I want to talk about what it is like to be hungry and eat, with and without Adderall.

Without AdderalL: I’ve wondered my whole life why I can’t eat like a normal person. I’m always hungry, it seems there’s never enough food, and I’ll eat until I’m overstuffed and still feel like I want more. Sugary things are beyond compelling. I jokingly refer to those frosted white cupcakes from the grocery store as crack, but it’s not really a joke.

If I ever wanted to lose weight, i would have to go into super strict diet mode. I could not have even ONE sweet. It was cold turkey or nothing. Food would have to be strictly limited and I could NOT make a SINGLE exception, or else i would just go on a total food bender, and six months later I would have gained all the weight back.

And so, I read a lot about it. I tried low carbing it for a while, and that worked the same way that going cold turkey on sugar and portion sizes worked – keeping myself from getting into a food bender.

The problem is that you have to eat! You can’t go completely cold turkey on food the way you can with cigarettes or caffeine.

Except there have been a few times in my life where I’ve been able to eat normal amounts of food, and that I haven’t been thinking about food except when I’m eating it, or I’m actually hungry. Those times have been times of transition and good stress.

Now I wonder if those times were times when life circumstances kicked my dopamine levels up. Life circumstances like breaking up with a bad boyfriend and starting a new job, or starting law school, or moving to a new city. I’ve always loved being in super crisis change mode because I just feel so… i don’t know…. normal and competent?

I wonder if the thing that manifests as a food addiction is just me subconsciously trying to boost my dopamine.

I know a lot of modern research indicates that people have weight set points that is very difficult to change, either up OR down. But it is also true of ME that when I am in good-stress-change mode I lose weight, and when I am in normal mode I tend to gain weight, and that gained weight is directly related to eating two candy bars and a large piece of cake every night for 6 months in a row.

When I’m in “normal” mode I feel like I HAVE to have something sweet. And I feel bereft if I don’t get it. And after I’ve eaten it I feel like I want more.

Adderall makes it so my appetite feels like being in good-stress-change mode, even without an actual good-stress change happening. The first few days on Adderall I really didn’t have much appetite at all. But after a few days I started feeling hungry again. Like, actual hunger. Not i-must-feed-my-addiction craving. And then when I eat, it’s good but I don’t feel like I have to take a huge portion, and I don’t feel like I have to eat everything in front of me if I stop being hungry.

It is really weird for me to leave food. Or leave coffee. Or leave an alcoholic beverage. But on Adderall it feels totally reasonable to just eat what I feel like and no more.

Part of me is thinking, HOW CAN IT BE that I would EVER not want more?

Like most of this stuff, I’ve always felt like my disordered eating is a moral failing. I don’t have enough self discipline, I don’t have enough moral power, my eating habits are immature (e.g., eating Marshmallow Peeps until I’m sick!), I should just choose not to eat that second cookie, or that third doughnut, or that fourth piece of pizza, and then not do it.

Now it seems like it was just fucked up brain chemistry this whole time? WTF is up with that?

Today I ordered a Starbucks breakfast sandwich for lunch, and I ate it, and it was good, but when I was done I was satisfied, and I didn’t wish for more food. And I didn’t even THINK about how I normally would be wishing for more food.

Right now I’m hungry, and The Mighty Sam is fixing hushpuppies and spicy sausage for dinner, and I’m totally looking forward to it. He just gave me a sample hushpuppy and it was delicious! But I’m thinking I’ll probably want just one sausage and a few hushpuppies and then I’ll be good.

Another thing is that I’m not feeling like i have to keep snacking on stuff right up until I go to bed. That’s really awesome because it makes it much easier to Sonicare and Water Pik my teeth before bed.

I wonder how many people with ADHD have terrible teeth. That will be another post.