🌊 Figuring Out ADHD & Perimenopause with Robin Gatter
Make it stand out
I’m thrilled to welcome our first guest to the show, Robin Gatter, MS, CNS, LDN, NBC-HWC.
Our conversation weaves together what I’ve been talking about so far on the show - this intersection of neurodivergence, perimenopause, food, and body image.
Robin shows up as her brave, wise self.
Tune in to hear:🌊 Robin’s transition from professional chef to eating disorder nutritionist
🌊 Her late ADHD diagnosis and reconsidering challenges around traditional education
🌊 ADHD meal planning tips from the lens of a trained chef
🌊 How a “mise en place mentality” can change your meal prep game
And ..
🌊 Robin’s journey so far through perimenopause
One thing that came through for us was how a late ADHD diagnosis and co-existing perimenopause can feel like a parallel experience, in the context of the women’s health information gap.
Thank you, Robin, for joining me in this conversation, and you, listeners, for your continuing support of the show.
Connect with Robin: -
[00:00:00]
Melinda Staehling:
Welcome to Departure Menopause, a podcast about weight inclusive and neurodivergent affirming care in the menopause transition. I'm your host, Melinda Staling. On this podcast we discuss making compassionate health and positive body image change through practical steps and gentle care. To stay connected and go deeper, head to the show notes to subscribe and download the regular eating guide.
Welcome or welcome back to Departure Menopause, where we navigate a more neurodivergent-affirming and weight-inclusive menopause transition. I'm your host, Melinda Staehling, and this week I'm so excited to have our first guest interview with Robin Gatter, whose story I think will really touch you and to me embodies the themes and intersections that we're talking about on the show.
I knew that as we were wrapping up our Regular Eating series, that Robin was the perfect person to kick off our interviews because of her unique experience as a professional chef, ADHD, and in perimenopause herself. On this episode, she offers both some fantastic practical tips and she shares bravely about her relationship with food.
Speaking of relationship with food, I'd love to remind you that our podcast is matched with a training, the Regular Eating Guide to help you take a look at your eating through the lens of perimenopause and neurodivergence.
If you find yourself in a cycle of daytime restriction and then feeling challenged with evening eating, then this is a free training for you.
the guide includes a list of prompts to help you dig deeper into why your eating might be irregular assessments to work through, and tools to gently assist you in planning your specific yet flexible eating structure going forward.
Episodes three, four, and five of the show. Walk us through the guide and you could find that linked in the show notes and at departure menopause club slash regular dash eating dash guide. The guide is also linked in all of our departure emails that go out every other week. So if you want to check in there as I make updates, that's the place to be.
And with that, I am so excited to introduce my guest this week. I knew Robin had gone through the same clinical supervision as me, and we were both starting out with our insurance based businesses. She was a little ahead of me on that timeline and I pulled one of those, hi, let's be friends. Kind of moves in a Facebook group and really the rest is history.
Robin Gatter is a certified nutrition specialist and licensed nutritionist working with ADHDers clients with eating disorders and co-occurring health conditions. She proudly runs an insurance-based practice seeing clients [00:03:00] around the country and as an A DHD or herself.
She understands from her experience both the strengths and the challenges of ADHD. Robin also offers coaching and consultation for licensed nutritionists and dieticians looking to build their insurance-based practice. With my first experience as a podcast host and wow, I have some new respect for this role.
I completely forgot to ask Robin to let us know, you know, the whole thing about where to find her and connect with her. So I'm sharing Robin's website here, which is robin gatter.com, and it will be linked in the show notes.
I'd also like to offer my disclaimer here that we do talk about disordered eating behaviors and eating disorders on the episode, so please listen when it's the right time for you. And then I thought I'd put this note here at the front so we don't interrupt the show, but I do wanna chat a bit about MIDI Health because we talk about MIDI later on in the episode.
If you're not familiar, MIDI is an online health platform and they have their beginnings in menopausal hormone therapy. They accept insurance, and at this point, I believe they're available in all 50 states with some insurance plans.
When Robin was looking for help with hormone therapy, I suggested that she might try MIDI mostly because that's what I'd done myself when I needed someone and didn't have a regular local practitioner. I. Clearly the podcast has no affiliation, and also MIDI is far from weight inclusive. If you go to their site, you'll see marketing for GLP ones, intentional weight loss and dieting, and their marketing plans along with hormone therapy.
While I know there are weight inclusive hormone therapy providers out there, finding someone to accurately assess and prescribe hormone therapy and then also adding on that weight inclusive lens can make that inaccessible for a lot of us.
So often it's left on us as the consumer to do that education with our providers if we want that type of care. So I did wanna offer that up about MIDI Health. And with that, I hope you enjoy this episode about midlife transitions and career reevaluation about ourselves through the ADHD lens and ADHD relationship with food.
Hi Robin. Welcome to Departure Menopause.
Robin Gatter:
Hi Melinda. Happy to be here.
I thought we could start with your journey from chef to nutritionist. Can you walk us through what that looked like and maybe what some of the personal and professional crossroads were that nudged you in that direction?
Sure. I had been cooking professionally for about 12 years and I had a sort of mentor chef who was a woman who was a few years older than me, and she, you know, had been cooking her whole life. And she had said to me something that was really valuable once, and she said, you know, it's all well and good when you're in your twenties and thirties and everything, but as you get older it gets more challenging to be on your feet and to do that work.
