ADHD, Food & Chronic Illness from The Adulting With ADHD Podcast with Guest Host Sarah Synder - Best of Friends Series #194
“Why didn’t anyone tell me that years ago?!?”
Perhaps you’ve asked that question at least 542 times along your ADHD journey. IYKYK
Sarah Snyder and I met a while back and immediately hit it off in chatting about the nitty gritty of ADHD - all those lesser known symptoms, connections, and themes around ADHD. You know, all the things about your ADHD you wish someone had told you years ago.
I first joined her on her podcast, Adulting with ADHD. a few years back to talk about pregnancy and ADHD. With the tagline "Self-empowerment for people with ADHD", The Adulting With ADHD Podcast explores the intersection of ADHD, hormones, trauma, food, and more. Sarah aims to provide information for ADHD adults that's probably not in the brochure at the doctor's office.
Sarah and I chat about the intersection of chronic illness and food. Sarah shares:
In this episode, I chat with Patricia Sung, host of Motherhood in ADHD, about the intersection of chronic illness, eating and ADHD.
Highlights:
- Patricia's story
- The food and stress connection
- What NOT to do when you're struggling with food, chronic illness & ADHD
- What you CAN do instead
The intersection of autoimmune diseases, food allergies and food intolerances with ADHD is one of my current hyperfixations, and this episode brings you a taste of what I’ve learned over the past 3 years of eating a highly restricted elimination diet in the treatment and remission of my psoriatic arthritis, mold toxicity, and fight against autoimmune issues and inflammation.
Did the elimination diet of no sugar, gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, dyes, processed foods, etc., cure my ADHD? Listen in!
Be sure to subscribe to the Adulting with ADHD Podcast.
Sarah’s website: https://adultingwithadhd.com/adhd-in-women/
Sarah’s instagram: @adhdadulting
While I’m slowing down for the summer, making space for more family time and accounting for our emergency construction project, I simply couldn’t leave you hanging for the next few weeks. And my ADHD brain didn’t want to do another vanilla Best Of series… Cue Light Bulb!
Welcome to the Best Of Friends Series, where you are meeting a few of my favorite friends in the podcast community. I’m sharing interviews that I have done on other friends’ podcasts. Not only do you get a new episode, I hope that you’ll find a few shows to add to your podcast queue. There’s a wide variety of topics coming your way, so keep an eye out for a new friend each week of the summer.
ready to get away:
Super stressed and need a break? We’re learning more about your stress response and how it relates to treating your ADHD symptoms at our annual ADHD Moms Luxury Weekend Retreat, October 6-8, 2023 in Houston, Texas!
“Honestly, this was one the best weekends I've had since becoming a mom. I've never felt so seen and understood. I would hop on a plane and go again. No hesitation! I'll follow y’all anywhere, moms.” –ADHD Mama J.Q.
I’ll take care of all the details - you simply show up and enjoy. I take care of you while you learn how to take even better care of yourself, in a way that’s sustainable for real momlife.
