ADD people are different. We're grand procrastinators, and we get bored easily. The thought of standing around in the kitchen waiting for something to finish cooking is totally alien to us. We can put a pot on the stove, walk away to do something else, and then the smoke alarm goes off because we completely forgot.



Forgetting to eat isn't out of our realm of possibility, either. We might be working at the computer or playing a video game, writing something, drawing or whatever and be hyperfocused on whatever it is. We just forget to eat. When we remember, we might grab a bag of chips and a soda because we have to get back to whatever else we were doing. Eating is far less important when we're like that.

Yet, without eating, what happens? You'll get sick first, and ultimately just die. So, it's important to eat.

Some ADD people like to cook, and rely on timers to help them. Be sure to use them! Set one when you put a roast in the oven. To make things easier, buy a pre-prepared salad and throw some walnuts and dried cranberries into it and you've got a meal. If you just add some pre-cooked or canned meat or seafood to that salad, you'll have a lunch or dinner. For breakfast, have a bunch of breakfast cookies, bites, bars, as you like. It's always easier to grab one of those than to wait for hot cereal to cook.

Make a list of the foods you like before going to the supermarket. Try some of the pre-made foods there, so that you can toss them into the oven, set a timer, walk away, and then, come back when it's all ready to go.

But to eat, you have to remember to get away from your hyperfocus long enough to do that. Set alarms to remind yourself to eat. One really cool piece of software that I use is Time & Chaos. (You can get a free trial at www.chaosoftware.com), or you can use Outlook and set alarms in either one. But if you're not at the computer, be sure to have a timer of some sort that you set for yourself every day.

Don't let ADD keep you from eating so that you feel sick. If you don't eat, you may not see the effects until you get older, but you will. The solution is in getting foods that you can grab quickly and move on. If you don't eat, you won't be very ADD-awesome.