Make meals easier with ADHD: 5 tiny fixes that truly help | Annika Angelo (MS, ADHD nutrition educator)
Untangling food overwhelm with realistic steps you can stick to.
Ever freeze in front of the fridge, brain buzzing, stomach silent, and wonder how lunch turned into a logic puzzle? People with ADHD know that slippery moment when hunger cues vanish until crisps appear, or dinner turns into cereal at midnight. Annika Angelo has lived that loop and turned it into a roadmap for the rest of us.
Annika holds an MS in health psychology and spends her days translating dense nutrition research into bite-sized wins for neurodivergent eaters. Her Instagram classroom, thenutrimindlab, has grown to more than 150,000 followers who flock to her myth-busting reels and quick-fire science explainers. She hosts The Nutritional Mental Health Podcast, now 35 episodes strong, where she chats with experts about protein timing, blood-sugar swings, and dopamine support. She has also newly launched the Nutrimind Community on Patreon, offering group coaching and a research library that keeps members coming back for fresh studies and practical tools.
Inside this guest post Annika shares the five food habits that steady blood sugar, tame stimulant-blunted appetite, and stop the bottom-of-the-bag binge. Your kitchen is about to feel a lot friendlier.
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with food. I was your classic “picky eater” who would sit at the dinner table until everyone left so I could “go to the bathroom” and dump the food I felt like I couldn’t eat down the toilet.
As I got older, it got… more complicated. After all – now I was the one who had to make the food. I didn’t know I had ADHD at the time, so I felt so guilty for either getting takeout every single day or only buying processed foods since that was all I’d actually eat. But, once I started my master’s degree, I finally realized that everything I had felt around food wasn’t normal…
…To neurotypicals.
But to people with ADHD? Holy buckets, did I fit right in.
Feel familiar? You are so focused on a task that you skip eating, and then you get so shaky that you’d rather curl up in a ball on your bed than drag yourself to the kitchen. Or instead? You accidentally end up eating the entire bag of chips instead of making a meal. How about when it feels like your body completely rejects eating altogether after you get that “ick” randomly?
That’s normal. The thing is, ADHD changes how you relate to food. Significantly. But it doesn’t mean we have to live with that – it just means that we need different tools.
Here are 5 practical steps I’ve found that make eating easier, more consistent, and actually supportive for our ADHD. To me, #3 is the most helpful as someone without many hunger cues at all!
1. Stabilize Your Blood Sugar First, Change Your Diet Later
Forget chasing “perfect” meals. ADHD brains run better on steady energy, not extremes.
Why it matters: Blood sugar crashes mimic emotional dysregulation – cue anxiety, irritability, or that sense of “I can’t eat anything right now.”
What helps: Add protein or fat to anything you’re already eating. If you grab toast, add peanut butter. If it’s cereal, throw in some Greek yogurt. Simple pairings go a long way.
Scientific bonus: Protein helps support dopamine, the key neurotransmitter behind motivation, focus, and reward-seeking.
2. Use Visual or External Cues to Trigger Eating
We don’t always feel hunger the “normal” way. So waiting until you're hungry often backfires.
What helps: Set alarms, link meals to activities (eat after walking the dog), or keep food visible on your counter.
Hack: Use the “30-second meal” test—if it takes longer than that to decide, prep, or chew, you’ll likely avoid it. Have go-to foods that pass.
Example: A smoothie, hard-boiled eggs, or cheese and crackers may not feel like “real” meals, but they work – and that’s what matters.
3. Don’t Wait for Appetite
Whether or not you’re on stimulants, most people with ADHD have some form of appetite suppression…which can lead to binging later on.