Making Food Easier 2: How to Feed Yourself As A Neurodivergent Adult

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Transcript: Making food easier: Making Food Easier 2: How to Feed Yourself As A Neurodivergent Adult

Community Q&A Introduction

Danielle Sullivan: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Neurodiverging Podcast. My name’s Danielle Sullivan, and I am here today with my friend Dr. Anne Elrod Whitney. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: So here’s what we’re doing today. I’m here for this new podcast series. We’re calling it “Neurodiverging Community Q&A.” And honestly, Danielle, it’s because I have questions. Every time I meet with you, and every time I engage with something at neurodiverging.com, I always learn so much and yet I always have so many questions.

News flash, I am not alone. I think I am not the only one having questions. So, you and I are here today, we’re just going to take up a question and answer it if we can.

Danielle Sullivan: We are not promising easy or tidy answers to anything, but we are neurodivergent people raising neurodivergent kids with tons of experience coaching and teaching and otherwise engaging in this stuff. So, I think we have a lot to give to you.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Danielle, now I’m feeling nervous. Like, what if we don’t have a lot to give? But I’ll tell you one thing is that I’ve found in life, even identifying the question is usually a huge step. So, if nothing else, we’re going to discuss some questions, and if someone wants to call out answers, hey, that’s cool.

Alternatives to Strict Meal Plans

Danielle Sullivan: Hey, everybody. We had so much to say in our last episode about food and cooking, and meal planning that today we are putting out a part two. So please enjoy the continuation of our conversation about how to feed yourself. 

One more technique I wanted to mention that has worked for a lot of clients—I remember when I was a kid, we didn’t do meal plans in my house, and my mother said it was because she liked feeling like she had choices, right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: If she wanted ravioli that day or if she wanted eggplant parm that day, then she like could pick something and not be beholden to this meal plan. If you are like that, I totally get that.

One of the things that has worked for other clients is to have theme days, right? So this is like your Tuesday taco night or your Friday pizza night. But to have like a day, that’s pasta day. But maybe you do different kinds of pasta. Or a day that’s like, you know, bean day, but you do different beans. Or you can have like some kind of ethnic or cultural theme, right? Like it’s Mexican night, it’s Italian food night, whatever.

And often that will help people plan in a concrete way or think concretely about the ingredients they have to buy. And also not get stuck in a rut. And I also wanna say, if you make the same thing every day, that’s fine. Like, don’t worry about it.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: But, if you’re somebody who likes to eat a lot of different kinds of foods, but you feel overwhelmed when you look at the thousands of recipes that are on the internet every day, just theming it, right?

And knowing that on Thursdays you have rice and beans and cheese and some configuration, that can be really helpful, and it also is nice for certain kinds of kids because they know what to expect.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Mm-hmm.

Danielle Sullivan: Like, even if you’re eating enchiladas one week and chilaquiles the next week, right? It’s still gonna be—

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right. Crunchy taco this week, soft taco that week.

Danielle Sullivan: You’re still gonna have those same ingredients, right? And so if your kids are ingredient kids, you get to have something different as the adult, if that’s something you wanna do. And they get to have basically the same stuff, realistically, you know, maybe their pasta will be in a different shape, or it’ll be a kidney bean instead of a black bean. But you can adjust all that to your family’s preference.

The Morality of Food

Anne Elrod Whitney: No, you’re right. That’s very helpful. And I guess the, the other thing that came up for me. I was always working against this vision of what it was supposed to be. 

Danielle Sullivan: Oh my gosh, yes. That’s a really common thing.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So I care a lot about balanced meal. I grew up very choosy about foods and also in a not super veggie-eating family.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And so, of course as an adult I felt very responsible for nourishing the children. For myself, I would like to be eating a diet that includes fiber and then includes vegetables and plant material and stuff.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So how to do that when there’s no way everyone’s gonna like it. That has turned into a huge problem, and the mind shift that has really helped me on that has been planning.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Because then with planning, I could see over the whole week.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I could see that maybe this, if this day is literally like a cheeseburger and fruit.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Then maybe the next night is gonna be something that adds the variety that I want.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And let’s say this child is never eating any of the vegetables that I picked for that week. Right. Well, okay. Fruit is also a part of fruit and vegetable.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So, can I put a fruit there? And obviously different people have different dietary needs.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: When I could see it—

Danielle Sullivan: The context, though.