Because you can take care of your family when you’re in a healthy place. Sign up here: https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-mom-retreat
Patricia Sung 00:02
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family. I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess. Mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD. Hey there successful mama, it's your friend Patricia Sung. Welcome to our summer best of series. Now over the summer, I'm going to be taking a break to slow down a little bit hanging out more with my kids. I'm also managing and like why am I seeing slowing down there is no slowing down. I just have to reshift priorities here, hanging out my kids dealing with all of the construction project that's been going on. It has been a lot this spring. And I realized like I gotta let up this summer, in order to be able to do all the things, shifting some stuff around. So it's like how do I still deliver great content, but also like, not just do the same old, same old because Hello, ADHD. So here's what we're doing, I am going to be sharing some friends with you. So while I will sprinkle in a couple of episodes from my own podcast, I chose some of the ones that were like the most popular downloads in the last few months. But I think that they are the most popular downloaded episodes because they cover a lot of the like basic things that we need to know about our ADHD. And we could use a little reminder sometimes of just the basic things. But I'm more excited about introducing you to some of my friends, I have asked several of my podcasting friends to share the interview that I did on their podcast, so that you can get to know not only you still get to hear from me about ADHD and whatever they're like podcast is focusing on but that I want you to be able to meet some other really great podcast host. Most of these are women most of these are moms who are doing great things in the world. And I love what they're doing. I want to support them. And I want you to have really great podcasts in your feed that are they're supporting you and showing you who you can be and like bringing more light and wonderfulness and fun to your summer as you are doing your mom thing and trying to juggle all the things. So welcome to the best of series. And let's dive into today's episode. Today's episode is an interview I did with Sarah Synder on the adulting with ADHD podcast now I was actually on Sara's podcast a while back talking about pregnancy and ADHD. And this is the more recent episode that we did together about chronic illness and like food issues and having ADHD which was a huge part of my life the last three years. What I love what Sarah's doing is that her tagline is self empowerment for people with ADHD. She is digging into like the details of like the intersection between ADHD and hormones and trauma and food and really getting into like the nitty gritty stuff that like you wish you knew when you got diagnosed, but like this stuff's never gonna be in the brochure at the doctor's office. That's the kind of information that she's getting out and sharing and providing and putting into the world. So go find Sarah's podcast adulting with ADHD. I'll put the links in the show notes. And here she is. Sarah Snyder from the adulting with ADHD podcast.
Sarah Synder 04:14
This episode contains content on food and eating that may be sensitive to some listeners. The adulting with ADHD podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. Please see a medical professional if you think you have ADHD, or have ADHD and need additional assistance. For podcast archives, please visit patreon.com/adulting with ADHD This is the adulting with ADHD podcast self empowerment for people with ADHD. Today I'm very excited to have with me Patricia Sung, the host of motherhood and ADHD podcast. Hi Patricia. How's it going?
Patricia Sung 04:54
Good. Thanks so much for having me back. Yeah, it
Sarah Synder 04:57
was so good to see you at the conference and I'm so glad I ran any year because we talked a little bit about the topic today, which is going to be ADHD, food and chronic illness. So do you want to tell the listeners a little bit about you first before we jump in?
Patricia Sung 05:12
Yeah, sure. So I support moms who have ADHD to be competent and successful and build the life that you want for the family that you have in the season that you're in and for the brain that you have, and enjoy about through community courses and coaching, then obviously, the podcast that I just I absolutely love helping people with ADHD, figure out how to be happy, and be successful and juggle all the things, especially for moms, and it's just so much to keep up with. And when you have a way that makes sense for you. It's so much easier to, like, be happy. I know that sounds great. I'm like, I'm gonna help you be happy. But I want you to be happy. I want you to really enjoy your life. Well, that's great.
Sarah Synder 05:59
I was listening to you talk and being happy. It sounds simple. But it really, it can be so hard. So hard. So I value that a lot. So yeah, how did this whole topic of chronic illness and food become interesting to you?
Patricia Sung 06:16
So it started back when I first started the podcast, and really diving into getting to know all of the women I was working with, like talking to people in my Facebook group in, you know, different listeners to the show and realizing so many people had this theme of chronic illness. And it was definitely like disproportionate to the population as a whole. Like when you look at how many people have a chronic illness versus how many people I was finding with ADHD that had a chronic illness. I was like, well, this, this can't be a coincidence. It's a clearly related, but there's obviously not a lot of research there. And then a couple years ago, I got diagnosed with mold toxicity. And I got extremely sick, I almost died. It was awful. And in that process, a lot of what I was doing was with my food, which seemed unrelated to me, like when you look at modern medicine foods, not something that's really talked about. And so in all this research of trying to figure out like, I guess I should back up a bit like I was so sick, and nobody could tell me what was wrong with me. I saw dozens of doctors, I literally was like, if anybody can tell me anything, I will talk to anyone, I will try anything like someone has to tell me, someone must know why I am this sick. For like, because it was like no reason every specialist I went to was like, You look fine. Like I don't like clearly something's wrong, but I don't know what it is. And it was this ridiculous uphill battle trying to figure out what was wrong with me. And a big part of my healing was with my food. And when I can, like, look back through my whole life, I can see where there is that connection between food, like my stomach, all my gut issues and stress. And like, fast forward, like when I look at my childhood, and then I fast forward when I was really sick, I was eating about 30 Different foods total. Wow, that was like the sum total of all the foods I was consuming, including spices, herbs, I was 30 Things like it was awful, straight up awful. And when you are that sick, it's all consuming, it affects everything you do every one around you, you have such little energy and to be able to take that experience and be able to help other people forward. That really matters to me because I for me, like I can't waste that experience, and struggle and hardship and just like let it be there to me like I need to use that to fuel me forward. Because otherwise it was just
Patricia Sung 08:56
awful. So like
Patricia Sung 09:00
when I put together like all these themes I was seeing with my clients and my community and then when I got super sick, it was like, Whoa, this is not a coincidence. These things are all related. And I just went down the total like the rabbit hole of researching how does it all connect? Because I just couldn't live like that anymore. Wow, that's
Sarah Synder 09:23
that's huge. So what what's an example of something you've been able to bring to your community of ADHD ears and and apply with the food.
