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Showing Up Anyway is a podcast about unlearning diet culture, redefining health, and making peace with food, movement, and your body -- without needing to have it all together. Hosted by Coach Adam Wright, an anti diet-culture personal trainer and body-trust educator, each episode dives into the imperfect side of wellness and how to navigate motivation burnout, body image struggles, emotional eating and the pressure to be "healthy". This is your reminder that progress doesn't need to be perfect, and you'll still see progress as long as you show up anyway.
Welcome to Showing Up Anyway,
the podcast for people
who are not perfect.
On this show, we talk about
intuitive eating,
fitness without obsession,
and healing your relationship
with food and your body.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back
to Showing Up Anyway.
I have a special guest today.
I have brought on one
of my fantastic coaches,
Emilee Bogdan. She is a NASM
certified personal trainer,
a level one precision nutrition
certified nutrition coach,
and we've been working
together for, like,
three years, haven't we, Emilee?
Yeah, I think so.
Time flies. Time flies.
(ADAM LAUGHS)
See? We're even...
That's how close we are,
we've got the same brain cell.
We're in sync.
We share the one brain cell.
And, Emilee...
I wanted to bring
Emilee on because, well,
one - she's just a fantastic coach.
She's gone through a
weight loss journey herself.
I think losing well
over 100 lbs. Correct?
150, yep. Jesus.
That is well over 100.
150 lbs. Well over.
(EMILEE LAUGHS)
And then, um...
And today's topic, we're going
to be talking about ADHD,
which Emilee has.
And so I figured, let's bring on,
you know, an expert.
I know what I know,
but I've never actually
dealt with it,
And so I thought she would be a
great person to talk about this.
So, we're going to talk
about executive dysfunction,
We're going to talk
about meal overwhelm,
the shame with not being able
to do things as easily
as neurotypical people,
exercise blocks
and a lot of other stuff.
Does that sound good to you, Emilee?
That sounds exciting.
I think it's really important.
Awesome.
Firstly - I don't even know
if I've told you this -
I, one time, thought
that I had ADHD.
I was convinced because
I feel like I dealt
with executive dysfunction.
I had the hardest time,
like, getting to...
..getting to the things
on my to-do list.
And I went into the doctor
and I saw a psychiatrist,
or a psychologist,
I can't remember.
I saw multiple doctors and,
uh, they definitively told me no.
(ADAM LAUGHS)
So, I tried... No, you're just
not doing your to-do list.
Yeah. So they're like,
"You're just lazy."
So, uh, anyway... That's the
extent of my personal experience,
Why don't you talk about your
personal experience with ADHD?
Yeah. So, I didn't get diagnosed
until I was just about to turn 30.
I'm 31, so I'm a year into actually
knowing how my brain works.
And the only reason I
got diagnosed is
because I saw a new therapist
and about 20 minutes
into our first session,
she said, "Hey, have you ever
been tested for ADHD?"
So... It was just very obvious.
..that was telling.
So, we went down that route of
getting tested,
and I've spent the last year
and a half or so
learning how my brain interacts
with everything and learning
that there's not these things that
I'm just really, really bad at,
I'm just following
a template that was set up
by neurotypical people
as a neurodivergent person.
Yeah, and I think that is probably
one of the hardest things,
is that most of the advice
that we hear in health spaces,
you know, online and social
media is usually directed at
neurotypical people, talking
about habit building
and things like that,
and it wasn't often made with
neurodivergent brains in mind.
You know, I get a lot of comments
on my videos saying,
"Well, this doesn't apply to me
because I don't think that way."
"My brain doesn't do this."
"My brain doesn't work..."
Exactly, exactly.
(EMILEE LAUGHS)
So, it can be really frustrating,
I'm sure,
and especially if
it goes undiagnosed, right?
Yeah. Which you spent
so many years thinking,
"Wow, what the heck is wrong with
me? Why can't I just do it?"
Yes. I think the reason that
we're tackling this topic is
because a lot of people
have no idea what to do.
Like, it's not that easy
for them, so... Yeah.
And you spend years trying to mimic
what you see in spaces,
in online, with your friends,
with your family
and you try to mimic those spaces,
and those spaces
weren't built for you.
And so it feels like hitting
your head against a wall
because you failed yet again...
Yeah. ..which you didn't,
you just were trying in a way
that wasn't built for you.
So, let's start by talking
about executive dysfunction.
Do you want to explain what that is?
Many people experience
it very differently.
In terms of me and how I operate
in my executive dysfunction
literally happened earlier today.
I was going to go to the gym
and then go get a pedicure
with Coach Heather.
That was my plan.
I then couldn't get up off
the couch to go to the gym
before the pedicure.
The pedicure had an appointment.
The gym didn't.
I sat there too long, couldn't get
up, couldn't get moving,
couldn't actually do the task
because the weight,
the heaviness of doing
the task was too much.
It ended up getting put off
and I did my workout after.
But it is sitting
there on the couch,
one half of your brain
screaming at you to get up
and the other half saying,
"Nah, it's too much"
and just spinning your wheels.
You know you're frustrated at
yourself because it's frustrating.
Yeah, there's this gap
between, like,
"Yeah, I know I need to do this,
but I just can't do it."
Mm-hm. It's the momentum.
Once you lose momentum,
once you're seated - that's...
It takes an act of God to get up
off that couch, to get moving,
to go forward again. So, we...
We made, we made a video
kind of together,
in the sense that I came
to you and said,
"Hey, I want to make a video
about ADHD
"because I get asked
about it all the time,"
and you gave me some
really helpful tips.
One of the things you said was
to keep your shoes on, right?
Explain what that means.
If you are neurodivergent out there
and you are anything like me,
shoes are feet prison.
You don't want... The shoes
are uncomfortable.
That's the first thing to come off
when you get home,
it's the shoes, then the bra.
You're done.
Feet prison -
you got to take them off.
If you leave them on,
you're uncomfortable.
You're not going to lounge
on the couch,
you're going to sit
because you got your shoes on.
You're not going to put your shoes
on the couch, that's crazy.
But you're just uncomfortable enough
to motivate you
to get back up again,
because the discomfort
of having feet prison on
gets you up and moving,
so you can do that for anything.
