Wondering how to silence food noise? In this Dish On Ditching Diets podcast episode, I explain as a nutritionist after working one-on-one with over a thousand weight loss clients what food noise is and how to quiet food noise without medication.
Food noise is a symptom of deeper issues going on and those are deeper issues are what actually need to be fixed in order to silence food noise.
What Is Food Noise
Food noise is being consumed with constant thoughts about food and struggling to find a healthy balance of eating health promoting foods along with foods that have fewer nutrients.
Those who have food noise are often those who have been chronically dieting and have a poor relationship with food.
They find themselves often craving foods they think they should not be eating, in cycles of restricting and binging followed by shame, guilt and self-judgement.
Food noise makes it difficult for individuals to manage your weight, health and relationship with food without expert help.
What Causes Food Noise?
Too much restrictive dieting is one major cause of food noise. When individuals restrict food groups or cut certain "bad" foods from their diet and swear they will never eat them again, this causes increased cravings and desires for those foods.
In my experience as a nutritionist, I have observed clients not honoring their food cravings as a result of restricting and dieting to lose weight.
Their obsession with being skinner and achieving a lower weight on the scale is causing them to hyper focus on the foods they think they shouldn't eat and then have periods of time overeating them led by negative self talk and beating themselves up for eating a food that they perceive as "wrong." This is preventing them from losing weight and keeping them stuck.
The second reason individuals have food noise is hunger. The majority of weight loss clients I have worked with are not feeding their bodies properly because they have the classic dieter's mentality of restricting and eating as little as possible, which is backfiring into overeating. Their body is starving for calories and nutrients and they do not understand that, or they fear gaining weight by feeding their body properly.
The third reason people experience food noise is emotional eating. Many weight loss clients I've worked with were using food to distract and suppress their feelings.
Running to food when anxious, stressed, bored, or when you experience a negative emotion is a symptom that you do not know how to deal with your emotions. Food has become your coping mechanism to avoid dealing with uncomfortable feelings.
These three examples of food noise require the help of an expert and if you have been struggling with food noise, you will want to reach out to an expert to work through these issues such as myself. This is how you will silence food noise!
How To Quiet Food Noise Without Medication
If you want to silence food noise, then the first steps is learning to feed your body nutritionally properly with enough calories and a whole foods diet that includes key nutrients like protein, fiber, fruits and vegetables.
Also, learning to honor cravings versus restricting yourself of foods you tell yourself are "bad." Learning to incorporate some fun foods into your diet plan like cookies and pizza without telling yourself you did something wrong, ruined everything, or believing you will gain weight.
You can literally eat any food and lose weight as long as you are in a caloric deficit. You will be much more successful in not only losing weight also keeping weight off until you're 85+ years old when you learn to honor your cravings and allowing yourself some of the food instead of having an all or nothing mentality with your diet.
Finally, learning to feel emotions, hold space to process emotions and have compassion for what you are feeling is key to stopping food noise. While this sounds simple, it is not easy in practice.
In this Dish On Ditching Diets podcast episode, I explain in more detail the reasons you have food noise and how to quiet food noise so that you can lose weight and keep it off!
In this Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episode, You Will Hear:
- What Causes Food Noise
- Examples Of Food Noise
- Why Food Noise Is A Symptom Of Deeper Issues
- How Dieting Makes Food Noise Worst
- How To Fix Food Noise
- Why Food Noise Must Be Addressed Before Weight Loss
Never Miss An Episode! Subscribe to the Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify or Amazon Music
Related Episodes For No Weight Loss In A Calorie Deficit
- How Come I Can't Lose Weight
- How To Stop Emotionally Eating
- Once I Start Eating Sugar I Can't Stop
- Making Peace With Food
- Dieting Makes Cravings Worse
- Your Cravings Are A Symptom
How To Stop Food Noise Podcast Transcript
Today I’m going to discuss with you how to silence food noise and five reasons why you have food noise.
The problem is food noise is a symptom of a deeper problem and if that deeper problem goes unaddressed because a lot of people are so desperate to lose weight right now, today, immediately this second, then you will never lose weight.
What you need to understand is if you do not silence food noise and fix your relationship with food, you will never lose the weight or if you do, it will not stay off until you are 85+ years old.