So she's like, if I had thought about it, she's like, I would've gotten into something else. She's like, so think about what else would you love to do? And I knew, I always loved to, being around food, clearly I was a chef, right? And I thought about what, how can I be around food, but in a different way, right?
And the first step I took was,, I got a health coaching certificate because that seemed like the, the easiest way to kind of start transitioning.
Yeah.
while that sort of, kind of opened my eyes a little bit to the nutritional side of cooking and how it could benefit health, it just didn't feel like enough.
So I looked at master's degree programs to become a licensed professional because I knew I wanted to help people in a, in a deeper way than I could being a health coach. So that's kind of how I made the transition. And then,. You know, I thought maybe I'd still incorporate, I, I didn't really know where it was gonna go, you know, I was hoping I could have a practice, but I wasn't quite sure, you know, what I would do with that.
And being home since 2020, it kind of created this atmosphere that a private practice was, was ripe to flourish in.
Yeah. Yeah. So you started with your hospitality career, and can you tell us a little bit more about being a private chef or a personal chef and what that looked
[00:03:00
Sure. Yeah. It was, you know, in the Palm Beach area, Palm Beach, Florida, so people with very specific diets and specific tastes,] and it involved, you know, shopping for everything, menu planning, um, and then presenting it to either, you know, just the, the client or a group of people if they had an, they were entertaining.
Uh, once I got the health coaching certification, actually I attracted more clients with health issues, which really was really got me into thinking I wanted to do a higher degree because I was working with people who had recovered from cancer or had, uh, gastrointestinal issues or, um, had diabetes and really needed a specific diet.
And I saw while I was doing that how well they did, , combined with all the other therapies they were doing, but just a change in diet. So it was really, um, quite evident that that could be a helpful component to anybody's. You know, health Journey,
.
I would love to hear a little bit more about how you ended up working in the field of eating disorders and working in more of a weight inclusive practice. I know most people don't start in that place, so I would love to hear, I don't think I've, I don't think I've ever really heard this part of your story, like how you ended up moving into that space.
Well, you know, it was during my clinical supervision and you and I went to the same clinical supervision program and we got to the eating disorder, uh, module. And, as we were going through it, I recognized a lot of behaviors, past behaviors in myself when they were going through sort of a checklist of what to look for.
And I had a very, a dark night of the soul, if you will, like, after that I was like, wow. Though I knew I had struggled with some level of disordered eating my, you know, growing up in teens and twenties and thirties and things, I, I never was diagnosed with an eating disorder because the criteria back then was so rigid as to, you know, anorexia or things like that.
And so while I kind of circled around the borderline, I never crossed the threshold or where a doctor would've said, yes, now you're severely underweight. So I never looked at myself as someone with an eating disorder. And it kind of got me thinking that, you know, that spiral, if you will, after that was like, how many other people are there that, like me, but were never diagnosed, but we're still.
Doing all those same behaviors. And when I'd gone into supervision, I think I thought that I would, , concentrate on things like thyroid health or autoimmune. I think I really was, that was thought that was gonna be my focus. And from that module on, I never looked back. Like eating disorder became the focus.
And while I do still work with people with some of those conditions,
Sure.
[00:06:00]
it felt like, oh, there's my calling. That's what I'm supposed to do. Um, I'm supposed to help people who are like me that didn't get maybe the help they needed or overlooked. And so when you talk about like a weight inclusive practice, , you know, I didn't, I don't understand why every, that should be the norm.
That should be the default,
Yeah.
right? Um, and so it felt like there's such a need for that and it's so, so important and nobody should. Feel like they go into a clinician's session or office and feel judged or feel, um, nervous or be holding their breath. Like, what is this person gonna say to me that's insulting or not believed?
And I so strongly feel like everyone deserves that, that sort of care, that how could I not be a weight inclusive practice?
Yeah, I think that piece is so important, and I know, you know, from working with clients that people have that, that people have that experience with their medical providers day in and day out, and it keeps a lot of people away from seeking healthcare of whatever type, be it, you know, a medical provider or a nutrition appointment, or a therapist or even going to a gym.
So, so, yeah.
I'm wondering like a little bit more about how you, how you started working with clients with eating disorders. I know that can be, it can feel like a big jump going from maybe more of a general practice, like what you were talking about working with maybe thyroid health to an eating disorder and how that sort of felt for you.
sure. So while I was getting hours towards, you know, the CNS, certified Nutrition specialist , certification, uh, then we have to get a thousand hours working, you know, mostly face-to-face with clients. I was able to start taking some people who were not high acuity clients, um, under supervision.
And then, our supervision did a joint sort of, uh, program with Project Heal the nonprofit that helps people with eating disorders. So I started doing the meal supports with eating disorder clients and then getting them one-on-one as, uh, pro bono clients. And that really, um, was such, such rewarding work, I think, to work with people, and help them along
when they feel just very hopeless about eating and hopeless about their body image and things like that. That I, I really went full force that way. And then when it was time to sort of fly on my own and have my own practice, I made sure that that was a big component. And then I made sure to connect with organizations and there were people who were seeking that kind of help. Could find me.
[00:09:00]
I am thinking about your, sort of, your, your realization, you know, about disordered eating while going through supervision and also maybe an ADHD diagnosis.
I'm wondering about a little bit more about that, and I don't think I know like the details of this either. When did you sort of come to that realization of ADHD?