Don't change your outfit
into your comfy clothes
if you haven't done anything
that you need to do yet.
Don't take your shoes off if you
still need to do your workout
because you just walked in the door.
Don't make yourself comfortable
because the more barriers
to getting up and getting moving,
like changing your outfit,
putting your shoes on,
the more barriers that there are,
the less likely you are
to actually do the thing
because five barriers of,
you know, shoes,
change your outfit, fill up
your water - uh, three -
that feels too heavy.
It's so many steps because it's
not just putting your shoes on,
it's "I need to get my socks,
"I need to find that
one pair of shoes
"and I need to change my outfit.
"But what day is it?
Is it squat day?
"Oh, I need to get shorts that..."
Like, there's so many thoughts
happening at once,
we freeze, we're stuck.
If you stay dressed,
if you leave your shoes on,
the likelihood of you stopping
decreases.
That step, the five steps associated
with putting your shoes on
has now decreased to zero,
and there's so many less
obstacles in your way.
So, this is one of the
things we talked,
I talked about in the last episode,
which is the idea of friction
and friction are those barriers
that get in the way.
And so keeping your shoes on.
I mean, essentially,
it's the idea of an object
in motion stays in motion.
Mm-hm. And so that
is one less barrier,
one less amount of friction
that we encounter
when we're about to
accomplish something
or we're trying
to accomplish something. Mm-hm.
So, that kind of leads to another
thing, which is the idea of shame,
right? Because let's say you
want to get something done
and it wasn't on the schedule,
which IS another tip that we're
going to talk about. Mm-hm. Yes.
Let's say you didn't make an
appointment for yourself
and then you feel bad, right?
Then this becomes a shame.
"Damn, I had these things
I was going to do today,
"and I didn't do one
or all of them."
How do you deal with
that kind of shame?
There's a lot of misconceptions
when it comes to ADHD,
especially adults with ADHD,
that just you're a slacker,
you're lazy, you can't do it.
And all of those adjectives,
they have really negative
connotations associated with them.
And while you're sitting there,
while you're, you know,
you're desperately wanting to
get up and go do the thing,
and you just simply can't,
you're already beating yourself up.
And so you are already falling short
of the expectations
that you wanted
to have for yourself
and so we're putting shame on
ourselves at baseline.
And then the societal
shame of you're lazy,
you just can't do it,
you just need to get up and go.
What do you mean you
can't just get up and go?
So, it's kind of two
sides of the same coin
of we're mad at ourselves,
we're shaming ourselves
and society shaming us.
So, in those moments,
what I like to do,
just as a person with ADHD, is
I like to be like, "Okay, got it.
"I didn't do my workout.
That has happened.
"That is already done.
It is gone. I can't undo that."
I don't want to turn me missing
one workout into me
missing the rest of the week,
though, because that feels worse.
So, "Okay, cool. Let me make a plan
"of when I'm going to
get that workout in."
If I need to adjust the
expectations of myself this week
because, you know what? I'm not
going to get all my workouts in
and I'm going to have
to do three instead of four.
That's unfortunate,
but I want to do the three.
I don't want to make missing
the one mean I missed four.
So I take a moment,
take a breath, be, like,
"That's really frustrating
that I couldn't get off the couch.
"I took my shoes off.
I know better, okay?
"That's in the past now.
We need a plan for tomorrow."
We need to make a plan,
and we need to carry forward
rather than dwelling.
That helps break that cycle of shame
because you adopt more of a,
hey, it is what it is.
We already missed it,
being upset about it is not
going to unmiss the workout.
However, it could miss tomorrow's.
So, planning and being able
to scoot forward
is one of the best things that I
actually started doing for myself
in terms of consistency
and just mental talk.
We'll beat ourselves up
more than anybody.
Yeah. Chronic dieters
are great at that,
at beating themselves up. Yeah.
I actually really liked
the word that you used - scoot.
You said you got to
gotta scoot forward. Yeah.
I really like the thought
of just scooting forward
rather than taking another step,
because sometimes it does,
it feels like just a small inch
you're moving forward... Mm-hm.
..you know? I need to slide it.
Yeah, you're just sliding.
You don't have to take
a giant step forward.
And sometimes just that little inch
can start that momentum back up.
Mm-hm. And this can apply to people
who don't have ADHD as well,
we are just so good
at dwelling on the past. Yes.
And we need to focus
maybe on living in the present
and then... and then
planning for the future.
"Okay, I can't go back and..."
Well, maybe you could
make up the workout,
but you can't go back and
do it, right? So, you can...
I can't do it this morning.
I already missed it.
Yeah, this morning's passed.
We can do it this afternoon,
or we can do it tomorrow morning.
Mm-hm.
And so learning how
to put it behind you,
move forward is
a vital, vital skill.
It is. For sure. It's be frustrated,
that's okay,
but be frustrated
and then scoot forward.
Yeah. Acknowledge...
It's already happened.
Acknowledge it. You don't have
to dismiss those feelings.
"I shouldn't feel bad."
No, it's okay. You can...
You can feel bad, like, it...
You can be annoyed about it.
..kinda sucks...
Yeah. It's a bummer.
"Dang, why didn't I do it?"
But recognize that it happened,
acknowledge that it happened,
understand why it happened, right?
"Okay, I didn't put this on my
schedule."
"I didn't put my shoes on.
I sat down." Yep.
"I planned poorly. I didn't
eat breakfast on time."
And then, and then making a plan
going forward, that's huge. Mm-hm.
So, let's talk a little bit about
food - this is a huge one.
I hear all the time from clients,
especially clients with ADHD -
I'm sure you do too -
"I forgot to eat."
Tell me why that happens.
What it typically is, is
we will get a hunger cue,
but we'll be like, "Oh cool,
I need to eat SOON."
Not I need to eat now.
I need to eat soon.
Soon is too ambiguous.
That means absolutely nothing to me.
Soon could be tomorrow
for all I care!
Soon could be 12 hours later.
Because, no, I'm doing
what I'm doing right now,
so I'm not going to eat right
now, I'll do it later.
And so, it's not even distraction,
it's deprioritization.
It's "this isn't important
right now,
"I need to do it soon, though."
