What does it look like to thrive with ADHD?
What does nervous system regulation have to do with ADHD?
How do I stop feeling overwhelmed with ADHD?
How do I get trained to treat ADHD in adults using a regulation-based approach?
What does ADHD therapist training through a regulation framework actually cover?
This podcast covers the full experience of living with adult ADHD: the real science behind procrastination in ADHD and ADHD task paralysis, why ADHD and perimenopause collide in ways no one talks about, and the solution-focused conversations most ADHD podcasts aren't having. For practitioners, Jenna also gets into the clinical side: what nervous system regulation training looks like, how to apply a regulation framework with clients, and what ADHD coach certification and ADHD therapist training often omit. Jenna shares her own story throughout, what it looks like to go from chronically dysregulated to thriving, so whether you're living with ADHD or working with people who are, you can see what's possible.
This show gives adults with ADHD, newly navigating a late diagnosis, and clinicians seeking ADHD continuing education one thing: a clear path toward healing
If you're an adult with ADHD who's tired of the commiseration and ready for a show that believes your life can look completely different, or a practitioner who wants to understand ADHD at the nervous system level, you're in the right place.
The unedited transcript for this episode of ADHD with Jenna
Survey Insights From ADHDers
Jenna Free [00:01:02 - 00:02:01]: So almost everybody had some level of struggle with food of these ADHDers, and some more than others. Another question I asked was, what is the core issue that you have with food? So 37% of people said binge eating, 18% said not eating enough, 8% said no appetite, and 37% said not eating well, quote unquote. This is very interesting because I think a lot of the content we see out there about ADHD and eating can often be wrapped around, you know, meds and having no appetite. But that was the lowest rating, was only 8%. So it's more so overeating, binge eating, which is different than overeating, but eating more than we would like to or not eating in a way we would like to. And then of course, for some people, it's not eating enough. But that is a really interesting observation, I think. And I also asked if their issues were more body image related, no appetite because of meds, just forget to eat and then binge, and dieting and being on a roller coaster.
The Most Common Food Pattern: Forgetting & Binging
Jenna Free [00:02:02 - 00:02:34]: So the top 2 were— number one was just forget to eat and then binge. So that is what we're going to be focusing on a lot here. And 23% said body image related. All right, so that's a bit of a lay of the land. For most ADHDers, we likely are dealing with some food struggle. I believe only 3% of the 700 people who replied said they have no issue with food. So there's probably some sort of issue you're having with food or a tricky relationship with it. It's very likely tied to dysregulation and this habit, this swinging of extremes from not eating enough to eating too much.
Diet Culture, Extremes, & Jenna's Story
Jenna Free [00:02:34 - 00:03:04]: And there might be some diet culture and weight stuff intertwined, and that's what we're going to be going into. So let's dive in. So first, I wanted to share a little bit about my story with food and the ADHD brain and how all that worked out for me. So when I was 16, I decided I wanted to lose some weight. This is how it started. Like I mentioned, it was a little bit more body image related. I was teased for my weight as a kid, and I wanted to change that. I did probably have an eating disorder at one point, a bit maybe orthorexia, just so healthy focused.Jenna Free [00:03:04 - 00:03:41]: I never didn't eat, but I was very rigid about how I ate. So my weight and body image were very tied into this. And I know that might not be the case for you, but hang in there, we're still gonna talk about relationship with food and how the ADHD brain is tied into all of this. So I really began my journey by just understanding that I couldn't, you know, diet anymore. I just couldn't. I couldn't be so rigid about what I was eating. And so for me, that just started with, hey, I'm just going to eat food when I want to eat food. And slowly my body did start to find more balance naturally because I wasn't pulling the pendulum so far to the not eating enough side anymore.