Um, I was about 46 or 47, so definitely later, uh, in life diagnosed, but the signs were probably there. But being a typical Gen Xer right, that, that, that wasn't diagnosed, um, for us. And so I was a kid that this is a, you know, a story you hear over and over again, right? I was in the gifted and talented program as a child and, um, did excelled and couldn't get enough of learning and, you know, whatever they would throw at me because regular school wasn't challenging enough.
That was, you know, in my groove there. But it was also a kid that had trouble keeping her room clean, like really a lot of trouble, like organizing and, and doing that. And I was a kid that lost keys and wallets and homework, and bags, backpacks, and constantly. At the same time. So, um, you know, back in those, in the eighties, right?
Really only boys were diagnosed with ADHD because of the hyperactivity component, the h component of that. We know now that it shows up in women as more, um, hyperactivity, like in your brain and like, not like over, like thinking constantly going versus the, the physical manifestation of it. So, because I was also a kid that was, you know, sat in my desk and didn't make a lot of trouble, there was no way that they were thinking that was something I had.
I did get tested for learning disabilities around the seventh grade because it's sort of all of my academic, um, achievement fell off a cliff and I was struggling.
Oh, the cliff.
the cliff. And so they, they did, I did go through a series of testing and it came back inconclusive. And I remember because I, I found the papers years later,
Whoa.
Robin can go from A to C, but she can't tell you what B is.
So I knew the answers, but I couldn't like, show, show work right it. And so with that, the schools looked at it and went, no, she just needs to try harder. Like, I heard you need to try harder so much. I thought it was part, possibly part of my name. Um, and that was all the help I was given, was told to try harder.
And then all of the, you know. Report cards and things [00:12:00] would come back saying like, doesn't apply herself, can't, isn't focused, needs to try harder. So it's very like you internalize that, right? Like you feel lazy. Like lazy was a term thrown out there too, right? So that's how I viewed myself as someone who was lazy as someone, you know, which was strange.
'cause I always had like jobs after school and you know, multiple ones and trying to go to school. And I thought, but yet I looked at myself as a lazy person 'cause I was struggling in school and I couldn't like, you know, keep my room pinned neat. You know? So, um, eventually, um, I saw the writing of the wall.
I was struggling so much with school. I was like, I'm not gonna graduate. Like, I'm just not even gonna graduate high school. It's not, I've missed so many classes and failed so many things and, , I made the decision to drop out. And I got my GED, but I always knew I wanted to go to college. I don't know why.
It just seemed like, I think I was trying to prove I was smart. Like I'll show them I'm smart, I can go to college. So I signed up for some classes. I did well and then I'm matriculated that next fall. And it did take me a while because still undiagnosed was trying to struggle through it. It's like, you know, it took me seven years, uh, to finish and some semesters were part-time, some semesters were full-time and there was classes that I had to drop in, classes I had to repeat.
And all the whole time I just blamed myself that I didn't apply myself. I was lazy. I needed to try harder. That ran through my brain. So I swore after I got that degree, I would never. Go back to school. I was like, never.
Never,
I'll, can't never, you'll never catch me trying to get another degree. Fast, fast forward about 20 years, um, I, um, you know, started thinking and I don't know what possessed me to think like, eh, I could do do that.
You know, it's like something you do so long ago you're like, oh, that wasn't that bad, was it? And so now we've got three times, right? We've got high school was hard, undergrad was hard. And then the master's degree was incredibly hard
Yeah.
to the point where I would sit when we had to do papers or, um, discussion, board posts, anything with writing.
That's where it gets me.
Mm-hmm.
would sit there and I couldn't type the first word. I couldn't start even typing. I would freeze like blank, nothing would come up. And then I would over criticize like myself in my head, like, no, that's dumb. No, that's not terrible. And just be completely frozen. And I couldn't think of it.
[00:15:00]
I couldn't keep track of the assignments. I was just a nightmare. And I started talking with a therapist and she said, has anyone ever diagnosed you with ADHD? And here I am, you know, not paying much attention at that point to ADHD. And I was like, no, I'm not. I'm not hyperactive. And she's like, no, let me explain.
Listen.
Yeah, like, let me explain what I'm talking about. And she, you know, basically did an evaluation and she's like, oh yeah, given what the struggles you're having now, the, given the struggles you've had since you know you were a child, she's like, you are classically ADHD. And I think I even pushed that away a little bit.
I was like, no, no, that's not it. I'm just. Need to try harder. Like it was so ingrained
Mm-hmm.
me and, uh, once I accepted it and I looked at my life and things that were challenging for me through that lens, it, it made a difference. Right? And I was able to be like, oh, okay, that's why this is more challenging for me.
But it also gave me sort of a fire to figure out how to do it differently. If, if this traditional way doesn't fit me, how do I do it differently? That still comes, like, gets to the same end point. So basically that evaluation of me was right, right? Like, I go from A to CI don't know how to be, so I'm just still getting to C I'm just not doing the B like everybody else.
I'm taking a a detour.
Yeah.
So.
like knowing, knowing a little bit more about, you know, that I do about your brain and just like how. W creative and compassionate and like, just the kinds of, um, what am I trying to say? Like the, just like the creative solutions that you come up with for your clients. , It's so interesting that we pigeonhole people so much into just doing
Yeah,
like this one way.
And I just, I have so much compassion for Little Robin.
it's taken me a while, but now I do too.
yeah. Yeah.
