Experiencing ADDvantages

A Maverick Approach to Diet and Health

Full fat, raw dairy. Eggs. Pastured meats from local farms, and from an Amish farmer. Sweet apples and pears from orchards in my neighborhood, and colorful vegetables growing nearby. Artisan sourdough bread made from locally grown, whole grains. Wine from my favorite vineyard that sits under mountain cliffs.

This is what I've been eating. Sounds delectable, doesn't it?

If you're an ADDer who has ever struggled with heart disease, weight loss, mood swings, energy regulation, or general health problems, then keep reading...

Here's the thing: I, like the rest of America, have always believed that dietary fat (specifically animal fat) is bad. For as long as I can remember, the message has been that dietary fat causes diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. I, like many Americans, bought low-fat cheese, skim milk, no-fat yogurt, and lean cuts of meat.

Over the past few months, I've been exposed to some maverick ideas on the subject of health and nutrition. I first started to change my mind about the health benefits of dietary fat when I read Nina Planck's book Real Food: What to Eat and Why. After reading that book, I began making small changes in my diet until, one day, I realized that I was eating completely differently...without trying to.

I had, in a very organic manner, adopted a "back to basics" diet that included plenty of fat, and almost no refined carbohydrates. (Refined carbohydrates are sometimes known as "whites:" white bread, white rice, white pasta, sugar, etc. Corn syrup, a sweetener used in many low-fat foods, is also a refined carbohydrate and one that is arguably the worst refined carb of all.) I was eating plenty of natural carbs, like fruits and vegetables, but I wasn't craving candy, ice cream, and other high-carb sweets. Erin had a similar progression in her diet, and described it this way:

One morning I was eating my favorite cereal, Honey Bunches of Oats, which is supposed to be a very healthy cereal. I looked down at the half-finished bowl and realized that I just didn't want that cereal. It didn't compare to the real food I could be eating, like yogurt and fruit or scrambled eggs. I haven't wanted my "favorite cereal" since and the box has sat in the pantry untouched.

Little by little, the protein and fat in my diet increased, and the carbohydrates decreased. So did the volume of food that I consumed. Turns out protein and fat are much more filling and satisfying! And I noticed amazing benefits to my mental and physical health, as I posted about in  'I've Never Felt Better' earlier this week.

So you can imagine how happy I am as I work my way through the very thick and interesting new book by Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. (The book was developed from Taubes' 2002 New York Times article, What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie, which I recommend over the book if you're not a big science buff.)

Taubes painstakingly traces the history of low-fat diet recommendations, and reviews the actual scientific studies on diet, nutrition, and health. Turns out that the evidence overwhelmingly points to carbohydrates (mainly refined carbohydrates), not dietary fat, as the cause of numerous "Western diseases," such as obesity, diabetes, and yes, even heart disease. The science doesn't come close to proving that animal fat causes illnesses. (Vegetable oils do, but that's another story.) I'll leave it to Taubes to explain how this information has been ignored and covered up. It makes for a fascinating read by an author who is an objective journalist interested in presenting facts, not opinions.

Meanwhile, I'm eating the way humans did long ago, and reaping the benefits. I am continually amazed by the positive effects--from healthy skin to better moods and (much) more energy.      

This way of life has improved my ADD challenges, too. I'm finding it easier to focus and, because my stress levels are way down, I haven't been getting overwhelmed. I do still tend to be late for appointments, though. :-)

I don't expect anyone to read my posts and be convinced to make dietary changes. But I do, at the very least, recommend reading Nina Planck's Real Food and Gary Taubes' NYT article. See if these experts change the way you think about diet and health. Then, maybe, see if you don't agree. I know I certainly do...

...and I've never felt better.

 

Last Chance to Buy My New Book at a Discount!

Only two days remain in the presale for Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD! Be sure to reserve your copy of the book before midnight EST on Saturday September 22.

The book will be available on Amazon next week, and you'll also be able to order it through your local bookstore. However, you'll save about 30% when you buy it directly from us on presale at the Odd One Out website.

From the Odd One Out back cover:

In her new book, Odd One Out: The Maverick’s Guide to Adult ADD, Jennifer Koretsky explores the ways in which adult ADD can be both challenging and rewarding, and reveals why this difference offers a remarkable advantage.

Developed through her own personal experience as an adult with ADD and her years as a professional ADD coach, Jennifer has isolated The Five Essential Skills for Managing Adult ADD, and she shows you exactly how to build and implement these skills in your own life. Inside, you’ll follow a roadmap to success as you learn how to:

• Break the overwhelm-burnout cycle
• Put yourself first in order to care for those around you
• Work with your attention inconsistencies
• Be more organized by doing less work
• Get a handle on time management
• Create a vision and a plan for your life 
• Embrace and enhance your maverick nature

Reserve your copy today at www.odd-one-out.net!