Anne Elrod Whitney: —in the context of a whole week.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: I felt—I let myself off the hook about some things, and I also saw that the diet was more varied than I thought. It didn’t have to mean that every single night had all of those.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: You know, it didn’t have to be fibrous, whole grain, and a vegetable. It didn’t have to do it all in one night. You could sort of just think in the general period of time that really helped me.

Sharing the Responsibility of Cooking

Anne Elrod Whitney: The advice that you always hear, and this is, I have good and bad with this, is that you need to involve other people besides you in the cooking.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: But because part of it is you, it is all on you. And that’s a lot for one person.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And a lot of a family’s resentment can build, or in a relationship, resentment can build. And the answer to that is either adjust your attitude or adjust what’s happening. Right. And so I always struggled with that because I had different reasons why that didn’t work.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: In my household. And I did feel very put out about it.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I also found that I did things like I got my kids to be responsible for one night a week. That worked for a little while, but I did have to teach ’em to cook, though. And so that then I was still doing work, a different kind of work or like, you know, I did have a partner doing this night, a week or make a meal, but the meal that partner was gonna make was that person’s go-to thing, I didn’t even like. So, I wasn’t gonna be happy with what they cooked. So what are my choices there? I could have just accepted it, or I could go on cooking.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Or I could decide that we’re eating something different, and I, I never really worked that out in the course of my different relationships.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: But it did open me up to the idea that maybe this night I’m not providing a dinner, and we’re just eating different things. My kids were old enough, I was able to say, “Oh, tonight is forage.”

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And forage means, you know, leftovers.

Danielle Sullivan: Go for it.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Sometimes I say smorgasbord, right?

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I just get out all the leftovers. And I also like get out the dry box of mac and cheese. And I like, and I get it out because we are all people who can’t think behind the ca the, the cabinet. Right. We have to see it.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. You need to see it.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And so I just made this visual menu of all the things that were in the house.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And then just put it all away after, and people eat what they eat. Letting go of it being always me, and also the acceptance that that is gonna mean that some of my goals for the food will not be met. 

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. And you know, there’s years in which you can do that nutritionally in situations where you can, and there’s other situations where you can’t, you’ve got a nutritional responsibility or something.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So take it or leave it. I still struggle there.

Sharing Meal Responsibilities

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. We, so I’m moving next week as of recording. And I will be living with other adults full-time for the first time in like, I don’t know, like a long time, at least five years. What we do now is one of my partners lives here part-time, and so half the week I’m responsible for all meals. And the other half of the week, he’s responsible for like, two-thirds of the meals because he’s at work the other time. So I still take like breakfast, but realistically, my kids are mostly getting their own breakfast.

When we first started doing this, it was because I had kind of put my foot down against just doing all the meals. I was, like, tired and I was overwhelmed and I was, like, bored and I just didn’t wanna do it anymore. But the first couple times he cooked, ’cause he didn’t have any experience really cooking except for himself when he was like, you know, outta college for a short period of time before we got together.

You know, he was still really learning, when do I start the water so it’ll boil in time, so the thing will get out of the time. Right. And there were, like, many days where he, you know, the food that was put together wasn’t something I would’ve done. The food was very late compared to what I would’ve done. And I really had to, like, deal with my own, like, if I want time off, I need to let him, like, invest in this learning space for him.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: Right.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And kids are crying—

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And everyone’s grouchy—

Danielle Sullivan: [unintelligible].