Absolutely.
the messy thing I have like, I have like a thing about the messy thing. 'cause I'm, ADHD messy myself.
Yeah, it's a struggle. It's, it's, it's a struggle. I mean, I used to walk like longingly through a container store, like, you know, hate to see me coming. 'cause I would just, like, every purchase is the next solution to my, to my troubles. Right.
I'm gonna
My life's gonna be a amazing, like, there's, I think I remember there's like a, like a, like a 30 rock and like Tina Faye's walking down the stairs, Liz Lemon.
And she's like going to the Ripoff Container store. She's like, I'm gonna be fabulous. I'm gonna have labels on my shoes and everything. And then she wind up like tripping and falling into breaking, you know, like, like, you know. 'cause we all have that hope, right?
it is. We do, we carry that hope. But
Yes,
[00:18:00]
of it is just like learning to be cool with the mess. I [00:18:00] think.
yes.
How does that help you relate to your clients that are also ADHD?
Yeah. Well, I, you know, if you've met one ADHD person you've met one a ADHD person, right? So it, it shows up a little differently in everybody, there's some overlapping qualities, but where people struggle may, may be different, a little different for everyone, right? For personally, for me, I, it doesn't come out traditionally in the way of nutrition or cooking the way some of my clients struggle.
Um, but I can see, you know, the, the task initiation part of me wanting, not wanting to do something,
Mm-hmm.
Um, not wanting to get up and heat something up, not wanting to get up and cook or deal with the dishes like that very much is a commonality. , Where I find that a lot of my clients struggle is, maybe not even know where to start, right?
I have that gift of working in hospitality. Where I try to take some of the things I learned and apply them to like a home cook, right? That mise en place mentality, right? Getting things prepped ahead and having options and things like that, um, to take it out. Because a lot of people I found think they need to start from scratch every single time and every single meal.
And I reassure them like, you don't have to do that. Like, we can make this so much easier for you and still be delicious and it packed with nutrition and satisfying without you having to bust out the cutting board at every step of the way, right. And saute stuff and make a sink full of dishes. You know?
And I think about, you know, I was in catering where we took things either prepped up or cooked ahead and reheated at this time. Like, and I'm implying that to the home cook where you can do that too.
Can you explain for the listeners that might not know what mise en place mentality means?
Sure. So, mise en place, French for, uh, like in it, in its place, I believe that, I'm probably butchering that, but when you are in a professional kitchen, right? If you've, maybe if you haven't had the privilege of kind of like being able to peek behind the door, um, or see an open kitchen, when people prep up in a commercial kitchen, uh, the onions are chopped, the pasta is part cooked, um, the chicken is cut into the correct shape, it's supposed to go, you know, um, none of that stuff is done at LA minute, like in the, in the moment, right?
[00:21:00]
It's, we get all those things done because it's a very, um, fast moving environment and there's no time, like it would take an hour for your meal to come out versus 15 minutes. So by having things. Set to go. The actual cooking experience is very quick. And that's where people in the ADHD kind of get, get hung up because they know going in, right.
Like, Ugh, this is gonna take forever.
Mm-hmm.
And then I'm, you know, I don't even know if I'm gonna be hungry at the end of it, and then I've got other things to do and then I gotta clean it all up so you can talk yourself out of eating very quickly if you think that's the mountain you have to climb.
That
I'm telling Absolutely.
So if I take some of those components out of it and make it faster. Right. And then also talk about like when you do some of that and there's, there's a lot of ways to ADHD and cook like an ADHD and feed yourself. It doesn't necessarily involve prepping things up, but for my clients, I have some interest in wanting to be in the kitchen and just don't know how to do it that the way that fits them.
Having your vegetables cut up already, right. Having, you know, the chicken ready to go, having the sauces helping things. So when it comes time to heat everything up, you're just basically emptying containers or baggies or whatever into this pat pan, pot, whatever. And it, you can be eating in about 15 minutes and the, the, the cleanup is so minimal because you're not starting from scratch.
I'm very, pro get things in the shape. They're already cut up when, I mean, like if having a head of broccoli standing between you and having the broccoli, like having to take it out, cut it up, deal with like a mess on maybe a small countertop. Then all those little, those, you know, those little bits of broccoli that fall on the floor, right when you're cutting it up and then having this huge amount, like now what are you gonna do when you don't want broccoli in two days?
Let's just take that off the table, buy a package of, already cut up florets in a smaller component. And now you can just throw that in something. And I'll use myself in as an example, and this is again, where the ADHD part comes out from me. So there's a salad that I was just hyper fixated on and we, we can talk more about ADHD and hyper fixation, right?
Of meals, but it was a, a salad from the prepared section of Whole Foods. And me being a former chef, I'm like, well, I could totally do this. Why am I spending like 15.99 a pound on this sucker? Right?
Mm-hmm.
uh, it was, I had kale and it had shredded carrots and shaved Brussels sprouts and a couple other things in a vinegarette.
And I was like. I got this and I went around the store the next time and I bought all the components. I bought a big head of kale. I bought carrots, I bought whole Brussels sprouts. And then life happened and I was seeing clients and overtired, and the, the task initiation part was like, I don't wanna start doing this because I would've had to wash all, like, cut up all the kale and wash it.
[00:24:00
I would've had to peeled all the carrots and shred them on a box grater. I would've had] to take the Brussels sprouts and shred 'em on my mandolin and clean up all those things that, those utensils and those, you know, small appliances that I used. Right. Um, and then to even just get them in a bowl and get everything.