 

Managing ADD with Food

In my new book, Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD, I talk about good nutrition being one of the basics of self-care for adults with ADD. Put simply, if you load up your body with simple carbs, sugar, caffeine (and even nicotine) then your mood and energy levels will roller coaster all day long, making it difficult to manage ADD.

That's the easy part. The hard part is knowing just what, exactly, good nutrition is.

In the 80s, when I grew up, low-fat/low-cal was all the rage. As a result, my generation was raised on nutritionally deficient foods low on fat but high in crap (like corn syrup.) No wonder there is a so-called 'obesity epidemic.' The food industry pushed a bunch of highly processed crap 'food' on us and called it healthy. We were highly misinformed.

Today there is still a lot of misinformation out there and the 'experts' disagree on everything from what is a good fat to how many servings of grains we should eat each day. It's hard for anyone to figure out how to eat healthy, let alone in such a way that will help keep personal energy levels in tact.

My nurse practitioner recently recommended a book called Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Placnk. I couldn't put it down.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Nina proposes eating the way that our great, great grandparents did. Lots of fruits and veggies, whole grains, meat and eggs from pastured animals, and even full fat dairy - milk, butter, cheese and yogurt.

At first the book sounded too good to be true. Hang on, I don't have to buy skim milk or look for butter substitutes without trans fats? I don't have to become a vegetarian to be truly healthy?

Taking a closer look, however, Nina's book is really about eating natural, unrefined, unprocessed foods. And her arguments are good ones - our relatives ate like this for thousands of years. Heart disease and obesity problems only emerged in the last 100 years, when foods began to be regulated and processed.

So Erin and I have been making a shift towards eating more real food, and less processed crap.

We've been stopping at local farms for freshly picked fruits and vegetables (love those NY apples and peaches!) We're getting eggs from local farms, too. (What a difference. I dare you to buy just one dozen eggs from your local farm and see if you ever want store bought eggs again.) We've been spending a little extra to buy not just organic meat, but grass-fed and pastured meat, which I admit is not cheap. And we've even been buying from local dairy farmers, including raw milk. Yes, raw milk fresh from the cow. Full fat, unpastuerized and unhomogenized. It's amazing.

Now here's the best part: both Erin and I have never felt better.

We sleep better. We wake up refreshed. We have so much more energy on the weekends. And it doesn't take as much food for us to feel satisfied, either. We haven't even thought about fast food in weeks. While we used to look for quick dinner fixes on late working nights, we now make it a priority to take a break and make some real food.

Better yet, I don't have such a difficult time getting out of bed in the morning, and I don't need as much coffee to keep up my energy during the day. I also don't burnout as easily, which is a huge bonus. Basically, eating real food works towards keeping my stress levels down, which in turn keeps my ADD challenges at bay.

Interesting stuff, huh?

If you're interested in learning more about the real food movement, then I highly recommend picking up Real Food: What to Eat and Why.

My Book Is Here!

Adults with ADD struggle to fit into a world that doesn't always fit them.

If you’re an adult with ADD, then you know firsthand how hard it can be to get it together and stay focused, become organized, manage your time and take care of yourself.

You know how hard it is to play the game of life following other people’s rules.

     But what if you could be happy and successful by breaking the rules?

     What if you could be yourself, and use those differences to your advantage?

     What if you could relish being the odd one out?

Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide To Adult ADD doesn’t just tell you about these skills; it provides a roadmap to success.

     Inside, You’ll Learn How To:

           -Break the overwhelm-burnout cycle

           -Put yourself first in order to care for those around you

           -Work with your attention inconsistencies

           -Be more organized by doing less work

           -Get a handle on time management

           -Create a vision and a plan for your life

           -Embrace and enhance your maverick nature

Odd One Out will be shipping on or before September 30th, 2007 and will retail for $19.95.

Reserve your copy now and save! Presale orders are just $16.95, including shipping and handling in the US.

Visit the Odd One Out website to reserve your discounted copy today!

 

Green Acres

I'm reading a great book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why, that I'll be talking more about next week. The author grew up on a farm and is a big proponent of eating local, organic, natural food - the kind our great, great grandparents ate.

Erin picked up the book the other day and started reading. "She sure makes farm living sound good. Do you think you could live on a farm?"