And then we pass a point
where the hunger cue of,
like, our tummy's hungry,
that's passed.
We're now grumpy,
we're now nauseous.
So, now, we can't eat,
we're nauseous now
because we didn't eat before.
And so it's kind of kicked down
the line as a less important,
less prioritized task
than whatever's at hand.
Whatever's at hand, it's likely
giving us some dopamine
and we like the dopamine, so we're
going to keep doing it.
While the food really is, you know,
necessary for life
and necessary for continuing to
gain dopamine from the task at hand.
If I get grumpy at the task
at hand because I didn't eat,
it's going to be unfortunate.
Yeah.
And so what happens is...
..what happens to everyone when they
go a long period without eating
is oftentimes they
end up binging. Mm-hm.
So, I'm actually curious,
when you were at
your heaviest weight,
do you attribute some of
that to your ADHD?
Did it have...? Was there a lot
of binging and restricting,
even if it was, like, unintentional?
There was a lot of restricting
and binging unintentionally.
There was a lot of restriction.
And then it wouldn't be,
you know, full...
I didn't have binge eating disorder
to where I would make myself ill,
but it was a binge worthy meal.
It was a very heavy meal
that would then drag me
down the rest of the day.
I'd be tired, I'd be just dragging,
no energy, no, no...
..no effort to put
towards anything.
And then I would be fixated
on something else,
so I'd deprioritize eating again,
and I would just continue
down that path.
And so it would
very much be consuming
my entire day's worth of food
in a matter of, you know,
a couple of hours, one to two hours,
and then removing myself
from needing sustenance
for the remainder of the day
and continuing down that. Which
potentially led to, probably...
Yeah, probably led to restricting
and then binging the next day.
Mm-hm. So it's just kind of,
it's a cycle.
It's a cycle that's
really hard to break.
A vicious cycle.
Especially when you forget about it,
you forget...
You forget, "Hey.
Oh, that was the issue.
"I forgot that
I was supposed to eat,"
so it doesn't happen again.
Right.
It's "I pushed it down
on the priority list.
"It should be number 1. It's number
15. I pushed it down."
So, I hear from a lot of AuDHD,
autistic ADHD people,
it's the idea of lacking the
feeling of interoception,
not really being able to feel your
hunger and your fullness cues.
Do you struggle with that,
or is that just an
autistic person with ADHD?
I absolutely struggle with that.
It took me... I, now, and it
depends on what I'm doing,
If I'm really focused on
what I'm doing, I don't feel,
I don't experience, I don't
recognize the hunger,
I don't... Any of the cues,
list them, I don't feel them,
I don't see them,
I don't notice them.
And it took me a really long time
of getting my brain
used to the concept of,
no, we need sustenance
to be able to actually
consistently consume food
and now I'll feel hungry.
I'll notice that I'm getting
really grumpy,
but it still comes and goes.
So, I experience that,
I don't know, um,
the crossover there.
I don't know if
it's an ADHD thing,
but is more noticed
with AuDHD folks
or if it's kind of
it lives in both camps.
That's kind of what I figured,
this thing is not universal.
The experience of everybody
is significantly different.
One of the things that is also
really a challenge for people
is sensory issues, right?
Textures... Mm-hm. ..chewing
fatigue, uh,
just the idea that
nothing sounds good.
Why don't we talk a little
bit about that?
Tell me maybe about your experience,
if you experience that,
and then what advice you
might give a client.
Yeah. So, I've
definitely experienced that
where just chicken is too chicken-y
all of a sudden.
Eggs are too egg-y. Just...
I've been eating eggs for a month,
today too egg-y. Can't eat them.
Don't like them.
So, I've definitely gone through
that and experienced that
and it's unfortunate because
you're sitting there
in front of the meal that
you had yesterday morning
and you can't eat it anymore.
Um, when I've experienced that,
there's a few different things that,
like, I have done to
come out of it.
I've listed out safe foods.
When I had Covid one time,
I've had Covid, like, twice.
One of them I lost my sense of
taste and smell,
and I made a list of safe foods
that really helped me when I was,
like, I know I need to eat food.
I know that I have to
consume nutrients,
it all tastes like garbage.
I don't want to eat it.
I made a list of safer -
nothing was safe -
but I made a list of safer foods
that I could consume,
and I carried that over
into my normal life.
So, that way I had kind of
a list of go-tos
of what salad dressing I really
liked for a little bit,
what food from Trader Joe's
that was frozen
that I really liked
for a little bit.
I would make a list so I
could go back and be, like,
can I revisit any of these and
bring them back in
to replace the eggs
that are now too egg-y?
If that isn't really working either,
what I have told clients and
myself is I go caveman mode.
Caveman needs protein, caveman needs
carbs, caveman needs fat.
Put it together and it doesn't
matter what the meal looks like,
it doesn't need to look like a meal
that you would put on Instagram.
So, one of the things that I tell
clients is to set alarms, right?
Mm-hm. Do you find that helpful?
Absolutely.
That is actually one of the things
that I first started implementing
when I first started noticing
that other people,
I actually thought people were,
like, faking it
when they were, like, "Oh, yeah,
I'm, like, starving. I'm so hungry.
"Like, I'm starting to get
a little grumpy."
I'm like... Because
you just didn't that.
"Okay, that's a figure of
speech, right?" Interesting.
Like, you're just... "Okay.
Ha-ha, yeah, I got it.
"We'll get you some food."
Um, and I thought it was a joke.
So, I started...
When I was realizing that,
"Nope, That's just,
that's a me problem, buddy",
I started setting alarms at regular
intervals to check in with myself,
and I give myself dismissing
the first alarm.
First alarm is to check-in,
second alarm is,
"No, you need to eat now
"because it has been
X amount of hours.
"You've done X amount of
activity.
"You absolutely need food
right now
"and you are probably just... You
missed a hunger cue at some point.
"You don't recognize
your hunger right now,
"but logically you're hungry.
"So I am applying
logic to this situation
"and saying I should go eat."
So, I always set two.
One to, "Hey, check in.
How do I feel? What am I doing?
"Am I hungry? Am I good?"
Second one - "All right, get
up. Time to go, time to eat."