And I was like, oh no, not doing that. And it all went bad in my refrigerator eventually.
How
yeah, totally.
soggy did those vegetables get Robin?
Oh, un, un unrecognizable, Melinda. They were unrecognizable, so I was like, okay, I still am not gonna pay 15.99 a pound for this. Salad. This is just highway robbery. I'm not doing it. Um, so I have to find a different way, and this is where the my ADHD brain
mm-hmm.
kind of shines.
And I went around and I got the shaved Brussels sprouts and I got the bag that was of kale that was triple washed. Right. And I already cut up. I got the shredded carrots already. Okay. And so I found that the first time I did that, I ate over the week and a half or whatever that salad so many times and not pre-made.
I just would have to get a bowl, put my hand in each bag, right? Boom, boom, boom, throw the vinegarette on, toss and whatever, protein of choice. And sometimes it was something I had made, and sometimes again, it was something I had bought already, cooked chicken, whatever, shrimp. And I was eating it under 15 minutes.
I'm like, this is the way, this is it,
Yeah.
you know? Yes.
yeah, sometimes it's just like, let's go on an exploration and find which of your pre-cut, pre-chopped broccoli. Do you like the fresh one in the bag? Do you like the frozen one? The one from Whole
Absolutely.
different than the one from Kroger, so,
In the, the Costco frozen Broccoli is elite. Um, just put it out there. It's really good. It's like, it's, it's big and it's whole, and it's like not icy. It's just like, it's a delight. Uh, so yeah, there's, it's definitely that. And then I get some pushback from clients about, you know, and, and I respect it and I believe it too, like about, um, well that's a lot of like.
Bags and plastic and things, right? Like if I just was to buy all these things in their whole form, that's better for the environment. Yeah,
Hmm.
absolutely true.
Mm-hmm.
I, um, in the words of like KC Davis from How to Keep House while drowning, like you can't see in the environment if you're like, can't even make your dinner or I'm totally paraphrasing, but Right.
yes.
are you gonna, how are you gonna save the environment? So like, first you gotta, you know, take care of yourself and then you can do that. So if those are the things that are keeping you from making a meal, like cut out the middleman. And I always say, this is what I say to my clients.
I'm like, take the help where you can get it.
[00:27:00]
So as a personal chef, I would make these things for clients, um, and where I would make meals that were ready to go. Right. And also, I would make components of meals where there was cabbage and carrots or chopped up components for salads so they could make salads for the whole week. Right. And so essentially you're, you're doing what I did for people at a very, you know, expensive ticket, but you're just paying, I dunno, maybe a dollar more at best on some of these.
Items in the, in the grocery store that are ready to go for you. So if it's ready to go, you're more apt to use it than if you have to put in a lot of labor to get there.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it was grad school that really broke me of that. Using whole ingredients instead of maybe the pre-chopped, pre-cooked, pre-bagged option. Like I just realized I didn't have the time to do everything. now, you know, being a solo private practice provider, like when it's six 30 or seven and it's time to make dinner, I don't, I don't have the energy to, to do everything from scratch. I just, I cannot. So like into a system like that, I think, and playing around with it and learning different, you know, methods and then what your preferred, what your preferred broccoli is, I think that's, it's
Absolutely.
so helpful.
Yeah. And you know, I, it's, I've noticed a lot of clients, feel some, some level of shame about not cooking everything from absolute scratch. Uh, maybe they've seen a parent do that growing up, and I talk to them about that and I say, you know, I ask them, did, did that parent, it's usually the moms work outside the home.
What were the circumstances? Did they have help in other ways that, you know, made it possible? Are you, you're not doing the same thing. You may be working outside the home and, um, not having the same kind of supports. So why are you putting that expectation on yourself to do that when you can get there the same way?
Yeah, I think like from the, from the family and also from social media and seeing what's reflected back to us from, you know, Instagram accounts and like the perfection and the level of like, detail that people go into with their food and their process. Most of us are not creators, you
No. No, and I mean, you don't know how many take takes those things took, right? Like, you don't know with, with editing how many times they had to do something or throw it out, you know?
I
Um, I, I did very briefly dip my toe in recipe creation, which was a lot and very expensive because you're making things multiple times and the picture has to come out right, too.
Right.
[00:30:00
Yeah. And you know, I, I was lucky enough to help a friend who was a food stylist once, and there's a, there's some smoke and mirrors that food isn't edible,] you know? Um, you know, like, and she was very clear. She's like, don't eat the food. Like, 'cause we're, we're putting certain things on it to look a certain way, you know?
Yeah.
So, so, yeah. So that's just not realistic to, to want everything to look that way, you know, if it, if you like it and it tastes good, then you've done your job.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think the, you know, ideally the goal is for it to taste good, but I think maybe we could also just touch on this point, 'cause I hear it a lot, is that sometimes don't taste great the first or second time. You know,
Yeah, yeah.
to your point with the recipe development, those things take multiple passes.
Yes.
just, I'm wondering how you sort of like work through that when people, which is common that say like, I tried this and it didn't work out.
Right. Um, and I tell 'em, everyone's an individual. Everyone's taste buds are, you know, like a snowflake. There's no two that are alike and it has to fit for you. So I do find people under season quite a bit, and especially just salt, um, isn't used and there's a big fear of it, right, that I'm using too much salt.