Patricia Sung 09:35
It's actually been like a newer thing for me like what I'm suggest now integrating it into what I'm doing. And it started with like, realizing that so much of the chronic illnesses are all rooted in our stress response. And when you look at like the grand scheme of things, people don't talk about that. as much as they would like, we say, like, oh, stress is bad for you, you're gonna have a heart attack. And like that's about it, like there's not real, like meaty advice when it comes to dealing with your stress and the consequences of not dealing with it. And as I keep, like digging into all of it, I'm like, Oh, this is a huge part of our bodies, as people with ADHD, and understanding, like how our stress response works. What's like realistic rest for people with ADHD. I mean, the other day I, we were talking about this in my community, and I, there were like, probably 20 moms that are chatting. And when I asked like, what do you do for rest, not one mom said, I sit quietly and do nothing. That's not how people with ADHD rest, we rest actively. And a lot of times, we're told that's not how to rest, we're told to rest by like doing nothing, which is like, you know, kryptonite for our brains. Like, don't make me do nothing. So like weaving those themes in understanding our stress response, understanding how we rest, and then, like, just now I'm starting to talk about like, how does the food enter that? And how does your body receive that food? And why would it consider it like an invader, when it should just be like, a banana, banana, who cares? Like, and your, your body starts taking in like, these, like outsiders coming in as a problem as an invader, instead of nourishment and like energy and what it should be? So we're like, I'm just now pulling all this together and being like, Oh, wow. Like, I feel almost like, a little bit. Like, I know, I hate the term woowoo. But like, it feels a little woowoo when I start talking about all these things, but at the same time, like, when you look back at like, cultures from 1000s of years ago, like everybody back then, like understood the value of food and how different things were good for you. Like, when like, you know, all those like things your grandma says of like, well, you're sick drink this eat that, like, those things do have a different, like, they make a difference. It's not just old wives tales and all that, like, they truly matter. And when you understand how your body functions and how your stress response functions, and how food can be, like interpreted as like a bad thing when it's actually like really shouldn't be all of a sudden, like your body just starts making so much more sense and how you can make choices that make sense for you.
Sarah Synder 12:27
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Patricia Sung 12:58
Mama Are you ready to get away, You are cordially invited to this year's annual retreat. Our successful as a mother luxury weekend getaway retreat conference amazingness that is happening this October. This is a chance for you to get away and take a break and truly rest for you to learn about your brain in a way that makes sense for you. And most importantly, know that you are not alone and have a real life community of moms who get you we are staying at a beautiful four star hotel. This is an all inclusive event, which means I will handle everything for you. Once you arrive, I take care of your hotel, I take care of your meals that you neither cooked nor cleaned up, nor cut anybody else's food up that you truly get to have a weekend where you take care of you because you deserve rest. You deserve to be taken care of. And I'm going to do that for you at this retreat. So I invite you to go ahead and grab your ticket at https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-mom-retreat again, that's https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-mom-retreat, grab your ticket, and let's hang out in person. I cannot wait to meet you.