I like that because it's very easy
to ignore one alarm, you know?
It's so easy. And you
got to know yourself,
maybe you got to set three,
you know?
My phone is all reminders
and all alarms.
You got to know,
you got to know yourself, so...
So, yeah, find out, "Okay,
what time am I normally up?
"What time should I eat
breakfast around that time?" Mm-hm.
Do a little body scan. Figure out,
"Okay, am I hungry at that point?"
If not, "Okay, I got another one
for 15 minutes later.
"You know, maybe that's
about that time."
And then lunch - I try
and tell clients not to go
at least more than,
like, five hours.
More than five hours,
probably too long.
I would say check-in at
four or five. Just four or five,
you probably need food. Yeah.
And we know, even if you're
not necessarily hungry,
chances are you need
some sustenance. Probably.
It's time to get something in
there. It's... Even small.
And if you set multiple alarms,
you get the dopamine of
ignoring the first one
because the first one goes
off and you're like,
"No, I'm not doing that."
And it feels good.
Our inner rebel. We're like,
"Nah, I'll do what I want."
"I won't, I won't go eat."
And then the second one
you're like, "Fine. God."
Yeah. "Don't yell at me."
And then, hopefully, you feel
a sense of accomplishment
after you do that one. Yes.
What are some challenges
to, like, meal prepping,
ingredients prepping?
There's so many. One, you
don't know if the chicken
is going to be
too chicken-y in a few days.
A lot of people have issues
with, like, leftovers
and the consistency of
leftovers are really hard.
I'm very fortunate that
I can eat leftovers
because I have had some
things where I'm, like,
"This doesn't hold well."
And I'm, like,
"Oh, that could be applied
to so many things, though."
So, that's one of the issues.
The other issue is the
amount of steps involved,
the amount of thinking,
the amount of involvement
and you have to pick
what you're eating,
you have to scan through
the kitchen to see what you have,
so that way you don't buy too much,
because then you'll end up with
19 onions in your fridge
and not know what to do with them.
Um, you need to do a grocery order,
go to the grocery store,
get what you actually need, which is
a whole journey in of itself.
Come home, prep and cook the food
and get it all divvied up
and get it all together.
Everything is its own
individual little step,
and that is very overwhelming
to even start.
It's the starting... For anybody.
..once you're... For anybody.
For everybody. "Oh, my God, this
is going to take forever." So hard.
Yeah.
So, keep your shoes on and
get that meal prep knocked out.
Let's go. You gotta
start down that path.
And what I started doing
for myself, um,
to help combat boredom with meals,
to help combat the
literal weight of meal prep -
and I give this advice to
all of my clients.
Neurotypical, neurodivergent,
doesn't matter, it really helps.
I started doing what I
call prepping the staples,
and to do that, I pick
my protein for the week -
typically chicken, just because I
don't like cooking anything else.
Cooking brings me no joy. Uh...
(EMILEE LAUGHS)
But I'll cook a bunch of
chicken for the week,
and then the same day,
or the next day,
depending on the week,
I'll make some rice and then
I will buy frozen veggies.
Don't buy fresh - you know better,
it's going bad in that fridge.
Don't even... don't even kid
yourself. Buy frozen. They are fine.
You can microwave them
and they taste better
than the fresh ones
that are kind of wilty.
And I have those,
I can turn that into burritos,
I can turn that into soup,
I can make a little stir fry out of
it, I can make tacos out of it.
I can turn it into
so many different meals
that have variety throughout the
week, so I don't get bored.
And I'm fulfilling and satisfying
cravings while also not being, like,
"Oh, I don't want any...
I just won't eat."
"Oh, I don't want it. I'll just...
I guess I'll just go out. It's fine.
"I don't want to deal with it."
No, I can make whatever I want.
I want soup? Great.
I have all the things to
make soup because I have rice,
chicken and veggies and broth.
Well, that is a really big thing.
Sometimes we go too long
without eating,
especially if you have ADHD,
and then by the time you do want to
eat, you're starving, right? Mm-hm.
I finally recognized that
I need to eat
and I'm really, really hungry.
I don't want to take the time to
cook something.
I am now desperate.
I'm desperate. I'm gonna order out,
hit DoorDash,
you know, grab whatever's...
50 bucks for one thing
that's going to be cold
by the time it gets here.
I don't... Exactly,
or I'll grab, you know,
whatever is in the
box or a bag and just...
..take handfuls. I'll
probably have too much of it,
because I wasn't thinking while I
was doing it, I was desperate.
So, I'm now having
the whole bag of Doritos
instead of some Doritos
with my meal, right?
How do you feel about back-ups?
Safe meals?
Safe meals - you can freeze
everything and anything.
I've made meals that
I really liked, froze 'em.
Rice freezes, chicken freezes.
Um, and then I like having
alternates and back-up plans
for grabby go things,
if I need to.
Just have anything.
It's again that idea of removing
friction, you know?
Mm-hm. We have something,
they're available.
If you choose not to do it,
well, that's okay,
but you have something
there in case you do.
It's a back-up plan.
It gets you fed.
That end goal is fed, whatever that
looks like. Fed is best, right.
Right. Okay. And then, hey, listen,
if you are imperfect,
if you forget to meal prep or
something,
if you do order DoorDash,
it's really okay.
It's totally fine.
Not that deep. Yep.
And we put it back behind
us and we move forward.
We don't turn that one
weird thing that happened
into 46 weird days in a row.
It was one. It's okay.
It's okay to leave it at one
and make a plan to meal prep
when you need to.
Yeah. So, let's talk
a little bit about motivation.
This could apply to
food or exercise,
but especially exercise, I think.
It's hard to build a habit
and ADHD people don't develop habits
the same way...
Mm-hm. ..that
neurotypical people do.
So, how do you deal with that?
It's... It...
Honestly, learning that I had ADHD
made so much more sense
as to, like, how I actually
gained consistency in the gym.
Now I just have an answer for it.
Um, and with nutrition and
everything,
I always felt like I was broken.
I heard, "Oh, you can...
"It takes 14 days
to form a habit."
Okay, well, then I would be able
to brush my teeth every day
with no problem
if it took 14 days.
I've had teeth for
30-something years now, so...