Regulation, Intuitive Eating, & Recovery
Jenna Free [00:03:42 - 00:04:33]: And that's what's really cool. Eventually I did get into intuitive eating and learning about that as a concept, but I would say I really found that naturally before I found the book and the official framework of intuitive eating, which we are going to talk a little bit about today. But it is a very natural way to eat. It is intuitive. So you don't necessarily need to know the pillars and the principles of intuitive eating. But because we are so checked out of our intuition and our intuitive ability to eat in a healthier way, Meaning a healthy relationship with food, we kind of do need to be aware of the things that are getting us stuck. So I also now reflecting back see how much regulation was a part of my healing my relationship with food. I didn't have that word at the time, and I didn't understand that at the time.Jenna Free [00:04:34 - 00:05:20]: But now I can see so much in that experience, which actually has informed my work in ADHD a lot as well as how I did that with my relationship with food. So it's very similar. So if you are looking to find more balance with food, let's dive into what kind of things you can work on to create a healthier relationship with it. Just as a little hope or happy story, I will report that I have now been an intuitive eater for over 10 years. I know that I will never binge again. Like, that part of me has been healed where that pendulum is no longer swinging back and forth, that I couldn't even binge if I tried. Like, yeah, I can eat a lot, but again, like I say, that's different than a binge. A binge is very much a counteraction of that restriction for whatever reason restriction is occurring.
Jenna Free [00:05:21 - 00:06:10]: And that's gone in me. My relationship with food is very balanced. So that's the magic of regulation and intuitive eating. So this work, both regulation for your ADHD brain and regulation and intuitive eating for your relationship with food as an ADHDer, really can create lasting lifelong change. And that's the kind of work I'm all about, is what is the deep work we can do so that you can change this situation for the rest of your life? It's not like, what's a meal plan so I can find balance? What's a calendar I can use so I can hold myself accountable? Those types of things are a flash in the pan. We want real, real transformation here. So that's what we're going to talk about with food today. So what is a healthy relationship with food? A healthy relationship with food is characterized by viewing food as a source of nourishment and enjoyment, not as a means of punishment or reward.
Defining a Healthy Relationship With Food
Jenna Free [00:06:10 - 00:06:58]: It involves listening to your body's hunger and fullness cues, which right now for you might be a little wonky. We're going to talk about that. Eating without guilt, finding pleasure in social and cultural aspects of food. It also includes avoiding restrictive diets and negative self-talk about food choices. I got that just online saying what's the definition of a healthy relationship with food, but I would also add in there some form of balance, right? If you are in any sort of extremes with food, that's not a healthy relationship with it. So if you don't eat, don't eat, don't eat, eat a ton, don't eat, don't eat, don't eat, eat a ton, That is that pendulum, that dysregulation. Regulation means middle ground, finding balance, a sustainable rhythm. Dysregulation, right? If your temperature is dysregulated, you're like too hot, then you're too cold, then you're too hot, then you're too cold, and you're never in that middle ground.Jenna Free [00:06:58 - 00:07:42]: It's kind of like that. So I have found that the best way to achieve a healthy relationship with food is through intuitive eating and regulation work combined. So I'm going to share a few of the main principles of intuitive eating that you can start considering for yourself. You can start observing where you might wanna start working on your relationship with food. So the first is ditching diet culture. So I have mentioned this a little bit already, and although your food struggles may not be intertwined with body image and diet culture as heavily as mine were, I don't believe there is any human being that lives in modern society that's immune to the looks-obsessed and morally judgmental world we live in. Like, food is such a moral subject in our world. Weight is morality in our world.
Ditching Diet Culture & Recognizing Its Influence
Jenna Free [00:07:42 - 00:08:33]: The way we look is so important, especially with social media and everything. Coming up in past years. So it is important, even if you're like, no, that's not, that's not a thing for me, just have a look first. Don't discount it completely. It's important to explore if there's any thoughts or influences of wanting to look a certain way, or if having morality around food, feeling you are good or bad for eating certain things. Does shame and guilt come up after you eat certain foods or in any certain way? Because this will add to the pendulum swing of not eating enough and then too much. So Ditching diet culture is a big part of it, and so maybe that hasn't been as explicitly highlighted to you as we are here. So perhaps before we started talking about this, you would say, "Oh yeah, no, my food stuff has nothing to do with that." But maybe it does.Jenna Free [00:08:33 - 00:09:16]: So don't discount that. Don't fly through that point because if that's there at all, even subconsciously, right? Some of our stuff. Both ADHD beliefs and thoughts and food stuff can be a little bit under the surface where we're carrying it, but we're not always explicitly thinking it. So you might want to spend a minute there. Another principle of intuitive eating is honoring your hunger. So if you're running around like crazy, the blood flow literally leaves the digestive system, and this is going to mess up our hunger signals and how our digestive system works. So that is one reason why regulation work is so important, because it will help with that tuning back into your body a little bit more. And if overeating is an issue for you, you may be thinking like, good, I don't want to be hungry.
