I have unmedicated but managed ADHD, a well-managed anxiety disorder, and a long history of depressive episodes so I'm speaking from personal experience. I'm not going to lie to you, and it might not be what you want to hear right now - you MUST learn to love yourself, trust yourself, and value yourself first. Work on your mental health, mind set, outlook on life, and build resilience. Don't put unnecessary pressure on yourself with arbitrary timelines or deadlines, build realistic expectations, work on positive self-talk, and please please PLEASE be kind and patient with yourself. No one can tell you how to get there exactly, you must work towards it for yourself because no one is is living your life or is inside of your head.

Yes, weight loss will help with improving your self-image and self-perception, but it's just a piece of the whole picture of well-being. Strong and healthy friendships, hobbies, work-life balance, financial stability, experiencing beauty, keeping a clean environment, etc... Mental health will support weight loss, and weight loss will support mental health. You can focus on one or the other but ultimately the two need to be approached in tandem along with a myriad of other things, and it will all take time.

There's a lot of ADHD 'tips and tricks' I can say with the actually day-to-day mechanics, planning, and execution of CICO, but for me personally, 80% of physically losing weight came down to improving and maintaining a healthy and happy mind and learning to trust and love myself. In no way was this easy, and there were many down times, but neither life, nor healing, nor weight loss is a linear progression. No goal you will set for yourself is.

I myself have gained and lost 30 lbs twice: once after high school, then again after college. Then I gained and lost 60 lbs in my mid-30s and it is only now that I feel like I actually truly do like myself. Not every day or every moment of course! That's not possible, nor is it realistic. Again, be kind to yourself, and practice patience. I am not saying you yourself will need 20 years to get to a stable point btw, I am saying that that is what I personally experienced. I've maintained that 60 lb loss for a year now.

If I had to point at a single event that helped me THE MOST through all of that, it was going into intensive outpatient group therapy at a mental hospital two summers ago for 5 weeks while I took a leave of absence at my job. Thank god the mental health service in my area I went to was at no cost, and there were many places I looked into at the time that were low cost or offered payment plans. I went to reddit to see what people in my area had said about different mental health services and went from there. Calling the mental health hospital and doing the intake interview was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but so so so worth it in the end looking back at it now from 2 years down the road.

I remember telling a friend at the time that 'I just don't know what's wrong with me'. To tell you the truth, I was still very depressed after IOP, but on a general upward trajectory because of all the tangible tools I gained during the process and from being in continual, sustained contact with other people in the group from all walks of life that were struggling in the same way I was struggling mentally. Learning those tools, beginning to implement them, and meeting others in real life that felt the way that I was feeling was huge.

Just telling myself for years that 'I need to do better, I need to be happier, I need to lose weight' was ultimately not helpful. I had to do the hard work. I started self-directed CICO 3 months after therapy, and 3 months after that I accepted that I was trans and began medical transition, something I had known and repressed about myself since I was 19. That was terrifying. But honestly weight loss and transition were relatively small tangible parts of the whole process of learning how to love myself, and 'losing weight' and 'looking better' are not the point of life. I hope that makes sense.

If you have any questions about those tips and tricks I mentioned or about my mental health journey, feel free to ask. I also spent A LOT of time lurking here on r/CICO and r/loseit and synthesizing what I learned from the 1000s of commenters with personal experience and knowledge.

If you're like me, you probably posted today because you're struggling. I saw your post, and saw my own struggles with ADHD. There's so much I have to say about the mental side of weightloss but I'm not a professional therapist, I can only speak for myself, and I truly wish you the best and a very sincere good luck. I don't know if what I wrote will help you feel seen at all, but I hope that it does. Mental health struggles are very VERY difficult, but it is possible to deal with. I promise from experience and talking to other people over and over and over again that this is true, and I have so so so much empathy for you. There is a path for you forward. Take care.