And salt is a flavor enhancer, right? It makes everything taste goods. Why we put it in baked goods, right? Because it amplifies the taste of the chocolate or the, you know, any of the notes in there. And the same with any spice. If you, if you put, you know, cumin and coriander and, uh, maybe Chipotle powder, like say you're making a chili, but you don't put enough salt in there, it just winds up tasting, muddy.
Mm-hmm.
But you put enough salt and now you can, like, you can detect each of those three spices. Like now they stand out on their own and they play well together. So that's like the magic kind of key is to maybe like start with enough salt in your food. , People who don't have blood pressure issues or anything like that seem to very be very nervous about it.
And so I kind of reassure them. I'm like, I'm looking at your labs. You're okay. Like, you can, you can add a little bit more. It's really fine. But that could have been passed down in their family, like a parent that didn't cook with a lot of salt or grandparents and then they've just kind of adopted that sort of behavior.
And so that's, that's the first thing. And then second, if putting like ranch on your vegetables makes them taste better to you, it doesn't take away from the vitamins and minerals in, in the vegetable. Right. They still are. You're still getting them. So, uh, adding things to your food that you enjoy, if you like a spicy profile, if you like things that are cheesy or like whatever, knowing what you like and bringing that element to your food.
And I go over that a lot with people. I'm like, [00:33:00] tell me about some dishes you've had that you've really liked. And we break down what it is about them that they really enjoyed. You know, was it the crunchiness? Was it the texture? Was it the flavor? What was it? And how can we bring that into day-to-day food for you?
I
Robin's reminding us to season our food and also eat what we like,
absolutely.
sometimes we all need that permission. Right? I
Oh,
it's easy to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I think that there's such a skewed sort of, uh. Thought of what was healthy, right? That we, we don't think about what's delicious, right? And that we have to, I don't want my clients enduring their food. I want them enjoying their food,
I had love to talk a little bit more about mornings because I know that the morning time can be so incredibly tricky for a ADHDers. the getting ready, there's the rush of getting out the door for a lot of people. A lot of people have lack of appetite. Maybe sleep wasn't so great the night before.
I'm just wondering like how you work through that and what your, your best tips and tricks and, you know, coaching is for mornings and ADHD.
Yeah. Um, I will add myself to the list of not a morning person. Uh, thankfully Melinda and I live on, we live on opposite. We live on opposite coast. So when I am like. You know, kind of getting up and about Melinda actually is two, three hours earlier, uh, because she's an extreme morning person and so it kind of balances out in our friendship.
Yeah, yeah,
Yes. So, yeah, and, uh, I don't leave myself sometimes enough time before my first client and things I wanna do and return emails, work out all those things like Right. Because that is another ADHD component, right? Like, you give me two hours or something, I think I can do 15 things. And then the reality hits that you can't.
So a lot of the times when people think that what gets, you know, cut from the list, sometimes it's eating because it just seems like a lot of work and takes up a lot of time.
My best tip, well, the morning. When people aren't hungry. And that can sometimes be, they haven't had breakfast in a long time, so they are convinced they are not breakfast people.
Right. I'm sure you hear that all the time in your breakfast too. Like,
Mm-hmm.
just, I just never liked breakfast. I'm not a morning person. And then if you can get somebody consistently eating after a while, they're like, you know, it's weird. I woke up hungry the other morning. I'm like, oh, you did. , But I think you have to start small. Right? And if it's just a pre-made protein shake or a pre-made, like a protein bar, just something simple, right?
[00:36:00]
Yeah.
That you can twist off a cap or unwrap, like that's a great starting point. A piece of fruit that you know, that you could just peel in a banana, bite into an apple, whatever.
Handful of grapes, blueberries, it's just like, I call it bookmarking, right? It may not be this amazing. Spread. Like we're not all going out to brunch level breakfast during the week. Right. But it is, you're bookmarking that time for yourself and telling your body, I'm gonna have something at this hour.
Right. So we just make a little space for it. Then as it goes on, we can talk, we talk to them like about prepping things ahead. That can look like a quiche or a crustless quiche. We used to call 'em in the biz, like we cut things into squares. Right, right. Like you bake 'em off. Um, and you can freeze things.
And like I am a, I love things that can be made ahead in frozen. Like that is my jam. Love that. Like I, I think super cubes needs to sponsor me. Like for like I am. I love it. So things that can be made ahead, things that can, now you can extend their life by freezing. And that's something like, you know. Uh, egg bites or buying them from Costco, right?
If you're not an egg person, it can be, um, some sort of like baked oatmeal or a, you know, overnight oats, chia puddings, things like that. If you like, a more sweet kind of breakfast, if you're not even, we're not there yet, like just some of those like Kodiak waffles that have a little protein in 'em. And I tell my clients too, if you don't have time to sit down and eat a waffle, like at a table fork and knife sitting down, treat it like toast, you know, toast it up in the, and, and the toaster oven and spread some sort of nut butter on it and eat it with your hands in a paper towel right then.
It's easy. You don't have any cleanup and you can eat it quick, much more quickly. And that's just getting started.
I love all these ideas, and they're so doable and practical, and I'm wondering like what that conversation is that helps people. I, I really liked like the bookmark, um, the bookmark piece, but what helps, what helps people that haven't been eating breakfast or a morning meal for a long time, like actually do the thing.
Um, I tell them it, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect and they don't have to do it every single day to start. And that takes some of the pressure off.
