Publication date: 4th February 2025
Publisher: Rodale Books
Pages: 336
Genre: Non-Fiction – Health/Neurodivergence
Format read: Paperback
The ultimate wellness guide for women with ADHD, full of easy-to-implement and adaptable advice to help you thrive—from a health coach known for her holistic approach to managing ADHD and transformative ADHD-friendly advice on well-being
ADHD makes it hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but an unhealthy lifestyle can make ADHD more difficult to live with. Health and fitness coach Lisa Dee experienced this firsthand when symptoms of her undiagnosed ADHD began wreaking havoc on her physical and mental health. Executive dysfunction left her in a constant state of overwhelm. She turned to unhealthy foods to cope with her exhaustion and seek stimulation, leading to unwanted weight gain.
After finally receiving an ADHD diagnosis at age thirty-one, Lisa realized she needed to consider the unique ways her ADHD brain and body operated if she wanted to feel her best. In Healthy Happy ADHD, she shares the mindset shifts, systems, and habits that transformed her life and form her foundation for healthy living as a woman with ADHD. Drawing from her lived experience, she shows you how to revamp your routines, build new habits, and bring ease to your busy brain by learning
- Ditch the restrictive rules, shame-based ideas, and neurotypical expectations about what exercise, healthy eating, and rest “should” look like.
- Eat well with “ADHD Easy Meals,” get curious about how food affects your energy and mood, and avoid the decision paralysis that comes with meal planning and grocery shopping.
- Prepare for the impacts of hormonal fluctuations on your ADHD symptoms and recognize the link between ADHD, PMS, and PMDD.
- Reconnect with yourself and practice self-compassion through introspective exercises that encourage self-reflection and mindfulness
Featuring creative wellness hacks and empowering practices presented in easy-to-digest chapters with an ADHD-friendly design, Healthy Happy ADHD offers a life-changing blueprint for becoming your most vibrant self, both inside and out.
Rating: ★★★
My thoughts:
Healthy Happy ADHD was a super easy, super quick read, good for those at the beginning of their ADHD journey. It featured valuable tips that have helped the author transform her life after her own ADHD diagnosis at the age of 31. .
The foundation of the author’s transformative journey is visualising her ‘future self’ to tap into the motivation needed to make the necessary changes to her physical and mental health. She states that “creating a vision of your future self – who she is, where she is, what she is doing, and how she feels – and connecting with how your future self feels can give you a powerful source of motivation that works for the ADHD brain”. She believes that using this vision of your future self, makes it easier to align your behaviours and habits to the identity you want to embody, making the process of change rewarding and satisfying.
Having already done a lot of research and made significant changes to my mindset, routines and habits since my own diagnosis at the age of 50, I probably didn’t get as much out of the book as maybe I had hoped. I found there was a heavy focus on being a member of a gym and the author’s goal of running 5K. Not being a gym kinda girl, that is not a priority for me – my favourite and most accessible forms of movement being dancing in the kitchen and walking around my neighbourhood in the evenings.
I did enjoy the author’s focus on having self-compassion as you begin to transform your life; a gentle reminder of something that so many of us struggle with – neurodivergent and neurotypical alike. I enjoyed the author’s friendly, approachable tone and the ease with which she shared what has worked for her.
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