A lot of people who are desperate to lose weight and who are willing to do anything crummy with their diet to lose weight, will always say I’ll deal with that other stuff later. The problem is you won’t.
The other problem is you can’t lose weight then fix your relationship with food. You can’ t mix-up the order of operations. Trying to lose weight first then dealing with food noise later is like building a house and putting the walls and ceiling up then pouring the foundation last because you’re in a hurry to move in.
From an order of operations standpoint, you can’t lose weight that way. Because if you go and lose weight and then go, okay now I’m ready to address my relationship with food and my inner stuff it won’t happen.
In fact, what you will find is your food noise is worst after losing weight because losing weight requires a calorie deficit and a calorie deficit can promote an all or nothing mindset or very restrictive eating patterns which makes food noise worst.
Now you are more hungry, you are more restricted, and you’re worried about regaining weight back so now you’re even more obsessed with food and now you’re scared of eating because you don’t want to lose your results which turns up the food noise.
So many people suppress and restrict and end up having a blow out of a binge, or sabotage or quitting or saying screw it I can’t do this.
Food noise is not the problem. Food noise is a side effect of a deeper problem that is not getting addressed. I have broken down food noise for you into five parts to help you understand what food noise is because food noise is different for different individuals.
There’s five categorizations of food noise – cravings, hunger, feeling like you have no control, always thinking about food and always running to food for emotional reasons.
Food noise is a symptom of these five deeper things and your overall relationship with food. These are five things are what most people avoid fixing or they don’t know how to fix, or they don’t even realize this is what they need to fix in order to silence food noise and lose weight.
Food noise can literally take over your life. A lot of my clients tell me the food noise consumes them. They just want peace. They want to stop thinking about food so much. They want to stop beating themselves up.
They want to stop obsessing and overeating during the holidays. They want to stop freaking out about food and overthinking what they’re eating when they go out to a restaurant. They want to stop feeling anxious around food and like they can’t enjoy foods they love in moderation.
I always say you have to do the inner work before you can the outer work. You have to fix your relationship with food and silence food noise before you can diet for real and lose weight and have peace and keep weight off until you are 85+ years old. Let’s dive into each one of these reasons for food noise.
Number one reason for food noise is cravings. If you suppress your cravings, you will have food noise. The problem is most people in their journey of losing weight go about it the wrong way, an unsustainable way and they suppress their cravings. They restrict too much, they try to only eat health foods or clean foods and so they suppress their cravings.
Most people start the diet on Monday. Alright I’m starting my diet on Monday. I’m losing weight! Meanwhile they were eating like a total jerk all weekend because they’re starting on Monday. This is the last supper mindset. Monday starts I’m going to be really strict, really rigid, going to work out, going to be good. Whatever “good” means.
Well now Monday you’re motivated and then Tuesday you tell yourself I’m on my diet, I’m being good, going to fast because I hear that’s good, so you don’t eat anything for breakfast. Now it’s 1pm and you breakout your salad because you’re trying to be good. But now you’re getting hungry.
Now you think about the chips or chocolate or ice cream in the house. Or what you could go buy after work. Or the food hanging out in the office that everyone brings in. Now you’re thinking you want some of that. But then your dieter brain says, no… I’m being good! I don’t need it. Whatever that means. I don’t need it; I’m being good even though you just want a little.
So, you go on with your day and tell yourself no I’m being good and then all of the sudden Wednesday rolls around and your motivation is starting to go down and once again you’re trying to be good.
Maybe conserving all your calories for later in the day, salad for lunch again, nothing for breakfast and now you’re really wanting something. Now all you’re doing is thinking about wanting the thing you’re craving and then you think oh, I’ve been good for 3 days. I deserve it. Fun fact… you are not a dog, and you do not have to earn your food.
So, then you give in and eat something. Typically, you eat more than you intended and you’re like oh my God, I just blew it. I messed up! Then from there you feel like you screwed up so you’re like well I messed up so I might as well keep going so then you eat more because you think the day is ruined.
Then you think to yourself, it’s already Wednesday the weekend’s almost here so I might as well start over on Monday. And rinse and repeat for the rest of your life. How many of you have done that?