Honoring Hunger as an ADHD Eater
Jenna Free [00:09:16 - 00:09:50]: I don't want to be tuned into my hunger signals. But if you're not eating when your body is asking for food, it is likely that you'll go so long that then you binge or overeat. So again, it's that pendulum swing, but the pendulum is a bit— is very much like the dysregulation cycle I always talk about with ADHD, like the frantic crash cycle. Well, this is kind of like a restrict binge cycle. Round and round we go. Again, restriction doesn't need to be intentional. It can just be, oh shoot, I haven't eaten for 6 hours, right? And I'm so hungry all of a sudden. That is restriction as well.Jenna Free [00:09:50 - 00:11:14]: But when you're in that cycle, especially if at the end of the cycle you feel you're overeating, that's how it gets us stuck. So actually tuning into your hunger signals, especially with regulation work, will allow you to have more of that balance instead of getting stuck in that swing. Restriction, regardless of the reason, is like holding your breath and then expecting yourself to breathe normally when you come out of the water, right? If you're not eating all day and then food goes to those lips, your body biologically is gonna be like, oh my God, give me the food! We must be in a famine, and now I'm, you know, I have access to food here, let's shovel it in! Our bodies are so primal. I talk about that a lot with regulation in the ADHD experience, and it's the same with food. Food is a very primal experience, and so if your system doesn't feel safe, or if your system is thinking, oh, there's not enough food available, which we know in our culture there is if we are privileged enough to have access to it, but the actual accessibility of food is very high compared to historically when we lived in the forest looking for berries and hunting. So we want to make sure the body doesn't get to that place where we have to. Right? Gasp for air, if you will. So this is huge in the regulation work, is really going to help honoring your hunger, which is going to prevent that pendulum swing.
Coping With Emotions With Kindness
Jenna Free [00:11:15 - 00:12:20]: And then the third pillar of intuitive eating that I wanted to bring up is coping with your emotions with kindness. So if you feel you're an emotional eater, we can work on this too, because you may be eating based on emotions, but sometimes it's actually dysregulation. Because dysregulation can be very uncomfortable physically, and food can be used to soothe that. So when we work through these uncomfortable feelings with compassion and awareness, when you're doing regulation work, you may find food just doesn't do it anymore for you in that way, and/or you don't need it. That compulsive eating to soothe that discomfort, it goes way down because you're not as uncomfortable because you're more regulated. So it's a really powerful thing. I would also look at if you do feel you're an emotional eater, is it with all foods or certain foods? So like, do you go, oh wow, I'm really sad, I'm gonna make a sandwich, let me warm up a bowl of soup? Maybe that sounds comforting, but it probably isn't. It's probably things like chips and snacks and maybe even things you feel are quote unquote bad.
