PHOCUS

A questionnaire for understanding your eating patterns, capacity, and gut-brain responses.

The PHOCUS Questionnaire is a gentle self-reflection tool designed to help you explore why eating may feel difficult, inconsistent, delayed, narrow, emotionally charged, or difficult to sustain right now.

Rather than focusing on willpower, discipline, or dietary perfection, PHOCUS looks at the wider ecology of eating, inviting you to reflect on patterns, hunger signals, food options, capacity, gut-brain communication, sensory context, and self-kindness. The goal is to help you understand your eating patterns with more clarity, compassion, and support.

Your results are not a diagnosis or a diet-quality score. They are simply a starting point for understanding where eating may need more support, flexibility, structure, or compassion.

PHOCUS Questionnaire

A gentle self-reflection tool for exploring why eating may feel difficult right now.

All questions refer to the past 7 days. Choose the option that best fits your current experience.


Patterns


1. My eating varies a lot depending on the day.

2. I skip meals because I lose track of time or forget to eat.

3. Stress or overwhelm makes my eating more chaotic.

Hunger and interoception


4. I find it hard to know if I am hungry or just stressed, tired, or emotional.

5. I often notice hunger only when I feel unwell, shaky, or very irritable.

6. I struggle to tell when I am comfortably full.

Options


7. When I am tired or overwhelmed, I can only manage a very small number of familiar foods.

8. I avoid cooking or preparing food even when I want to eat.

9. Having too many food options makes it harder for me to decide what to eat.

Capacity


10. My ability to organise or prepare food changes a lot from day to day.

11. When my mental energy is low, eating in a way that supports me feels nearly impossible.

12. Without routines or support, my eating becomes more inconsistent.

Underlying neurobiology


13. My appetite changes noticeably when I am stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed.

14. I use food to manage or soften uncomfortable emotions or body sensations.

15. My digestion, such as bloating, discomfort, or bowel changes, shifts when my emotions change.

16. My gut sensations often feel confusing or unreliable, making it hard to know what my body is telling me.

17. My mood, clarity, or energy often change with how my gut feels.

18. When my gut feels off, I feel a strong pull toward certain foods or a strong avoidance of others, even when I cannot explain why.

Sensory context and self-kindness


19. Sensory input around food, such as smell, texture, sound, or lighting, affects what or how much I can eat.

20. I avoid some foods because the sensory experience feels overwhelming.

21. Busy, loud, or unpredictable environments make eating more difficult for me.

22. When eating feels difficult, I tend to put pressure on myself rather than respond with understanding.

23. When my eating feels unsettled, I sometimes overlook the role of stress, context, or limited capacity.

24. I find it difficult to respond kindly to myself when eating feels challenging.

PHOCUS Questionnaire v1.1 © Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas, 2026. All rights reserved.
PHOCUS is currently undergoing research validation. It is provided here for individual self-reflection only.

This questionnaire may not be copied, shared, adapted, reproduced, distributed, embedded, taught, used commercially, or included in research, clinical, educational, organisational, or professional materials without written permission from the author.

Commercial use is not permitted. PHOCUS remains the intellectual property of Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas.
For any use beyond individual self-reflection, please contact the author.

This questionnaire is a reflective screening and formulation-support tool. It is not a diagnostic instrument, not a diet-quality score, and not a measure of motivation, discipline, or willpower.

This embedded version calculates your result in your browser. It does not send or store your answers.
PHOCUS Questionnaire

PHOCUS-T

Trauma + Eating

T is for trauma and its knock-on impact on safety, tension, and eating

There is also an optional PHOCUS-T module, which explores how tension, vigilance, judgement sensitivity, feeling watched, or feeling unsafe may shape eating and digestion.

PHOCUS-T does not ask about trauma history or diagnosis. It simply offers a more trauma-aware layer of reflection for people who want to understand how their nervous system may be influencing their relationship with food.

Because this section needs more context and care, PHOCUS-T is not available on this public page. It is currently available only inside my members-only area for people attending my upcoming online masterclass on Wednesday 15 July.

The masterclass will help you understand your PHOCUS results more deeply and turn them into practical, neurodivergent-affirming steps for eating with more clarity, capacity, and self-kindness.

You can find out more about the masterclass on the PHOCUS Masterclass page, or you can reserve your seat below.

PHOCUS | ADHD-Friendly Nutrition Masterclass
£65.00
One time

Enjoy unlimited lifetime access to the exclusive Masterclass members’ area, including the live 90-minute training session with Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas, the post-event recording, and practical materials to help you bring the PHOCUS method into everyday life, clinical work, or professional practice. The live event is scheduled for 5pm (UK time) on Wednesday 15th July.

✓ Live 90-minute Masterclass plus post-event recording
✓ Exclusive slides and participant notes
✓ PHOCUS food and meal-creation guide
✓ Workbook for personal or clinical reflection
✓ Evidence-based ADHD nutrition with kindness at its centre

If the PHOCUS Questionnaire has helped you understand your eating patterns with a little more clarity and kindness, then it has already served its purpose.

PHOCUS is designed to help you notice what may be impacting your relationship with food right now, including eating rhythm, hunger signals, food options, capacity, gut-brain responses, sensory context, and self-kindness. The aim is not to judge your eating, but to give you a more useful map of where support may be needed.

Firstly, I recommend reading my book, ADHD Body and Mind, where I explore these ideas in more depth through neuroscience, nutrition, gut-brain health, self-kindness, and lived experience.

The next step, if you would like to take it, is to turn this map into a more personalised plan, created to take into account your history, your context, your nervous system, and your real-life needs. If you would like support with that process, you can book a consultation with me.

Please remember that PHOCUS is not a diagnostic tool, not a diet-quality score, and not a measure of motivation, discipline, or willpower. If your answers point to distress around eating, ongoing digestive issues, or body-mind difficulties that are having a meaningful impact on your daily life, it’s important that you speak with your GP or that you explore this further with a suitably qualified healthcare professional.

BOOK A CONSULTATION

Disclaimer

The PHOCUS Questionnaire is intended for information, education, and self-exploration. Your result is generated locally in your browser. No personal data is collected, no cookies are used, and no information is stored on servers or databases.

PHOCUS does not constitute a clinical assessment or diagnosis, and it does not replace evaluation by a qualified professional. It is a reflective screening and formulation-support tool designed to help you understand eating through a body-mind lens, including patterns, capacity, interoception, sensory context, stress, gut-brain influences, and self-kindness.

PHOCUS is currently undergoing research validation. Any result should therefore be understood as a reflective guide, not as a validated clinical score or diagnostic conclusion.

As a clinical neuroscientist, my commitment is to communicate science in ways that help people understand, reflect, and make informed decisions, without labelling, moralising, or diagnosing. If anything raised by this questionnaire feels significant, distressing, or relevant to your daily functioning, it deserves to be explored with appropriate professional support.