This all started with a craving, and you wouldn’t allow yourself to have something to satisfy the craving because you have a poor relationship with food.
You feel like once you start you can’t stop and you’re being good, and all that diet mindset crap led from you having a level 1 craving to a level 3 craving then you kept suppressing the craving and it went from a 3 to an 8 then it went to a 10 and then you couldn’t control yourself and then you felt like you messed everything up.
All of this would have been fixed if you would have handled the craving when you first had it.
You have to start honoring your cravings. Cravings are like a beach ball you’re trying to hold under the ocean. You can only hold it under the ocean so long until you can’t anymore. Cravings are the same way.
You can only be disciplined so long until it blows up in your face and if you are in the camp of saying oh no, I can’t eat those foods. They store fat. They’re unhealthy. You need to join us in the 21st century because if you’re still worried that sugar stores fat or that not all calories are the same, we need to get you caught up to the facts. Not diet culture. Facts.
Because if you think those things - you’re still living in diet culture if that is your mentality about food. A mile is a mile. A mile in sand is different than a mile on concrete so yes, the composition of a mile is different, but a mile is always a mile.
Suppressing cravings always makes cravings louder and this is what everyone tries to do when they lose weight. Cut out everything that diet culture has made them believe is bad. You know what is truly bad? Truly unhealthy?
Carrying around excess body fat because you keep overeating versus learning to honor cravings and eat things you love in moderation.
Maybe you should incorporate your favorite foods into our plan because no one food inherently stores fat. This is how you silence food noise!
Over the course of a year, you will consume fewer calories from the foods you think are bad then you are right now. I guarantee it. Because right now you are way over consuming them in these cycles of overeating and trying to be good.
So, we must get over this fear of eating foods that have fewer nutrients. Do you really want a life where you never have birthday cake? Never eat pizza? Never eat ice cream, chocolate or chips?
You start a diet and then you cut out this list of foods in your head that you tell yourself you can’t have.
The foods you eat while dieting are the same foods you eat when you are not dieting. The only thing that changes when you are dieting are the portions, not the foods you eat.
You feeling like you have no control when you get around these foods is directly tied to you trying to cut them out and not honoring what you crave. And your fear of overeating them is causing you not to make them part of your plan.
Except that all blows up in your face after a period of time. Your cravings are trying to talk to you, and you are ignoring them. It makes the food noise louder.
You have to practice honoring a craving when it is at a level 1 or 3 not a 10. No craving goes from a 0 to 10. It gradually increases. If you think oh a piece of chocolate sounds good, have a small piece of chocolate right then and there.
But what most people do is say oh I shouldn’t have it. Oh, I’m being good. Then their craving goes from a 1 to a 3 to an 8 to a 10 and now you’re ready to steal chocolate from a small child and you wonder why you can’t control yourself when you finally allow yourself to have chocolate when you’ve been craving it at a level 10 where it’s almost an animal-like response.
Think of water. When you have a bit of thirst, you drink something then you move on with your day. That’s a level 3 craving. But when you don’t drink most of the day, go exercise and now you’re so thirsty that you drink an entire gallon of water and have a stomachache. Your craving for water, you let it get to a level 10.
It’s no different with the chocolate. We see the chocolate as something that makes us fat so then we try to restrict it and be good which causes all these cravings and the overeating and the feeling guilty and shame and the starting over on Monday. If you want to stop that, you need to honor your cravings. This is how you stop food noise.
Number two reason why you have food noise is hunger. The number one reason why many of my clients no longer struggle with food noise is because they’re now eating enough protein, fiber and calories.
If you are under consuming protein and fiber – these are two key nutrients that regulate hunger hormones, and I see it all the time.
Clients consuming 40 grams a protein in a day and barely any fiber. Many of them tried calorie counting before working with me, but they could never stay in a caloric deficit because they were not including enough protein and fiber.
Not meeting your body’s nutritional needs means you will have more hunger. More desire to snack. More cravings. More food noise. You are directly creating food noise for yourself when you are not meeting the nutrition your body needs.
