Adult ADD and pronloged fasting

[Notebook24]

Hello,I'm navigating prolonged fasting to help with the destructive inattentiveness. Any insight?

[Quincie]

Is intermittent fasting something you've done before? You don't say whether you are doing it or thinking about it. Unless you can find research findings on this you will have to experiment on yourself. & think about what this looks like - eg daily fasting or fasting 1 day / week etc. How long you will try this for etc. It may take a while before any noticeable changes happen.

It's an interesting theory to test & wishing you luck. I have noticed better mental energy & brain fog lifting whenever I cut carbs. Still figuring out how to corral the focus better

[Notebook24 in reply to Quincie]

Thank you, Quincie! I have been doing intermittent fasting on and off for many months now. Usually, I fast 16 hours and eat 8 hours. I'm gluten free as gluten will make my brain fog unbearable and I will be dysfunctional completely. The longest fasting time I have done was 40 hours during which I was drinking electrolytes and some herbal tea. It was an interesting experience as I felt energetic.

I tried to search for some scientific paper about the topic but didnt find.But, may be I missed it.

Anyway, it is just a thought

Kind regards.

[Quincie in reply to Notebook24]

I would experiment. I understand the feeling energetic part (burning fat for energy) - but how was your focus during the 40 hr fast? Did you notice anything?

[Notebook24 in reply to Quincie]

Yes, I felt focused till the last 4-5hours when I was exhausted..very understandable!However, not really sure if this was really due to fasting as it was one time experience.

I'm struggling with unpredictability of when my dysfunctional brain hits me..unable to focus and just stare at my computer tryna ng to do my job .

[MindsinBloom in reply to Quincie]

Beware diet culture when it comes to carbs. Your brain exclusively consumes carbohydrates.

[Notebook24 in reply to MindsinBloom]

Very true! Thanks for reminding me. I try mybest to eat good carbs and avoid food high in sugars

[Quincie in reply to Notebook24]

That information isn't correct. The brain uses ketones from fatty acids if glucose from carbs isn't available.

[RussellRussell]

Hi, I have inattentive type, and don’t eat until about midday. I’m definitely more focused during that time, and would go longer if I could. Carbs and sugar are my kryptonite, eg if I have an almond croissant early if I’m away with work / on holiday etc I’m done for the day.!!! Massively annoying as they are so good! Not worth writing off a day though. Would be really interested about studies on food types and fasting on inattentive type . I just trial with myself, even though depriving myself of that beautiful food!!

[CloudsAreLovely]

From my own experience. Just changing what you eat can make a huge difference. It took a while like months of eating extremely clean to see that it was working... but it was working and it was the best I ever felt in my whole life! Unfortunately for a while now I haven't been in the same situation to keep up with it. But, working my way back!

[AuDHD3245]

You do have to be careful with fasting, although it's made simpler on ADHD meds. I practice fasting every year.

When we fast our bodies revert back to our ancestor brain and look for food. Back in the past our ancestors used to have to hunt for food, going hours and hours, sometimes days without food. This wasn't called fasting, it was called starving. Hunter/gathering.

It's interesting that we have continued and evolved into today and none of us actually did starve, and we did this because we managed to find the food and feed ourselves.

Forward to today, food is everywhere, we don't need to hunt nor gather. There is no need to 'starve'.

Today, we call it fasting. When we eat, our body uses the food we eat as fuel. We fuel ourselves from breakfast to lunch, lunch to dinner, and repeat. Every day.

When we fast, our body will start sending signals to our brain in the way of hunger, and that tells us we need to eat.

If we continue to not eat, and prolong the fast, because there is no food to run on, our body at some point has no choice but to find fuel from elsewhere. It starts using fat stores. This is called 'Ketosis'. When our bodies are in ketosis, it turns fat to sugar, sugar is energy, and that is good enough to keep going. Hunger disappears because the body has found an alternate source of fuel. BUT....

Because of the years and years we have been eating, our body will always look for food.

Our body will first send hunger pangs, then it increases smell, then increases vision, then increases attention, then increases our senses, our taste buds go mad, our hearing gets better, we become more alert and we become stronger and more relaxed. We do this 'naturally' in order to find food.

Imagine a caveman hunting for food, sat in the wilderness for hours and hours, waiting for the deer to come along. He can literally smell water, he can feel every inch of breeze on his legs, he will be able to hear every single crack of the branches on the trees. It's because his body needs to 'find'. In the search, every single sense ignites to an extremely heightened point.

It's an amazing experience, however, as mentioned you have to be careful. You have to be careful because once you begin to eat again, it's only then that your body will say 'I dont want to go through that again, and it will store more fat, 'just incase' it needs to revert to those fat stores again in the future.

It's important to break fast with the right food to replenish the body and cells. Usually fresh fruit juice and fresh veg. It's equally important at the very beginning of any fast to choose those juices and foods, because as mentioned, your body will send hunger pangs, which will drive you to want to eat anything to fill the gap. You'll choose all kinds of rubbish. This part is your senses igniting. You'll see food that you've never eaten before and want it. you'll want chocolate and crisps, you'll fancy a massive meal and eat more and more, which is unhealthy. If you just keep going though, all that will disappear.

Overall fasting is the most spiritual and beautiful practice a human can endeavour, but it does take practise and you really have to be careful of how you 'break fast'.

There are some good documentaries and films on fasting. One being 'fat, sick and nearly dead'.. another is called 'fasting' it's on Amazon prime if you can get access to it.

Fasting cures disease. It starves the disease of what it lives on in the body, but of course, doctors cannot and are not allowed to suggest to not eat. They have to, by law and practise, to advise a healthy diet.

Go for it, you'll notice a beautiful change, but again, be careful how you break the fast.

Good luck

[FocusAndFlow]

i highly recommend you read 'Outlive' by Dr. Peter Attia to better understand your own 'nutritional biochemistry', not merely 'diet'. Everyone here is correct in that you must experiment to see not only what works, but adding my two cents here, 'to what degree'. You want to narrow down what works, how much and don't overdo it. Lean into the effort and discipline if sticking with it and refining it over time and you'll see incremental gains week over week, month over month. That and two metric tons of patience and you're good to go.

I don't eat until noon, or sometimes until 2-3pm, which does help a lot with focus, but if I 'overdo it' and miss a feeding window due to hyper focus and go until 5pm or so, i feel si k, i get really tired, cranky and all the symptoms flare up. Rather than listing them out, I just call it 'cognitive load', which we carry that non-ADHD folks don't.

To keep things simple, I constantly monitor my cognitive load, including behavior, mood, emotional regulation, the lot. As you experiment taking bad carbs, alcohol, etc. out of your diet, optimizing protein intake, hydrating better and more consistently, as well as taking an increasingly self-compassionate view of yourself and your daily victories, you start growing into a better you who is finally on the mend. Make it three metric tons of patience.

Play with it, take notes and refer back to them, build new little habits into your routine (small steps do they start sticking) and focus on the positive, no matter how seemingly small or meaningless. Our conversations are vastly more nuanced about these things and folks with neurotypical brains who would never understand, nor should they. But we do. And that's ok.

Make sure you supplement with very high quality omega 3s at a minimum on the supplementation front. That's a whole other topic, so I'll leave it here for now.

Godspeed.