Sarah Synder 14:13
So I'm going through the questions. I took a little detour. But I want to I think I think you answered my question, which was the most important thing, you're an ADHD or you have moody a chronic illness, what would you say is the most important thing there?
Patricia Sung 14:29
For me, it's to remind every person listening that this isn't in your head. When you start noticing these correlations between how you feel and different foods that you're eating, sometimes when like, depending on what like who your doctor is and their background, they often will say like this is in your head you're making this up like why don't you talk to the psychiatrist. It must be anxiety and what I would say is like, trust yourself when you know even if you don't We understand like what the connection is, you're like just something's not right here. Trust that gut feeling that if something feels not right, something's not right. Like maybe you can't put a name to it yet, but something's not right. And, like, I don't ever want to, like poopoo modern medicine, like, I have been to every specialist under the sun, and they all have taught me something. But like, there's just not enough research at this point. And there's not enough like communication between all the different like disciplines. So like, like my gastroenterologist didn't really talk to my neurologist didn't really talk to my rheumatologist. And like, there wasn't enough connection and communication. So like, when you talk to doctors, like their specialty is their specialty. And depending on their personality, they may not work with other people like Not, not in like a bad way. But it's just like they're focused on their specialty. And they don't worry about all the other body parts, because that's not their specialty. But when our bodies are under high stress for a long time in your body starts to think like benign things are invaders like, that's not a coincidence, like your gut, makes most of your hormones, your gut makes most of your neurotransmitters. Everything's connected, like when you think about your, your vagus nerve and your parasympathetic sympathetic balances in the limbic system. And all those things work together. And when you're stressed, they're not little things anymore, your whole body is being affected. Your gut is managing, like the majority of your systems, we don't realize how much our gut influences everything else. So it makes a lot of sense that if you're having food issues when you're sick, it's like, well, yeah, because your your gut is driving a lot of systems. So like, of course, it makes sense that now your guts having problems when you're sick. And like That's why like, when I'm like I hosted a retreat last year, hopefully gonna do it again this year. The whole theme was like, how do you slow down? How do you rest? How do you take care of yourself? Because when you have ADHD, like, you're so close, like, I hate using the word sensitive, because it makes it sound like a bad thing. But we're not like we're just very aware of all of our surroundings. And so we take in so much information like that makes us more susceptible to being overstimulated and being stressed out, because we took in so much information. And when we look at like, how can you take care of you in a realistic way and lower your stress and heal your body in a way that like, fits with your ADHD? It's like, now it's doable? To take care of yourself?
Sarah Synder 17:42
Yeah, totally. So on the same topic, what is something that is often challenging for us when it comes to food and chronic illness?
Patricia Sung 17:53
There's no one right answer. There's no one plan that like, if you can just find this one thing, it's gonna fix it. Like different foods are gonna bother different people. And it feels just so overwhelming. Like, I remember when I like was going through my, like, what foods I couldn't, couldn't eat, it was so overwhelming, like, how am I going to do this, this feels impossible. And also, like, as you're sick, your body can change and like something you could eat before now you can or you could need it now you can like, your body's just like constantly, like changing the system. And so it's a lot to deal with. It's a lot to take in, and it's a lot of work to eat differently than other people. So I think that's like, the hardest part is that it just feel so big. And to like get started. Feels monumental. Yeah, like, it's just it's like, how can I possibly even get started on this, which is really hard for us. When we have big projects like we already we get struggle with it, let alone something that carries this much weight and stress for us. Like, then you're stressed about being stressed about the thing that's going to make you less stressed. I mean, it's just like, oh, man, so that to me is the hardest part for ADHD is it just feels too hard.
Sarah Synder 19:11
That wall of awful Yeah, yeah. 100% Wow. So let's say you're an ADHD or and you want to you want to tackle this. What's the first step there? It sounds like there's many.