Anne Elrod Whitney: And you can just see them next morning getting messed up.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. But also like no one is, this is not a long-term—People are uncomfortable for a brief period, and then it’s fine. Right. And so understanding the difference between this is actually. As urgent as it feels. And I am feeling urgency that is not real because, realistically, everyone’s gonna eat in half an hour. It’s gonna be fine. Right. So, but part of that was like investing in the space to let other people take that from me.

Making Safe Food Available When Other People Cook

Danielle Sullivan: And part of it was also like realizing that yeah, sometimes he’s gonna cook something I don’t like. At that point, it’s my responsibility to, like, get some cereal or something, right? Like, I don’t have to make a big meal for myself, but I can go to my safe foods list, which I have written down as a visual aid in my phone. That’s like, yeah, I will always eat grits. I will always eat cereal. I will always eat toast. I will always eat soup with soggy stuff in it. Right? Like what’s my list? And on a day that I’m just too tired, and it’s not my responsibility to cook. Like, I’m not saying you shove cereal for every meal probably, but like having a cereal once in a while is not gonna hurt anything.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yes.

Danielle Sullivan: ‘Cause you are right about that long term, right. That we’re always—we’re having to think like, okay, in the long term, what is this affording people to do it this way? Right? And in the long term, a bowl of cereal for dinner is not gonna really do anything except feed people, which is our main goal. Right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. It’s—

Danielle Sullivan: Our goal is just to feed people, just to be fed.

Anne Elrod Whitney: We do that with yogurt, you know, it’s like—

Danielle Sullivan: Oh yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: If you don’t like something, there’s almost always a yogurt.

Danielle Sullivan: Have a yogurt.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Some of us eat yogurt. So like, go get the yogurt. Is it that you would want to be having yogurt for dinner all the time? No. But like. I just didn’t wanna think about it.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Eat a yogurt. Having a few foods on hand that meet your nutritional standards and desires and are zero work. That’s super important. Depends on your nutritional goals. So like what it’s gonna be, but maybe it is yogurt, maybe it is cereal in that example, maybe there is a certain microwave thing that you’re willing to—

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, we have a lot of microwave things.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Cooking for Yourself

Anne Elrod Whitney: Um, the last thing that I kind of wanna touch on is when you’re cooking for just you.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: As an adult, I know, times when I’ve lived alone or now, I’m divorced, so my kids sometimes go to their, to their dad and one’s at college now. The problem of cooking for just you, in a way, it’s a gift, right? Because I get to have whatever I want. On the other hand, it seems like a lot of work for just me. And it—the incentive of everyone coming to the table is gone. So, what do you have to say about cooking for yourself? I know a couple strategies, but I’m curious what you know.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.  When I’m on my own, I mostly don’t eat the same foods my kids do. I’m even on a mostly different eating schedule for them. I—in the morning, I have my bagel, and my peanut butter and my, my fruit and my coffee. And then I have that basically the same every day.

And then for lunch, I will have either leftovers from the night before if there’s something in the fridge or I’ll cobble. I—what did you call it? A smorgasbord, like it’s scavenger hunt.

Anne Elrod Whitney: A smorgasbord. Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. I cobble. We call it cobbling in my house. It’s like, what are your go-to foods that are available? So there’s leftovers, there’s yogurts, there’s, somebody’s—

Anne Elrod Whitney: Hummus and pretzels for me.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, like that, like that.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Always hummus and pretzels.

Danielle Sullivan: So for like, sometimes I’ll cook, but usually I’m cobbling for lunch. But there—we keep foods around, like I make sure there are hard-boiled eggs in the fridge. I make sure we have yogurt. I make sure we have bread, and I can, make a pb and j or whatever. And then dinner is really the cooking time. And I think that’s just because it’s when I tend to have the most time and, um, I actually have a decent amount of energy in the late afternoon, though I don’t in the mid-afternoon.

So, like, lunch is like, I’m about to take a nap, and I’m just eating real quick before then. So for di—so then I’m only really planning to cook one meal a day, right? When it’s for me. And I try to make it so that there’s different levels of effort depending on the day of the week. So I, you know, I think if you look at all the meals you like to eat, some of them are really low effort.

