Spring is well and truly here in the UK, which means lighter morning and that I feel like a brand new me. Every March I suddenly emerge from a cocoon of darkness to feeling motivated, happy and like I’ve been given a new lease of life. The reason for this? My seasonal affective disorder is gradually fading. For those of you who haven’t heard of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) it’s definitely worth checking out particularly if you have ADHD as it more common to have alongside it.
In other great news I’ve lost 16 pounds, which is pretty great considering I did some of that while still under the clutches of my SAD. I usually struggle to diet between October and December, it’s just not worth it because it gives my mental health a huge nose dive. However, when my kids went back to school in January I decided to hop on the new year new weight bandwagon. I went to go my go to diet which is low calorie and low carb (I can’t seem to lose weight on low calorie alone; my body is annoying like that!).
“Losing weight is not easy for people with ADHD, as naturally gravitate towards carby foods.”
ADHD Girl
I did great for five weeks and lost ten pounds, then I got sick ☹. Don’t ask me what I got, I only know I felt awful with no energy and I did test negative for Covid. I don’t know anybody who can diet when they are sick; if they can well done to them but I need my comfort food. So for a week I had Ben and Jerrys to ease my sore throat, crisps, biscuits you name it. Yet I tell you what I didn’t do, I didn’t allow that to carry on once I felt much better! Instead, I started dieting again, going the gym and doing all the right things.
Of course life is still for living so I had a night off here and there for going out or for a special occasion meal. Each time I got back to it determined to lose weight for our family holiday to Disney World. Well after six weeks of not weighing myself and having the occasional treat it was time to bite the bullet and get back on the scales. I was thrilled to see I’d lost another 6lbs.
I attribute this to one key reason; my current hyperfocus which is…wait for it….weighted hula hooping!! I could never use a normal hula hoop as a child, and I was fascinated by anyone who could. With my dyspraxia I always thought it might be just out of my reach on the skills level. Yet towards the end of last year I couldn’t help but notice lots of people were going mad for weighted hula hooping. I was totally curious because 1. It was an exercise I could do at home when the kids are in bed or busy. And 2. I could fulfil my life long dream of being able to hula hoop…well sort of.
So when my Auntie got me an amazon voucher for Christmas I decided I was going to do it by hook or by crook (to any Americans reading that means ‘I’m going to do it one way or another’). When my hula hoop arrived, I was excited to give a go, but to my dismay I couldn’t keep the weighted ball going for longer than 10 seconds. After a few go’s, into it’s box it went and I didn’t get it back out until 6 weeks later (having recovered from being sick).
“There seems to be two kinds of people with ADHD; those who forget to eat and those who love to eat. I’ve never found anyone in between.”
ADHD Girl
This time I started practicing as much as I could, I would blast ‘The Time Warp’ (unashamed!) and time myself to see how long I could keep it going. After a few days, ten seconds became one minute, a few more days and one minute because 3 or 4 minutes. I keep trying to beat the part of the song I’d got to previously.
Four weeks later and I can do 35 minutes on my weighted hula hoop and I’ve been doing it every single night for three weeks. It’s very addictive and once you get the hang of it, it becomes easy. Of course I’m still going to the gym three times a week and today (Tuesday) I went on my first cycle of 2023 for twenty minutes. You might be sat there reading this thinking wow that’s a lot of exercise, but honestly it doesn’t feel like it when I’m doing it because it’s fun.
My goal is to lose 28-35 pounds before we go to Disney world, it’s not how much I want to lose altogether but it’s a really good start that should have me looking half decent on the photos. Anyway this blog is getting rather long compared to my usual posts, so I’ll leave it there. My main point from all this is ‘find what you love, do it your own way and see how far you can go’ Life is for living, even for those of us with ADHD, so what are you waiting for?