Patricia Sung 19:23
Yeah, my first step is always trust yourself. Yeah. Know the like, you know, something's wrong even if you don't know what it is or like, where to start as like, you know, something's wrong. It's not made up. And, like keeping that true to yourself and knowing like, this isn't a worthless endeavor, like, go for it. Go keep pushing. Like for me, I think that was the one thing I clung to when I was so sick and seeing doctor after doctor who just told me like, Well, you look fine. This looks fine. That looks fine. The skin came back clear. It's like well, I think thank you. I'm glad that that is fine, but what's wrong with me? Right If trusting in your gut like, yes, you know that there's something that needs to be fixed, even if you don't know what it is. Yeah. And then the second part would be just keep it easy. Like, don't like we tend to overcomplicate things because we get stressed out. Yeah. So whenever I would get really frustrated about like, I can only eat these things, my husband would remind me of like, don't focus on what you can't eat. Look at what you can eat, like, how do we what can we do with that? Yeah, and I would spend a lot of time like, imagining I was on that show chapter. I don't know if you've ever watched it on the Food Network where they put like, they would give the contestants a basket. And it would be like totally random things of like, a loaf of bread, a piece of chicken, Cheetos, and peppermint candies. And they would have to make something out of it. Like, that's what I would like, go in with this, like challenge mentality of like, okay, I only have these three things. But what can I do with these three things? Like, if you're trying to go gluten free, don't go on Pinterest and try to find 17 recipes that are gluten free. That's too much. Just look, what do you already eat? That's gluten free? Can you eat just those four things that you know you like you can eat? You know how to make? Can you just eat those four things for the next week or two weeks while you're doing your gluten free tests? Like, just stay off? Yeah. Don't overcomplicate it, keep it as easy as you can like, truly ask yourself, like, how do I make this simple for myself? And go with that route?
Sarah Synder 21:27
Yeah, I have to totally back you up here. Because I, I've been working with a nutritionist, and you know, it was like, all these different pyramids and colors and blah, blah, blah. And then finally, you know, she got a hang of how my brain works. And she goes, You know what, forget all this. Go get this book. And it was like the zero sugar something something about how sugar is evil. But she's like, just your added sugar. Like just do that, like, forget the pyramids? Forget all the colors? And would you believe it? It helps so much. Just, you know,
Patricia Sung 22:00
and I think those like really simple rules, like I hate even calling them rules. But like when we're trying to make changes of just picking one thing for us, like, a lot of times, it's easier to cut one thing out entirely than to try to moderate it like saying like, I'm only going to have one dessert a day makes you just want more dessert. Instead of saying like, Okay, I'm not going to eat sugar. That does mean I can still eat honey and maple syrup. So like, can I find some desserts with that, like, I'm not saying I can't have anything sweet. I'm just cutting out like the refined sugar. Okay, then, like that black and white roll makes it way easier to be like, well, but I mean, I only sort of had like half a dessert earlier. So I could have like half a one later. And then you just end up like spending so much time spinning in circles about like how you could manipulate this into being something better than it is. It's like, just letting go. Making those really simple changes that are like clear lines like that takes like a lot of the decision fatigue and like the mental gymnastics that we do out of it when it's very clear cut. Yeah,
Sarah Synder 23:13
totally. This has been such a good conversation, and I know it's gonna help so many people. Where can our listeners keep up with you online, Patricia.
Patricia Sung 23:24
So I have the same handle everywhere. It's at motherhood and ADHD. It's the same as my website. So you know, head over there on my website, I have a ton of free resources for you to download, like, whatever makes your heart happy. You know, obviously, with ADHD, I just keep churning out more and more free things like I'm over there, like, let's Oh, look, I can make a thing for this. I can make things better. There's like so many resources there to help you. And then I have my community of successful mama meetups, where we hang out if you think you have ADHD or you're sure you have ADHD, like, come meet your people hang out. We plan our week together and then we hang out like social time for the other half. And it's a really beautiful community of volunteers who get each other and understand like how your brain works, and we'd love to have you
Sarah Synder 24:11
so awesome. Patricia, thank you again for being on the show.
Patricia Sung 24:15
Thanks so much for having me. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhood in adhd.com