And that's something you still
struggle with, is, like...
Every day. Really? It's a
choice to brush my teeth.
I have to choose to go into the
bathroom and brush my teeth.
I have a toothbrush in
every bathroom in my house
so I can brush my teeth.
(EMILEE LAUGHS)
I've created an environment
where if I think about it,
I can do it then. And so we don't
really experience motivation
in the same way
that neurotypical people do.
Neurotypical people are
motivated to go do their workout.
We get motivated
after we do the workout.
So we have to then have this...
..this discipline, this...
Just, "Hey, I'm going to do it.
"Even if I don't want to,
I'm going to do it
"because I know I'm going
to feel better after."
And so with motivation,
it's so fleeting.
Motivation comes and goes,
it's not consistent.
It's not a consistent hit of
dopamine.
And so with...
..you know, say motivation
to do the workout,
it's "I feel better after.
I know I feel better after."
And so what I've told myself,
what I have told
my clients is, do it.
Do it with an attitude.
Be mad at me if you want.
Be angry, do the workout.
You know you'll feel better after
and you know that for a fact.
Go do it. Go do your warm-up.
I'll give you a deal.
If you do your warm-up
and you still don't want
to be there, leave,
you at least showed
up to the building.
You've at least said, "I'm going to
go to the gym today and went."
You followed through with
the action that you said
that you were going to do
or start your workout.
I'm going to do my workout
today. This feels icky.
I am so miserable right now.
It's going to ruin working
out for the rest of my life.
Stop! You get to stop,
but you don't get to stop
if you don't start.
Yeah. So you've mentioned
dopamine a few times,
how does dopamine and
how do ADHD brains connect?
Is that something that
you guys are seeking always?
We are. I... I'm sure,
I'm sure there's a psychological,
legitimate reason why.
I have no idea, but I spend most of
my day chasing little itty bits
of dopamine because it's
what keeps me going.
It makes me feel connected
with my environment
and makes me feel like I am
experiencing life in a calm way
because our brains, million miles an
hour at all points in time.
There's an internal monologue
and she's never not there.
The dopamine hits make
that internal monologue
that is forever running stop for
two seconds. Feels good.
Brings us, brings
us joy and peace,
and so we're kind
of constantly chasing that.
And so I've tied a lot of...
..hey, this brings dopamine to
a lot of things in my life of,
you know, my workouts
and my nutrition.
I look for those little things
that actually feel good.
Yeah. When it comes to
like, motivation,
let's talk a little bit
about the spoon theory.
Tell us a little bit about how
that relates to ADHD brains.
I love the spoon theory.
I didn't hear about it
until sometime during Covid,
during lockdown.
Um, it's you only have
so many spoons in a day,
and sometimes brushing my
teeth is only one spoon.
I have a very easy time doing it.
Don't know why,
don't know why
it's different from yesterday,
but it costs me one spoon
to brush my teeth.
Tomorrow it costs me three.
Why? Don't know.
The environment hasn't changed.
I got just the same amount of sleep.
I have the same amount of energy.
I have the same amount of motivation
to brush my teeth of no cavity,
don't want cavity. It's all
the same environment.
But, today, it costs three.
It is significantly more effort
today than it was yesterday
and that's okay.
It still needs to be done,
but maybe I have to take
from something else to give
to this other thing.
Maybe I don't fold my laundry today
because today cost me
three spoons to do my teeth,
so maybe I don't fold my laundry.
You know what?
It can sit in the
basket another day.
I'll run it through the
drier one more time,
it'll get rid of the wrinkles,
it'll be fine. Who cares?
But I need to do it on a day
where it costs less
because I only have so much to give.
So, sort of... And for some
reason, it's a lot.
It's sort of budgeting your energy.
Mm-hm. And every task
costs something.
Every task is done at
the cost of something else
and that's okay. You get to pick
and choose where that gets spent.
And sometimes it's
brushing your teeth
and filling up your water bottle
and that's what you have for today.
Everything gets put to tomorrow,
it gets scootched forward
to tomorrow
when you have a little bit more.
And so what happens
if you overextend yourself?
What happens if you
run out of spoons?
Typically, for me,
that means sitting on the couch
and playing Fortnite
the whole next day
and doing absolutely not a thing
because I have fried myself.
You've just shut down.
And... I shut down.
I have all these big plans
for the next day,
but because I spent
five too many spoons today,
I unfortunately am going to
be on the couch
for the remainder of the week.
And it's going to take some time,
it takes some time to
sort of replenish those.
You got to rebuild the spoons.
And so, it's unfortunately a fine
balance between overextending
and overutilizing what
spoons you have versus not.
And sometimes that's
what's required of life
because work happens, life happens,
we have days like that
and then we have the aftermath of
days like that, and that's okay.
In the past,
We get to go forward now.
Okay, so let's say one of your
clients burnt themselves out,
that I ran out of spoons,
I overextended myself,
I tried to do all the workouts
you had me do, and I did them,
or I did one on a
day I shouldn't have
and I don't want to do anything now.
What do you tell them?
I talk to my clients a lot about
modifying their expectations
of themselves to meet themselves
where they are right now,
because I... I have a
perfect example of myself.
I used to work out four days
a week consistently,
every week for a very long time.
And then I started taking
some coursework,
and I ended up missing
a fourth workout
and then because I was going
to miss one, I missed two,
and then I missed three and then
I would miss three weeks in a row
because, well, I missed so many,
I can't...
It won't be a perfect week,
it won't be a perfect week.
And because I kept falling into
that perpetual cycle
of wanting to get four workouts,
but there's a point of no return
in the week, I would do zero.
And so I sat down and I
was like, okay,
so clearly four workouts
isn't working.
Let's change the expectations that
we have for ourselves right now
to meet us where we are,
and we can re-evaluate
and increase to four workouts
when the time is right.
And so I talk a lot
with clients about,
okay, yeah, you've
overextended yourself.
Absolutely. Let's change
the expectations.
Can we do maybe a ten minute
walk once this week?
And then you are still upholding
a promise to yourself
of dedicating time
and effort to yourself
and your goals without continuing
to overextend yourself
and overdo yourself to the point
where you just quit entirely
because it's too much.
