I didn't get my ADHD diagnosis until I was 56. So for most of my working life, I did what everyone else did: powered through until 1pm, ate whatever was fastest, and wondered why some days I felt fine and other days I wanted to bite someone's head off by 3pm.
Turns out, a lot of that wasn't me being "difficult" or "dramatic." It was biochemistry. And a huge part of that biochemistry comes down to something we almost never talk about at work: blood sugar.
So let's talk about it.
Your brain is not running on willpower. It's running on glucose.
The part of your brain responsible for focus, motivation, impulse control and basically all the "adulting" skills is called the prefrontal cortex. It's a glutton for energy, and it runs almost entirely on glucose, needing a steady, reliable supply to keep functioning.
Here's the problem with the traditional working day: skip breakfast, power through the morning on coffee, then wait until a fixed 1pm slot to finally eat properly. By the time that lunchbreak rolls around, your prefrontal cortex has often already been running on fumes for hours.
And when blood sugar drops, that part of the brain is one of the first to lose power. That's when concentration goes, tempers get short, and the “can't be bothered” feeling creeps in. From the outside it can look exactly like typical ADHD struggles. From the inside, it often is your ADHD just louder and harder because your brain has nothing left in the tank.
The rollercoaster nobody warns you about
Then there's what happens when you finally do eat at 1pm, often reaching for something quick: a sandwich, some crisps, a sugary drink. Fast carbs give a short burst of energy, and then the crash comes.
Insulin overshoots. Blood sugar drops too low, too fast. Your body panics and floods your system with stress hormones to compensate. The result is a wave of irritability, moodiness, and sometimes a real urge to binge on anything sugary just to feel normal again.
For a brain that's already running low on dopamine, that crash hits harder and faster than it does for most people. And here's the bit that matters for this conversation: a single, fixed lunchbreak often lands you right in the middle of that rollercoaster, at a time your body didn't necessarily choose.
"Food doesn't exist" - the hyperfocus problem
Here's the flip side, and if you've got ADHD, you'll probably recognise this one instantly: the days where you're so deep in a task that food genuinely stops registering. Hunger cues get missed entirely, and 1pm comes and goes without a flicker of awareness that you haven't eaten.
Then a fixed lunchbreak forces a stop, right in the middle of the one window where you were actually getting somewhere. You lose the flow, and you still might not feel hungry enough to properly refuel, because your hunger signals were never reliable in the first place.
This is exactly why a single rigid break, imposed at the same time regardless of what's actually happening in your body or your brain, works against so many ADHD employees rather than for them.
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What actually works: steady fuel, flexible timing
An ADHD brain does better with steady fuel roughly every three to four hours, rather than one or two big hits a day. That's a fundamentally different rhythm to "eat nothing until 1pm, then eat everything at once."
A few things that genuinely help:
Eat within an hour of waking, not necessarily first thing, but within that window, because morning cortisol peaks early and drops fast, and eating in that window helps stabilise blood sugar before the crash.
Prioritise protein at each eating window eggs, nuts, yoghurt, poultry, fish because protein is what actually fuels focus and mood, far more than the "grab whatever's fastest" carb-heavy option.
Build in shorter, more frequent breaks, rather than one long fixed slot, so eating can happen closer to when the body actually needs it rather than when the clock says so.
Protect deep focus when it happens, with the flexibility to eat slightly later if someone's mid-flow, rather than forcing a stop at a fixed time and losing both the focus and the appetite cue.
None of this is about ditching structure completely. It's about recognising that a single, fixed, one-size-fits-all lunchbreak was never actually designed around how the ADHD brain or honestly, a lot of neurotypical brains too functions.This newsletter provides a springboard for a healthy body and mind. Remember, consistency is key!
The bigger picture
This is a tiny slice of what I dig into properly in Nutrition for ADHD the full picture of blood sugar, dopamine, sleep, hormones, and how all of it ties together to explain why some days feel manageable and others feel impossible, even when nothing about your effort has changed.
If workplaces genuinely want to support neurodivergent employees, flexible, frequent breaks built around real biology, not around a factory clock, are one of the simplest, lowest-cost places to start.
You're not weak. You're not lazy. It's not always your ADHD. Sometimes, it really is your blood sugar.