Morality, Food Neutrality, & Finding Balance
Jenna Free [00:12:21 - 00:13:15]: And yes, this can be because of the carbs and the sugar and all the stimulation there. And I think kind of the old narrative is like, oh, it's the dopamine from the food. I really see it as being much more complicated than that. So partially it can be, you know, the dysregulation has us go to those foods. But if you have any beliefs around morality around food, good food and bad food, that can really cause havoc and make us go to those quote unquote bad foods when we're Feeling emotional, they they're more of a bandaid and a tool as opposed to just food. So neutrality with food is also key in this work. No foods are good or bad. I'm sure some people will push back on that one because our our culture has really taught us foods are good or bad, and there's morality in it because good or bad is different than like less nutritious and more nutritious, more calories and less calories.Jenna Free [00:13:16 - 00:13:59]: Good and bad is a moral thing, and that can really mess up our relationship with food. So This is where we want that natural balance, and where we can find natural balance when we're more regulated. Because of course we want to be free with food and not restrict, but also we want to feel good. We want to nourish our bodies. Most people want to be physically well and want to nourish their bodies with food in order to do that. And so you can find that balance. But when we're dysregulated, it's hard to tap into that natural intuitive ability. So when you are more regulated, you'll be able to tap into that desire of food that tastes good, is nourishing, and is enjoyable, but also kind of the health component and the nutrition component.
What Regulation Makes Possible
Jenna Free [00:14:00 - 00:14:34]: You can absolutely have a beautiful balance of both, and that's what I have experienced over the past 10 years. And I'd say even my skills in that have been more and more refined. And so it's a really beautiful thing. So when we're more regulated, you're going to be able to tune into your body signals more easily, that intuitive piece. You're going to feel able to stop what you're doing and eat when you're hungry. You're gonna be able to give yourself the time you need to take care of your body, and that's gonna include making food, eating food. And you can prioritize your wellbeing as well as your productivity levels. And most importantly, you understand that one really informs the other.Jenna Free [00:14:35 - 00:15:28]: Even before I started recording this podcast, I would've liked to have started it a little bit earlier, 'cause it is bumping up to one of my group calls a little closer than I'd like it to, but I had to eat before I did this. If I didn't, I was going to be quite dysregulated, quite frankly. Eating and eating regularly are actually ways we can regulate as well. So not eating is gonna be dysregulating, and when you're dysregulated, you're not gonna eat as often or as in a healthy way. So that's what's really cool about regulation work is we can tie this all in together of like, there's a time to eat, there's a time to care for myself, there's a time to get things done. I can balance it all. And that balance is really what we want to achieve with our relationship with food as ADHDers. So if you want to work on this together, I am hosting an ADHD regulation and intuitive eating workshop on August 14th at 6:00 PM Mountain Time.
Transforming With Intuitive Eating & Workshop Details
Jenna Free [00:15:28 - 00:16:04]: So during this 90-minute workshop, we'll discuss the shifts that you'll want to make to improve your relationship with food as an ADHDer. We're going to get into the very practical steps you can take. Today, I understand on this podcast was just a bit of an overview, some insight into your relationship with food. And the some basics about intuitive eating and where we want to start. But if you really want to do the things and make the changes, this is a great workshop to attend. So this approach changed my life over ten years ago, and it stuck. And I know it's going to be permanent. And that's what's so beautiful about this work with food.Jenna Free [00:16:04 - 00:16:36]: And I know it'll help you too. So a little bit more about the logistics: the workshop is fifty dollars Canadian, and fifty percent of the proceeds will be going to Doctors Without Borders, which is currently providing humanitarian aid in Gaza. Sudan, and Ukraine. That's just a little bit of icing on the cake. You can attend the workshop, pretty affordable rate, and half of that money is gonna be donated as well. So kind of a win-win situation. I can't wait to do this work with you and then for us to be able to help others in the process. So you can learn more about the workshop in the show notes.
Bringing Together Intuitive Eating & ADHD Regulation
Jenna Free [00:16:36 - 00:17:14]: I'm really excited to bring the work together in intuitive eating that I used to do and the ADHD regulation work that I focus on now and create this really powerful workshop for you. to focus on regulation, intuitive eating as an ADHDer, to find that balance with food. If you have been trying things, right, okay, I'm trying to make meals easy for me, we'll talk about that practical stuff as well. But this underlying stuff with the intuitive eating and the regulation may be what's been missing if food has remained tricky for you. So we'll see you there. Let me know if you have any questions at all. You can email me or DM me on social media. And thanks so much for being here.Jenna Free [00:17:15 - 00:17:15]: See you next week.