Alter it. Change it.
You're in charge.
You get to alter everything.
This health and fitness stuff,
it's for life, it's not for now.
In life, you're going to have
weird days and weird weeks.
Let's actually know how
to deal with them,
and let's be able to adjust and
know when to adjust down
and adjust back up.
So, just like a personal trainer
might scale back an exercise,
"Hey, this is
too difficult for you."
We have to sort of scale things back
for our clients in that way too.
Mm-hm. Or you have to know
for yourself, you know,
it's, "Okay, four workouts this
week, not going to happen.
"So instead I'm going to go...
I'll do a walk.
"A 5, 10, 15-minute walk.
I can do that."
"I can go outside,
I can go for a walk."
"I can get on my walking pad.
"I don't want to,
I can do it grumpy."
Be as grumpy as you want.
(ADAM LAUGHS)
I like that. So, I think it's
really good to follow through
with those promises.
Sometimes it helps - one of
the other tips that we gave
in that video was to schedule
appointments with yourself, right?
Treat it like a
doctor's appointment.
So, talk about that a little bit.
So, what I started doing is
I started putting my workouts
into my calendar,
like a scheduled
doctor's appointment,
because I don't have a problem,
actually, getting to appointments.
I don't miss meetings with my
clients due to poor time management.
I don't blow off clients.
I don't blow off
a doctor's appointment.
I'm able to get to those meetings
and those interactions
with absolutely no problem.
And I schedule everything
else in my life.
I schedule my hair wash days.
I schedule when to do my,
clean my sheets,
I schedule doctor's appointments,
I schedule when to grocery shop.
Why do I think, in
my actual right mind,
that I can do health and
fitness without scheduling it?
Why is this the one thing
in my life?
This is the one thing that'll work
out perfect without a schedule.
Because... because why?
(EMILEE LAUGHS)
And so I realized
if I scheduled them,
one, I could get an
overview of my week.
I could see what the
week looks like,
see if I need to change
expectations.
Beginning of the week, without
being angry with myself.
And two, I am then making
an appointment
with my workout and I know, I know,
you can tell yourself,
"Well, I don't have to, though."
Don't let yourself do that.
Make the appointment,
do the appointment.
If you need to, and you need that,
like, little dopamine hit
of being, like, "I don't wanna,"
make your appointment,
"Hey, I'm going to do
my workout at 10am
"and if I don't do it at 10am,
I'm doing it at 2pm."
I don't get an option at 2pm,
I get an option at 10am.
I don't care if I want
to even less at 2pm.
So, I can either know where I'm
at now and have mystery later,
but either way, my workout's
getting done,
my meal prep's getting done,
my grocery shopping's
getting done,
whatever it might be,
you got to blow it off once.
You don't get to do it twice.
A back-up appointment, yeah.
I like that. That's smart.
So... It's so helpful.
(EMILEE LAUGHS)
What sort of things do you do to set
up your environment for success?
You kind of mentioned having
a toothbrush in every room.
When it comes to exercise
or nutrition,
What sorts of things do you do to
set yourself up for success?
So, I've done...
My... Our entire house is an
ADHD Mecca at this point.
(THEY LAUGH)
Me and my partner both got diagnosed
with ADHD in the same year,
and I was, like, "We're
setting up our house different."
"We're never getting anything done."
"We are never
accomplishing anything."
And so, one thing is, um,
I always have, like, my meals,
my meals are always in the fridge
where I can see them.
Nothing is put away.
My fridge is a disaster.
It looks really stressful,
but I can see exactly what I
have for food without having to,
like, do really pretty TikTok
videos of fridge organization
and, like, going into
all of these containers.
I'm not doing that. The food will
die. I can't do that.
So, everything's visible,
our pantry - visible.
Everything. The food options
are very set in front of us,
so I don't open it and stare
and be, like, "I don't know,
"this is just a blob that is
a fridge shape at this point."
So, I've put things...
It's not literally behind things,
things aren't hidden.
Nothing's hidden because it'll rot.
And so I do that for my nutrition.
My gym bag lives in
the back of my car. It...
I don't take it out because then,
you know what I can't forget?
My gym bag. I have a
headphone charger in the car
because then I can't forget
my headphones and say,
"Oh, I forgot my headphones.
I'm not going to work out."
I have a pair of walking shoes
that lives up by my walking pad
in my office, that
I use for my walking pad,
because going downstairs
to go get my shoes
because I wore them outside last,
I'm probably not going
to go get them.
I'm probably just not going to walk,
I'm actually just going to sit down.
And I have the other pair downstairs
for when I want to do outside walks.
I have all of my clothing for
workouts in the front of my closet,
so I don't have to go digging.
Everything is right there.
I know that I want to wear this
shirt and these shorts
because I wore them
last week on squat day.
I don't have to think about it.
Remove brain.
Yeah. So, just, yeah,
don't make yourself think more
than you already do.
It's already happening, so make it
easy. Make everything out...
Our house to other people, I'm sure,
looks just like chaos and mess.
To us, it is what actually allows us
to function in this world
like two grown adult humans.
So, it helps to sort of build
systems that work with your brain
rather than against it.
It's your brain is going
to function differently.
You are neurodivergent.
You are not neurotypical.
And setting your life up to match
and meet the expectations
of neurotypical behavior,
that's probably going
to fail every time.
Yeah, I think it's smart to
think about it as a disability.
You know, you have somebody
who's in a wheelchair
who needs special
accommodations in their home.
You have somebody who's deaf
who needs special
accommodations in their home.
If you have ADHD,
you're going to need special
accommodations in your home.
And maybe that's just the way
that your fridge is set up.
Maybe that's the way your
pantry is set up,
your bedroom is set up.
It doesn't mean you're
incapable of functioning,
it means you function
different and that's okay.
It is okay.
And the sooner you accept that,
the easier your life is. Yeah.
Yeah. When it came
to habit building,
I talked about rewards and how
our brains really love rewards.
How do ADHD brains deal
with rewards?
Do you like them?
Do they not matter?
Little stars, you know,
on a calendar,
does that do anything for you?
For some people, it absolutely does.
For others, it doesn't.
Um, it really depends
on the brain.