It’s your yogurt or your can of soup that you heat up. And some of them are like, I’m gonna make myself a fancy omelet and chop all these things. And that’s like a higher effort meal. So I personally just try to match like my energy to the level of meal. So if I really want an omelet, but I’m like exhausted, then I’m like, “Okay, well can I bake an egg?” You know—

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: Or can I make some egg salad out of the, the eggs in the, the fridge? You know, if, if I have a lot of energy and I feel like it, then maybe I’ll make a fancy tart that I can eat all week. Right. And, and, I don’t know that this helps so much with the executive function piece, but for me it’s really—for me, it’s really about what is my capacity and how can I match that to like the thing I most want to eat?

And then if I can’t think of anything I wanna eat, I literally just have leftovers again or have, you know, have what I see.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah

Moving Away From Perfectionism: Just Eat Something

Danielle Sullivan: Because I also learned that, part of my problem, and I think a lot of autistic people’s problem with food is we get overwhelmed, right? We look at all the choices, and we go, “I don’t know what I’m feeling like. I don’t know how much I need. Am I even really hungry?” And we just sort of, like, panic and run away.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. Yeah. And we don’t want all the cleaning, just all of it. Now it’s too late, and I can’t decide.

Danielle Sullivan: And so part of what I’ve kind of decided at some point in my life decided was just pick the thing you see and eat that. And sometimes it won’t totally match your nutritional needs or like your ideal, but it’s also like I know that I’m going to function better if I eat something, even if it’s not perfect. And you know, if that’s cereal again for the second time that day. Or if it’s the leftover mac and cheese, or if it’s the veggie chicken nuggets in the fridge. I’m, naming all—or a banana. Right? But if I see it, if I’m starting to feel overwhelmed, my rule is really like if you see it, just eat that.

Anne Elrod Whitney: You’ve learned to notice that feeling. And then, you know, to just shove something in, so that feeling will go away.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Then you can deal with whatever else.

Danielle Sullivan: Part of it was I would just stop, not eat for a long time, because of overwhelm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: [Unintelligible].

Danielle Sullivan: And then I would be so fatigued that it would get harder, like it was us snowball rolling down the hill. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: Oh, yeah. I—that’s why I had a meltdown every single evening.

Danielle Sullivan: Exactly. And so what I also started doing was buying candy bars from the grocery store because I had read, I don’t know, somebody’s blog post or something who was like, “Having the M&Ms is better than not eating, right?” Kind of like we say to new moms, fed is best, right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right. Right.

Danielle Sullivan: It doesn’t matter what you feed your baby. It’s different for babies. Don’t give them M&Ms. but like at some point, like, yeah, M&Ms are not a nutritionally balanced food. However, they will give your brain some sugar so that you can make a decision about a nutritionally balanced food, right?

And so, I just started keeping chocolate around ’cause I will always eat chocolate and that way I could get enough energy to go do something better, even if that was the next step was just eating what was in front of me.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right.

Danielle Sullivan: So, okay, that’s a peanut butter and jelly. That’s not like nutritionally amazing.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah

Danielle Sullivan: But that would give me something to take the next best step of eating the next best thing in front. Right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right, right.

Danielle Sullivan: So moving away from that perfectionism piece and like, oh, if I don’t make a fancy salad—

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: —I’m not worth eating. It’s like, no, eat anything, really. Eating is still better than not eating, regardless of the nutritional content of the food. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. And noticing that feeling, but another way is preventing that feeling.

Danielle Sullivan: Yes. It’s [unintelligible].

