Why ADHD and Binge Eating Are So Connected
This blog post summarizes my latest youtube video!
Binge eating is incredibly common in people with ADHD — far more common than most discussions about ADHD acknowledge. And yet, so many folks feel ashamed, out of control, or like it’s a personal failure.
As a nutritionist and intuitive eating counsellor with ADHD, I work with people every day who feel this way. I’ve also been through periods of my life where I used binge eating as a coping mechanism, especially in moments of stress, burnout, and overwhelm.
In this post, I want to talk about two major patterns that make binge eating much more likely when you have ADHD — not the only reasons, but two of the biggest contributors I see over and over again.
1. The Restrict–Binge Cycle in ADHD
One of the most common patterns I see is the restrict–binge cycle.
This can be intentional (“I’m trying to eat less today”) or completely unintentional (“I hyperfocused and didn’t realize I skipped two meals”).
Why People With ADHD Often Go Too Long Without Eating
ADHD brains struggle with interoceptive awareness — the ability to notice internal cues like hunger. Because of that, many people with ADHD:
Go hours without realizing they haven’t eaten
Ignore hunger cues until they’re ravenous
Get stuck in hyperfocus and lose track of time entirely
Feel overwhelmed and push eating to later
Experience appetite suppression from stimulant medication
By the time you finally notice you’re hungry, you’re usually beyond hunger — you're in a full crash.
How Low Blood Sugar Contributes to Binge Eating
When you go several hours without eating, your blood sugar levels drop, leaving your body in an energetic deficit.
When you finally start eating, your body:
wants energy fast
pushes you toward carb-rich, sugary foods
has a much harder time regulating fullness
creates a strong sense of urgency (“eat ASAP”)
This is why binge eating tends to happen in the evening for so many ADHDers — you’ve been running on empty all day.
Your body is simply trying to correct a deficit.
Why Binges Feel So Physically Bad
When we binge eat, it's typically on foods higher in carbohydrates and sugar, lower in other macros like protein, fat, and fibre. When this happens:
Blood sugar spikes quickly
The energy from food is used up fast
Blood sugar quickly crashes again
You feel tired, nauseous, shaky, guilty
This is not a moral failure.
This is physiology + ADHD + being in survival mode.
How to Interrupt the Restrict–Binge Cycle
You don’t need perfect meals. You just need more regular fuel.
Aim to eat every 2–3 hours to keep blood sugar relatively stable, reducing the restriction pattern
Eat something small even if you don’t feel hungry
Try to include at least two of the following: protein + fat + fiber + carbs whenever possible
If you want a structure to make eating with ADHD (especially regularly) easier, check out my post on the Three Levels of Food Access for ADHD — it helps you categorize foods based on how easy they are to access depending on your capacity that day.
Consistency, not perfection, is what shifts binge eating patterns.
2. Low Interoceptive Awareness in ADHD
The second major factor that impacts binge eating with ADHD is interoceptive awareness — your brain’s ability to sense your internal body signals, like hunger, fullness, thirst, temperature, etc.
People with ADHD often struggle with this. Some examples include:
Not noticing hunger until you’re starving
Not realizing you need rest until you crash
Realizing suddenly that you’re freezing and need to put on a sweater
Forgetting to pee for hours
How Low Interoceptive Awareness Affects Eating
If your brain isn’t picking up hunger cues early enough, you only notice them:
when they’re extreme
when your blood sugar is super low
when your body is already in panic mode
So many people with ADHD find themselves in the restrict binge cycle because it's harder for their brain to recognize hunger cues, which leads to under-eating throughout the day and then overeating to make up for it.
Improving Interoceptive Awareness Helps Reduce Binge Eating
This is one of the foundational pieces of intuitive eating.
As you slowly rebuild your ability to notice early hunger signals though becoming an intuitive eater, you become more able to:
respond to hunger before it turns urgent
choose foods that support your energy
maintain stable blood sugar
eat more regularly throughout the day
And that alone makes a massive difference in binge eating patterns.
ADHD and Binge Eating Are Complex
These two patterns —
➡ going too long without eating
➡ having low interoceptive awareness
— are big contributors, but they’re not the whole story.
Other factors can include:
stress and emotional regulation
diet culture
sensory issues around food
executive dysfunction
dopamine-seeking behaviours
hormonal imbalances
medications
trauma
sleep deprivation
and more
This post focuses on just two because they’re the ones I typically see the most in ADHD clients, and the ones that often shift most quickly once addressed.
The First Steps to Reducing Binge Eating With ADHD
1. Eat regularly to keep blood sugar stable.
This alone helps reduce binge episodes significantly.
2. Work on improving your interoceptive awareness and intuitive eating.
Start noticing small signals that may be telling you that you need to eat soon —ie more brain fog, low energy, irritability, thinking about food — before they escalate.
3. Use ADHD-friendly food access systems.
The “three levels of food access” framework helps you match what you eat to your capacity.
4. Remove shame from the equation.
Your body is not the enemy. It’s doing its best with the signals it has.
ADHD brains and bodies often communicate differently, and that impacts eating more than most people realize. Understanding why these patterns happen gives you the tools to interrupt them — without restriction, without shame, and without fighting against your body.