It's also important to know
that neurodivergent brains
are also neurodivergent
to each other.
Yeah. That's very,
that's very wise.
One thing might work for somebody
and not somebody else,
even though they might
both have ADHD. Yeah.
We might have the
same named disorder,
but we don't have the same
displayed characteristics.
I know that a lot of clients of mine
have gamified getting workouts in,
and once they hit x number,
they get this off of their Amazon
wishlist or whatever it might be.
And that, I've seen that work
with amazing success
to they get this little prize that
they've been kind of thinking about,
kind of toying around.
Well, now, it's a game.
Now you get a little, you get a
little treat after you do, you know,
10, 20, whatever the number
might be of workouts
and it helps a lot.
I also like to hold kind of what
I want to do over my own head.
So, I like Fortnite. I'm
going to play Fortnite.
I must do my workout
before I play Fortnite.
Or else, I mean, one, I'm sitting
down, I'm going to remain down.
But, hey, do your workout,
then you get to play your game.
If you don't do your workout,
you can sit here, all you want,
you will not log on to
that PlayStation.
So, make your choices if
you want to play your game,
you best go do your workout.
And so... Gentle parenting yourself.
Really. I tell my clients
that all the time, I'm, like,
I have to gentle
parent myself daily.
You can do this, but you have
to do your adult stuff first.
You have to, unfortunately,
accomplish what you want to.
Because, I know at the end of
the day, doing my workouts,
doing my nutrition,
doing what I actually know
that is really probably
ultimately good for me,
it's going to help me feel better
in the long run
than an eight-hour
gaming session will.
I'm curious how or
what the impact that ADHD has
on how you feel in your body?
And I'm sure it's different
for everybody,
but when it comes to self-worth
and body image
and, you know, self-identity,
what are the feelings
that go into that?
It's... It's really complex
and it's something
that I didn't realize was associated
until more recently in the,
in my ADHD journey,
my very short ADHD journey.
Um, and I...
There's one part of ADHD where
you're overstimulated,
your shirt's bothering you,
your shorts are bothering you,
so then you feel very uncomfortable
because there's a scratchy tag,
and the waistband of your shorts is
sitting in a weird spot of your hip,
and you're kind of really hyper
aware of your body right now
because it is uncomfortable,
so now you're aware of it.
And because you're so aware of it,
it can kind of start
making you be, like, well,
my shorts wouldn't be sitting funny
if my hips weren't so wide.
And it's like, well, no,
you're just...
Your body is overstimulated.
It's 100 degrees outside.
You're probably just
uncomfortable right now.
It has nothing to do
with your hips.
It's your entire body
is uncomfortable right now.
The tag is bothering you,
it has nothing to do with the
broadness of your shoulders.
It has everything to do
with the tag being itchy.
And so you start trying to
blame your body for things
that really aren't your body's
fault. I mean,
your brain is overstimulated by
the tag on your shirt
and the heat in the air and
the shorts on your waistband,
and that's overstimulating,
that's overwhelming.
And so, you start attacking the
nearest thing you can get.
And I didn't realize those
were kind of associated,
but I started realizing that
I needed to stop carrying
a purse for a while, because during
the summer it's too much,
too hot, too many things on
my body and it's 100 degrees.
I'm hot. And so, I would
start beating myself up.
I'd start feeling so uncomfortable
in my body
that I think that my body's the
problem.
Nope. It's change the shirt,
change the environment.
Turn the air conditioner on.
You'll be all better
once you fix all of that.
And so that's associated, um,
and it's realizing that the...
Kind of unleashes a whole bunch
of other realizations
of how you kind of
speak negatively to yourself,
especially if you're
experiencing discomfort,
because the only way to
look is inward,
and it is kind of inward, but it's
the brain inward, not your hips.
Yeah, yeah. Really insightful.
A lot of people may not
think about that. I mean,
we, just as humans, sometimes are
so hard on ourselves, basically.
I mean, diet culture
is just relentless
when it comes to, you know, you
should be so worried about your body
and then the fact that now
you're hyper aware of your body
because of your, um,
your overstimulation
has to make it feel
absolutely miserable.
Yeah, it's like nails
on a chalkboard,
just over and over and over.
So, how do you know the
difference? I use logic.
I... I very much talk to
myself logically because I,
I'm a very logical person.
Half of my brain is not.
The other half is very logical.
And so I'd say, "Okay, well, my hips
weren't a problem yesterday.
"Why are they a problem
today?
"I don't think they changed
that much overnight, did they?
"How could they change
overnight that much?
"I know for a fact they didn't."
And I, again, continue to kind of
gentle parent myself
into being like, "Okay, let's
kind of go down the emotions
"we're feeling. All right,
so we've determined
"that my hips haven't grown
500 inches in the last 24 hours.
"Great. So, what would be making
my shorts bother me, then?
"Ooh, okay. You know what?
This is my size medium.
Not my size large. Ooh, my bad.
I put the wrong ones on.
"I need to actually
just get rid of these.
"I wear a size large,
not a size medium.
"Why do I even own these?"
It's 100 degrees. I'm hot.
Got it. Noted.
"I'll just go inside and cool off."
Once I can establish
that the very big thing
that I think is happening of
"My body's the problem,"
once I talk myself down from
that, it's like,
"Okay, now let's fix the problem,
"because clearly there's
something wrong.
"You don't just feel this way,
something's impacting you."
And you can go get rid of
all the size medium shorts
because you're not a medium.
You can go get rid of the itchy tags
because they're annoying.
You can stay in the air conditioner
during the summer.
I talk to myself logically
to stop the spiral
and stop the bashing
because our bodies don't
change that much overnight.
You would have felt
uncomfortable yesterday
and today and the next day
and five days before
and you wouldn't feel different
right now
than you did an hour ago.
I asked my community on Instagram,
um, some questions, or I asked them
to ask me questions, us questions.
And, uh, so I wanted to do a
bit of a quickfire,
let's pretend they're
your clients, okay?
And we're just gonna, to close,
answer some of these questions
in maybe a succinct way.
They don't need to be
long, extended answers,
but, um, I'm going to pick a few,
and you can kind of just
respond off the cuff.
That sound okay? Perfect.