Anne Elrod Whitney: [Unintelligible] on the schedule. So, I’m somebody—

Danielle Sullivan: And I do that now. Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Mm-hmm. It’s easy to get, like if you’re a person who works, by yourself, which—

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: I am.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: If your job is the kind of job where you sit at a computer and then you take your lunch when you’re ready—

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Then, then it’s easy to get involved in what you’re doing and forget to eat. Or if you’re busy with a lot of responsibilities it’s easy to think you don’t have time.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And both of those things have happened to me. And what that means then is that when suppertime comes, when I did have responsibility and I was overwhelmed and all the things you’re describing, I also was unfueled for that.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It helped me to prioritize lunch, and I do now have an alarm for lunch.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And when I worked outside the home, I was careful to always pack a lunch right there with my dinner.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It was leftovers every day.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That’s how I did it. And now that I work at home, it’s kind of having things visible in the fridge, like you said, that our—at least a snack. And I haven’t been eating M&Ms, but I think I would be, had I not, you know, provided something else for myself so that I just didn’t reach that point.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah,

Anne Elrod Whitney: It’s a little bit like, you know, it’s just like meltdown prevention in general for a neuro—neurodivergent person. For me that requires eating a little food and, and I kind of learned like at three o’clock if I feel gr—if I feel grumpy, eat a granola bar, you know?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Which for me, that’s like, I guess my M&Ms.

Freezer Cooking for One

Anne Elrod Whitney: Well, I just wanted to loop back to the single person for a minute because I think the food waste and the sense that it’s a lot of trouble for just me is a real barrier. And so here are some ways that I have contended with that, and then I’ve helped other people contend with it.

Just practical stuff. One was to realize that the freezer, freezer cooking isn’t just for a big family that, for example, the recipe’s too big, or I have to buy this whole bag of something, and then I won’t use it all, and it’ll go bad. Well. I would have people or myself make the big recipe.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: Then, pack it. Eat, eat what I’m going to eat, take another one for my lunch, and then what’s left. Pack that for a dinner for another night and put it in my freezer. So basically, making yourself a TV dinner.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And so if it was butter, chicken and rice, say, then now I’ve created a little frozen block of butter chicken and rice, which, can go to work, or it can be a nighttime thing.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: You can just cook it in a microwave. Just use the defrosting thing on the microwave. For some reason, I get real hung up on, I didn’t thaw it out.

Danielle Sullivan: Oh.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Your microwave can deal with that for you. And I never really used that part of the microwave, but I’m just here to say defrost the microwave and having little containers.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So it’s not necessarily providing for a meal. It’s providing for you in the future.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Meal Planning Based On An Ingredient

Anne Elrod Whitney: Providing for the family. And then the other thing was to think about, what are the multiple meals I can make with this ingredient?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So, you know, the broccoli, I’m not gonna eat this whole head of broccoli one night. Well, can you think of three things you like with broccoli and consider just having a lot of, you know, have a lot of broccoli. This is broccoli week.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And then, yeah, next week like, oh, I’m never going to eat the whole bag of whatever it is you buy. Okay, well, what three things can I have this week and, and let the theme week be the perishable ingredient.

Danielle Sullivan: That’s a great idea.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It requires letting yourself off the hook of thinking that you’re supposed to have different things every night. And, I had these rules in my mind about what constituted good meals.

Building Our Skills

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was just gonna, kind of come back to the idea that I think if you’re at M&M stage, right, that the next step on that, like we always talk about this upward spiral, right? Like, we’re trying to build on our skills, right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Ooh. Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: So if your current skill level is M&M stage, that’s fine. And also maybe the next skill up you wanna work on, right, is basically what Anne was talking about, about thinking a little bit ahead, right? So before you get to M&M, what’s like, can you just do lunch? Right? And then when you got lunch done, can you just do breakfast?

Working Through Meals

Danielle Sullivan: And also I think there is a part of this, of thinking about the different versions of you, right? It feels when you’re in the zone that you can’t break for lunch, but later you deserve the food and the energy and the capacity that lunch is going to bring. Right? And so you deserve food regardless of what you do.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: Right? Outside of productivity, but also you are investing into your future self in a positive way by taking that break and going and eating a meal you will enjoy. Rather than trying to eke out 20 more minutes of work, that’s not even gonna be very high quality because you didn’t eat. Right? So there is a piece in there of also just thinking through, like realistically, what is working through lunch gonna give you? It’s gonna give you less energy for later and poorer work. Right? Y’know?