Okay.
And, you know, and I just say, you know, even if you just take a couple sips of a, you know, premier Protein or something similar, right? And put it back in the fridge, you've made a start.
[00:39:00]
Right? Listen to your body. If a couple sips feels like that's it, then keep it going and maybe the next day you take a few more. Right? And I also the concept of like, I, if you only had a little bit. Think what we can do. It's called second breakfast. Maybe in a couple hours you'll, you'll have warmed up a little bit to the idea getting going with your day and your hunger signal might be a little stronger so you can go back and try again and have a little bit more.
And then also, things don't have to look like breakfast. Now we named a lot of things that are very traditional breakfast foods, but I'm the queen of having like soup for breakfast, leftover salad for breakfast, like, you know, leftover piece of chicken. I love it. So also thinking outside that box, if none of those things appeal to you because you've just been told like that's breakfast.
What would appeal to you in the morning, but would sound good. And we kind of look at that and give them permission.
Permission granted. So like starting where you're at, even if it's just a few sips or a few bites or like one or two days this week. I love that. I love that, that feeling when somebody comes back to the next session they're like, I had it two times last week. You're like, yes, yes, yes.
Yes, this is, that's how it starts. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. it just, you know, maybe gets a little bit easier or you find that routine. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Should we switch gears to perimenopause?
Sure.
Oh, boy.
Here we go. You know, our favorite topic.
Our,
The,
of our favorite topics.
the subject of many of our chats.
I, I'm wondering to whatever level you feel comfortable, if you'd like to share a little bit about journey so far with perimenopause.
Yeah. Um, it's been a journey that is a great word for it. Um, it is one that I was woefully unprepared for even being a medical professional, um, under informed, and, just did not know what to expect. And, I think especially as somebody who had an eating disorder really unprepared for what to expect, um, as far as how changes in your body can trigger those feelings,
and especially not knowing why they're happening, because I didn't know I was in perimenopause until I was well into it.
Yeah.
'cause nobody, nobody uttered those words to me. And looking back, I'm like, okay, all of this, these things that I experienced made sense. Um, and it wasn't until you and I had chatted you know about it and you're like, well, you kind of are.
[00:42:00]
I'm like, I am. Um, I mean, I kind of vaguely knew, but I didn't know some of the symptoms that could happen. Right. Especially like increased hunger, right? 'cause the hormonal fluctuations and which can, people with eating disorders can be very disturbing, right? Like, why am I so hungry and all those things.
The ADHD magnification of dropping estrogen was a treat. Um, I had no idea that could be affected. And so all that executive function. It kind of goes off the rails when your estrogen starts declining, and that makes even some of the, tips and tricks that you've used along the way with A DHD not work anymore, and you're feeling like you're drowning as far as like organization or routines that are no longer working for you.
Uh, at least that was my experience and I was like, what is happening? HRT has been a blessing and very much has helped a lot of that, um, that executive function piece and allowed me to keep, you know, doing some of the things that I do that do work for my ADHD.
And, like the body image piece too is, is very hard, , for people to reckon with because, , they're, they've. Maybe even made peace with their bodies and they're like, wait, wait, hold on. What's happening? You know, like there's another round of changes along the way. And so I have noticed, and there's research that such that it, it can trigger a re-ignite people's, um, whether it's binging, restricting or whatever, um, urge that in order to sort of like handle the emotional component or like stave off some of the changes that are happening.
They think, well, I, I just can't eat the way I used to. I have to eat much less and I have to exercise much more. And before you know it, you're back into old detrimental eating disorder habits
Yeah.
not even trying to, like, you just think that like this is the way you're gonna help yourself at this time of life.
hear, I hear, I heard a lot what, of what you said about like the physical, you know, changes and the hormonal shifts, and then I'm also just thinking about. The, the general culture around dieting at this time, and I think that's just, it's so strong like that's what we should be doing right now, you know, is restricting, just forcing all of these like, like forcing it, you know.
And what people don't realize is as your as, as your hormones are declining, restricting your food intake so much is going to hurry that along rather than nourish yourself during that time. So you're actually fueling that fire, like you're putting your thyroid in jeopardy sometimes. And I know that happened with mine.
[00:45:00
My thyroid went crazy at one point. Um, it was just, I didn't know what.] You know, I was supposed to be doing, and there's just a lack of general information a lot of the time, which is why things like this in, in your, you know, website and podcast are so valuable because,, we aren't told what's gonna happen and how to prepare for it.
And it feels like we should be doing the opposite of what we should be doing with, we feel like we should restrict. Whereas we should be, you know, feeding ourselves, nourishing ourselves during this hormonal fluctuation point for a number of reasons, physical and mentally.
I heard you mentioned hormone therapy, and I just was curious if you would share with us your journey with starting hormone therapy and how you found a provider who you saw and what that has looked like.
Sure. Uh, you know, you and I had spoken because I was like, I don't know what's happening to me. And, you know, the, I was really like, help, uh, and you know, I was of like many women of the impression that you can't start hormone therapy until you were actually in menopause. Right. That was the prevailing thought.
And I think a lot of people think that. And when you told me and you said, no, that's not true. Like, you can totally start that in perimenopause. You know, I think I was like more shocked than anybody. And so, uh, you were kind enough to give me the name of midi Health and, because I didn't have a local practitioner that really had a good grasp on helping women in perimenopause at the time.