I thought about it for a few minutes. It sounds great - living in a peaceful setting, picking fresh vegetables for meals, being surrounded by animals. But it's also a lot of work. Farmers get up very early and work long, hard hours. I'm sure I'd love it for three days, and then be bored, tired, and pissed off.

It got me thinking, though, that despite Thom Hartmann's theory that the ADDers of prehistoric times must have been the hunters, farm life might actually work for certain adults with ADD.

Those adults who are hyperactive or idle high (and like to go, go, go) would probably really appreciate the opportunity to stay physically active with a purpose. Plus, seeing your hard work rewarded in the form of fruits and vegetables would be a big plus. And being able to think up new strategies to make the farm more efficient would be a nice motivator, too.

I'm really curious: are there any ADD farmers out there? And for everyone else, does the idea of life on a farm appeal to you, or does it make you want to kiss the concrete of a city sidewalk?

BIG NEWS: My New Book!

My long-awaited book, Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD, is coming out next month!

I've been working on the book for a long time now, and am so pleased that we're in the final stages of development and almost ready to begin selling it. The book is based on my ADD coaching model and teaches how to be happy and successful by breaking the rules.

We'll be announcing a pre-order sale this week. Stay tuned!

 

Top 5 ADD Books

Just for fun, here are the top 5 books purchased by ADD Management Group blog readers in 2007. This data is from our Amazon.com affiliate statistics.

 

5. Survival Tips for Women with AD/HD by Terry Matlen

4. Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults by Thomas Brown

3. ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kohlberg & Kathleen Nadeau

2. Making ADD Work by Blythe Grossberg

1. Delivered from Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell & John J. Ratey

 

What are YOUR favorite ADD books?

 

ADD Unplugged

Readers of The ADD Business Owner, my other blog, know that I've been raving about the bestseller The 4-hour Work Week. I advise everyone to pick it up for time management and life balance tips, as well as a nice dose of inspiration!

One of the changes I've implemented since reading the book is that I've only been checking my email once a day.

Yes, you read that right. Once a day.

I used to have email open all day long. All night long, too. Okay, even all weekend long. That way, whenever Erin wasn't looking, I could pop into the office and see what was doing. I would try to avoid this obsessive behavior, but rarely succeeded.

This time has been different.

I used to feel like email never stopped. I used to be weighed down by the amount of email waiting to be answered and the number of tasks to be done that came through via email.

What I've noticed, however, is that when I check email just once a day, I can get through it all in about 30 minutes. I don't stress over it, and I don't multi task. I just spend  however much time I need to answer it all, and then I close down email.

I thought this approach might make me more stressed, continually worrying that something needed my attention. In fact, the opposite has been true. I'm finding that I feel much more free and much less anxious. And when I do check email, it no longer feels as heavy.

How often do you check your email? What would happen if you cut that number in half? Please share your thoughts in the comments field below.

   

Recommended Reading: UltraMetabolism

It's no secret that I've struggled with weight all my life.  It seems I am always losing weight and looking and feeling great, only to mysteriously put it all back on in the end, plus a few extra pounds.  This is called yo-yo dieting, and it's become a very serious problem in America.  I am certainly not alone. 

I know what to eat.  Organic, whole foods are the way to go.  Lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that are not sprayed with pesticides.  Meat without hormones and antibiotics.  No sugar!

I know how to eat it.  Slowly.  In it's natural form.

I know when to eat it.  Every couple of hours.  Most importantly, at breakfast.

And yet, I have been to CherryTop (the local mom and pop ice cream stand) more times than I care to admit in the last month. 

I'm happy to report, however, that I have found a new resource that is helping me follow through on the way I know I need to eat.  It's a book called UltraMetabolism by Mark Hyman, MD.

I already know a lot of what Dr. Hyman talks about in his book.  I know the right way to eat, and I know it makes me feel better.  What I don't know, however, is the science behind it.

I'm very science-minded.  Ever since I was young, I have wanted to know why.  Why is the sky blue? Why does the dog shed so much?  Why do I have to go to sleep when I'm not tired?  Why do people insist on driving so damn slow in the left lane?  That one will never be explained.

The thing I love so much about UltraMetabolism is that Dr Hyman explains why.  Why organics matter.  Why fruits and vegtables speed up your metabolism.  Why sugar makes you fat and sick.  I now understand the effects that certain eating patterns have on my body.  And that knowledge helps me to make good choices.

It's not enough for me to know the what, how, and when.  I have to know the why, as well.  If you're like me, then you will no doubt find UltraMetabolism to be exactly what you need in your quest to eat right live healthy.

Learning to eat right is not easy.  Neither is learning to manage your ADD.  But both are well worth the effort.