Planning for Monotropism

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah, that is often true. That is often true. The place where I would get into trouble with that is with writing where—

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It feels to me, and—

Danielle Sullivan: It feels urgent.

Anne Elrod Whitney: This is only partly true. First of all, it is true that you lose your train of thought.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And it’s hard to get back.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That’s true. And especially for those of us who really go deep dive and have that, you might call it a hyperfocus or you might call it like the monotropic—

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, yeah. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: Uh, you know, looking down the telescope or microscope or something into your interest, it hurts a little to stop what I’m doing.

Danielle Sullivan: It does.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And so when I realized that that was wh—why I was not eating lunch, that’s how I learned to pack myself a lunch.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Even when I’m at home, so that I don’t have to feel that pain as much.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Making Cooking More Enjoyable for You

Anne Elrod Whitney: Same with cooking. You know, I got in a mood there where I was doing meal prep on Sundays. And I mean, Sunday, I already kind of had Sunday blues. There’s other stuff I wanna be doing. Maybe it’s beautiful outside, and my kids are outside playing with their dad, and I’d be inside—

Danielle Sullivan: Like, you wish— Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Browning some meat, you know? And I hated that. Well, once I figured out that it was, I didn’t mind cooking, but I hated doing it then, I was able to adjust when I was doing it. Right?

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Like do it Sunday morning before everything as opposed to in the afternoon. And also to make that time more, more fun for me, whether that was having a friend do it with you, whether that’s involving your children or in my case, it was about listening to a podcast—

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: —while I was doing it. I kind of forgot that I could listen to things while cooking. And I enjoy cooking, but I don’t like having to do anything. I’m allergic to having to do anything.

Danielle Sullivan: I’m also like that.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Um, there, there may be a profile that, that describes this, that one could learn more about at Neurodiverging. I dunno. It’s possible.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, I-I’m the same way though. And I think you’re right that adding some level of joy and choice to the task, even if you kind of have to do the task, is so, so important.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. And that a lot of things that I hate to do are just kind of don’t wanna, I don’t wanna.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I feel like I’m supposed to, and I don’t wanna, sometimes there’s something I do wanna, that I can layer on with it.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And that’s my trick to get myself to make food.

Danielle Sullivan: We should do another episode about the “Don’t Wanna’s.”

Anne Elrod Whitney: Oh.

Danielle Sullivan: Because I could say so much about that, and this is already so long, so—

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. Okay. Well, I do wanna come back to that in another episode. And I don’t wanna forget about it. So we will make that plan.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, that’s great.

Anne Elrod Whitney: To ask another question about that another time.

Outro

Danielle Sullivan: Cool. Okay. And I know I’ve seen that question a million times in my email, so I’m sure some of you out there will be waiting for that one too. So make sure you are subscribed. Haha. This is my plug. Make sure you are subscribed on Spotify or YouTube or wherever you stream this thing and come check out and learn more at neurodiverging.com.

We have transcripts and links and lots of other resources. Links are also below. We have a course on visual supports you can get access to online or on our Patreon at patreon.com/neurodiverging. You can also get coaching support from me or Anne, and I’m at neurodiverging.com, as is Anne. But also check out Anne’s stuff at anneelrodwhitney.com. Lots of good resources there.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That’s right. And you know, I would make a plug for membership in the community at Neurodiverging if you’ve not tried that. It is a place for me where I can go and ask some of these questions when I—when I haven’t yet heard a podcast on my specific question.

The discussions that go on in the Discord server that is shared by community members is really, a huge support for me. In the meantime, I hope that you have something yummy for dinner tonight or for breakfast tomorrow, whenever it is that you’re listening to this. And we are gonna look forward to you next time.

Danielle Sullivan: Thank you so much. Remember, we are all in this together.