And I, I think that was. The first step in really starting to understand, I did some research and then met with a nurse practitioner with midi, which was incredible. And um, really learned how they kind of prescribe hormone therapy, uh, based on symptoms mostly,
Mm-hmm.
versus, you know, where you are in the long, the menopause journey, you know, supposedly your age or things like that.
And I also, you know, the reason I kind of didn't consider that I needed it or considered that I was at that point was I had a practitioner who's only screening criteria for me, um, was that he said, said, do you have hot flashes? And I said, no. He's like, now you're probably fine. And that was the extent of that conversation,
Yeah.
right?
And so when I met with the nurse practitioner with MIDI, who. Understood all the symptoms I was having and mine are maybe not as traditional. Again, those hot flashes are, you see 'em at every stupid sitcom, right? Like it's the butt of the joke. It's the whole thing.
Mm-hmm.
that wasn't my experience. Mine was more a musculoskeletal pain,
Mm-hmm.
[00:48:00]
Heart palpitations, um, insomnia, like you read about, like it's terrible. And, uh, starting estrogen and progesterone really, really, really helped all, like, all of that pretty much, or to the most part. , And you know, also I was someone who, who had lifted weights a lot in the past but I didn't realize how important it was at this stage of life. Like how incredibly important it was to. For bone density and all those things. And so, um, I was just doing a lot of cardio prior to that because again, and I see so many women doing that, right.
And that wasn't helping me either, you know? Um, and just making some of my symptoms worse, to be honest. And so just getting the hormone replacement therapy, getting on, you know, more regular sleep because of it evening out, like those heart palpitations and then not feeling like every muscle and joint in my body was in pain, was just so life changing.
I was able to like resume certain activities and things like that too. So that's, you know, everything just seemed harder at that time, right? When you're barely sleeping and everything hurts.
Yeah. One thing I am, I'm like hearing from you though, is that because you might not have had those more common and what are the, the current. Let's say like FDA, approved reasons for using hormone therapy, like, um, having hot flashes, because you have sort of these that are still unfortunately lesser known symptoms. your first practitioner didn't really think of offering that to you.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, between that and, and you know, not being in menopause and still getting a period,
Mm-hmm.
you know, just looked at me like, oh, you're fine. And, and that practitioner was probably himself under the impression that. You need to, you know, cease having periods before we even consider something like this.
And maybe, you know, sort of a leftover of the, you know, women's Health Initiative guidelines, right.
Yeah.
Um, back then. And so we have a lot of practitioners out there that that was their training and they haven't really updated since. So just because you go to somebody, and I find this a lot of my clients where, , their first, uh, line of questions goes to whether they're PCP or an O-B-G-Y-N, and they're not all created equal as far as enough training in hormone replacement therapy.
[00:51:00]
So they give them an answer. And because they're a medical professional, they take it as, you know, the final word, and then don't pursue any. Anything any further and just still live with those, these horrible symptoms, and I was fortunate enough that you're my friend and you pointed me in the right direction to get to the right person to get the help I needed.
Well, thank you for that. We're all in this crash course together.
Yes.
You've pointed, you've pointed me in a lot of different directions too, I would say there, friend. I'm just like thinking, you know, listening to you go through this and like thinking about the parallels between maybe like a late diagnosis of Neurodivergence and then just this like, wall of bricks that we hit when we enter perimenopause and. Just how much we've had to relearn and assess and like consider at, at this life stage. You know, it's like who would've thought that we would be both reevaluating our, our earlier lives with this ADHD lens. And then also, you know, having to learn everything about midlife bodies at the same time.
It's a lot, and it sort of speaks to the, it's a lot. That's an understatement. It's an understatement, but it's, it's speaks to the lack of, um, general research and, uh, attention paid to women's health. Right? So how, how do, especially our generation and generations before us, but especially where Gen X, you know how we've gone through now two things, right?
ADHD and perimenopause where nobody knows what to tell us. And nobody di is diagnosing us correctly and we are just left to our own, which I guess maybe we're the perfect generation for that. 'cause like isn't that our, our signature, like we're just left on our own. Yeah. Right. So like we'll just figure it out.
Nobody helps us. We'll just figure it out anyway.
latchkey, scrappiness coming in handy in our fifties. For sure. For sure. Robin, I think that that would be a great place for us to finish. Thank you so much for being here today, and I would love to end with my question and sign off. How are you departing from the usual in menopause?
I am departing by not listening to the popular culture of what women. Should be doing at this age and women should look like at this age. And um, whereas we're supposed to look 35 and sound 35 and be 35 forever or younger. Right. And, you know, I feel so much more confident than I was in my twenties and thirties.
[00:54:00]
I feel I'm able to look at myself like an intelligent person that I didn't for all those years and embrace that. And even though, you know, things go a little wonky physically here and near and there with this whole perimenopause journey, , I'm still feel in spirit kind of like that badass that I have been and am able to harness that sometimes when I'm lifting and there is like deep grunge music on my, you know, AirPods,
and she's still there. You know, she's still there when I'm, I'm doing some sets and I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm there. You know?
yeah. You
and yeah.
Thank thanks so much for being on the show.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks so much for listening. You can find show notes and links in our episodes and on Departure Menopause Club. If you enjoyed this show, I'd appreciate it if you shared it with a friend. Be sure to subscribe and download the regular eating guide. I'll see you next time on Departure Menopause.