First one, how do I get back
into exercise after stopping?
I would change your expectations.
Don't set yourself out to do all
three of your workouts this week.
Set yourself out to go on
three 10-minute walks,
and then next week,
three 20-minute walks.
And then the next week,
one workout, two walks.
Two workouts, one walk.
Set your expectations and
trickle your way back into it,
so that way you're not trying
to do, go hard all at once,
do it all right now,
because that's probably not
going to be sustainable,
which is why the first time
you kind of fell off.
How do I not eat my way
through stress?
I like to just place myself.
I like to take a breath
when I'm feeling stressed,
remove myself from
the area that I am in,
wherever that might be. Go outside.
If you're outside, go inside.
Go somewhere else.
Remove yourself from the situation
and just take a moment to say,
"Okay, am I using food
as a crutch
"rather than dealing with what is
currently stressing me out?
"Do I need to just deal with
that? Am I actually hungry?
"Do I need a meal?
Did I skip eating, maybe?"
"Okay, let me put together a meal
"instead of just continuously
grabbing out of whatever bag
"I found first."
Step away. Assess
the actual situation
and the needs of your body,
and meet whatever
those needs might be,
and then carry forward.
I can't stay motivated for more than
three days. What do I do?
As we've said, motivation comes
and goes. It is fleeting.
Making those appointments
with yourself,
making those deals with yourself,
giving yourself the wiggle room,
the scooch room,
but still getting it done.
Keep that promise to yourself
because you know it feels better,
it'll help with that
falling off of motivation.
And then do a little
thing every day.
Do a little thing that is related to
health and fitness.
Don't work out every day.
I'll come for you.
Do a little thing related to
health and fitness every day.
Do a two-minute walk. It'll
keep it fresh in your brain.
What can I eat when
literally nothing sounds good?
Caveman style. You need protein.
Pick any protein.
It doesn't matter what protein.
Protein shake, eggs. Pick it.
Pick something. You can smother it
in sauce if you need to.
Use it as a vessel for the sauce.
Find a carb. Find a fat.
Put a caveman meal together.
You need food. You'll probably
actually feel better after eating.
You're probably starving.
I feel like this is, like, related
to, like, dinosaur time.
Have you seen this on TikTok?
Where she just takes a handful
of lettuce and eats it. Literally.
It's... I. honestly,
I used to do that as a kid.
I would just take spinach
and I loved spinach as a kid,
I was, I was a weird kid.
Weird adult.
You're still weird. Yeah.
(THEY LAUGH)
But... But, so, yeah.
So, not overthinking it.
Just eating those things,
regardless of how they're dressed.
Yeah. Mm-hm. They don't
have to go together. Yeah.
Um, how do I remember to eat
before I crash?
Alarms - give yourself two.
Give yourself three alarms.
That's totally fine. Give
yourself the chance to ignore them.
Set alarms because,
you know, logically,
you probably need food
after four or five hours,
even if your brain says you don't.
Your body needs food.
Your brain is not in charge of the
eating schedule, your body is.
Your brain is trying to take over
because it's louder than your body.
Don't let it win.
It doesn't know.
The body actually
knows what it needs.
How do I stay consistent when
every week looks different?
I talk with my clients a lot about
every week looking different.
It is actually insane that we
expect every week to look the same.
Adjust your expectations.
If one week is super busy
and you need to swap out
one of your scheduled workouts
for a walk, that's totally fine.
If you need to get more frozen stuff
from the store to eat, go do that.
Look at your weeks ahead of time,
so that way you actually can
anticipate what's coming
as opposed to the week
just, like, happening to you,
and then you're just
a victim of your week.
Look ahead, see what's coming up,
adjust your expectations.
That'll allow you to plan ahead
and not feel like you failed.
Well, fantastic. I think
we covered most subjects
that I had written down.
Emilee, this was wonderful
having you here.
I want to kind of just take a
minute and remind the audience,
everyone who's watching
and listening,
that it is possible to take care
of yourself
and focus on health and fitness
with ADHD. It is possible.
It just looks different than
it does for neurotypical people.
That's not a bad thing.
You're not lazy.
You're not failing.
Your brain just needs
different tools.
There's something
I talked with my...
I do group coaching every week
for my clients,
and one of the things we talked
about last week, I think,
was having the memory
of a goldfish.
There's a line in Ted Lasso
where he says,
"You know, what's the happiest
animal? It's a goldfish."
"It's because they have
five-second memory."
I don't know if
that's biologically true,
but I will say, you know,
if you make a mistake
or if you miss a workout or if you,
uh, if you forget to eat
or something, don't dwell on it.
Mm-hm. Have a memory of a goldfish,
put it behind you and focus
on what's going to happen.
The future is the only thing
that matters.
Yesterday has already happened.
Don't let yesterday impact today.
And don't let yesterday
impact the next week.
It's not worth it.
It's one weird day.
So, what I'd like you all to do,
if you're listening here,
is go into the comments on Spotify
or our YouTube videos
and share your experiences
with ADHD or questions with us.
Tell us maybe what you found most
helpful about this podcast episode.
And if you'd like to work
with Emilee or myself,
we both do one-on-one coaching.
You can apply, the link to work
with us is in the show notes,
and we are both taking
on new clients right now,
and we love working with people.
Um, whether you are neurodivergent
or neurotypical,
we work with everybody.
(EMILEE LAUGHS)
And so, Emilee, thank you
for taking time out
of your busy schedule to
be on this podcast episode.
It was really just lovely.
You were, um, a wonderful coach,
and, um, I loved having you
and talking with you here.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm
happy I got to share my experiences
and show the proof's
in the pudding of
you can do health and fitness
and also have a neurodivergent
brain. Awesome.
Thank you for tuning in to this
episode of Showing Up Anyway.
You can find it for free on Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
And wherever you're listening,
if you like the show,
I'd love it if you gave
me a five-star review,
because that does help
other people find the show,
and hopefully it'll help
change their life,
just like you're looking
to change yours.
If you're listening on Spotify,
though,
you can follow me and tap
the bell icon
so you get notifications
when new episodes come out.
I'm Coach Adam. Remember,
when things get challenging,
keep showing up anyway.