Not eating enough calories because you are dieting all the time is also part of that. If you are eating 1200 calories or some really low number, it’s no surprise to me that you have food noise. It is a survival instinct. You are hungry. Most women who are struggling to lose weight are severely undereating.
So, they eat I don’t know 1200 calories Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday they’re eating 2500 calories because they are so hungry.
They’re average calories for the week are 1940 which is why they’re not losing weight, and it is directly tied to them trying to diet and be good and eat as little as possible which is backfiring into these periods of time where they are over consuming calories because they’re so hungry and cravings all the things which is keeping them stuck at maintenance.
Many women don’t realize this. They just think oh, I’m eating 1200 calories why am I not losing weight. There must be something wrong with my metabolism. It must be my hormones. I mean maybe, but in my experience probably not.
Most women who work with me in my coaching program and they’re under eating and can’t lose weight, this is 99% of the time the problem. You must understand if you’re hungry all the time and you are skipping meals, not eating enough protein and fiber and your calories are too low, of course you are going to have food noise.
It is a hunger response. When you are in a calorie deficit, there should be a hint of hunger. But you should not be always thinking about food. That tells me your deficit is too big or that your caloric tolerance is too low which means we need to eat at maintenance for months and then drop into a reasonable deficit.
One of the biggest reasons why people have food noise is because they’re always trying to eat too little. They’re not eating enough early in the day which leads to level 10 hunger later in the day which leads to overeating.
Weight Watchers has really created this save up your food mentality with a lot of the clients I’ve worked with. My client Judy who was on this podcast a few months ago, talked about this and how putting herself on a regular eating schedule and feeding her body at regular intervals really helped shut down her cravings and silence food noise. If you’re only eating 40 grams of protein a day, it’s no wonder you have cravings.
You are not satiated! If you’re only eating 8 grams of fiber a day, you are also not satiated and possibly not getting enough volume in your diet to keep you full. If you are skipping meals, it can increase hunger later in the day or always trying to eat too few calories overall.
The bottom line is stop letting your hunger get so high. Stop spending your life in a deficit and dieting and eating as little as possible. It is causing your cravings and feeding your body properly will silence food noise.
Number three reason why you have food noise. Once I start, I can’t stop. You feel like you have a lack of control around certain foods. If I eat ice cream, I will eat it all. If I eat chocolate, I will eat it all. If I eat Cheetos, I will eat them all.
First, thing is if you say once I start, I can’t stop. That is a false limiting belief. You actually do have control. You are choosing not to utilize it, or you do not realize you have control.
Because if I said I would give you a million dollars to stop at reasonable portion, could you? Would you still continue eating? Most people would say well yes, I could stop. Well, why do you need to be bribed to stop?
Or let’s say I took your entire family hostage and threatened to un-alive them if you overeat. Would you be able to stop? Or would you be like sorry family! I just can’t stop. Or would you be able to stop? So, the question is where is that self-control at?
Most people who say once they start, they can’t stop, are taking the easy way out. And some people are not going to like hearing that, but it is the truth.
Because practicing moderation (or mindful eating) around what I call fun foods takes work and it’s not easy so they just say they can’t control themselves.
If I gave you $50 to eat 3 pieces of chocolate daily, could you stop at 3 pieces? I bet you could. If you did that every single day for the next 6 months and I gave $10000 for doing that, I’m sure you could. But why do you need to bribed to do that?
The thing is a lot of people give up their personal power because it is hard. This is why being an all or nothing is easy because it takes zero mental bandwidth.
But it also takes no bandwidth to say I’m not going to have any. Because out of sight, out of mind. That’s easy. The issue is easy doesn’t work long-term because once you get around the food or your partner brings the food into your home, you go crazy and overeat it.
The hard way is saying I’m going to have three pieces of chocolate and a serving of chips on my plan every single day and I will practice putting the bag of chocolate and chips back. That takes discipline, that takes accountability, that takes self-control, that takes repetitive practice over months. But that is how you silence food noise!
Of course, it is harder, but it gives you freedom on the other side and that is the only way you get peace and freedom by doing the hard work up front. You have to train for it, and you have more power than you think you do.
You need to ask yourself if you are enabling yourself? Are you scared you will mess up again? Maybe you feel like you messed up by eating too much and then you are choosing to lose control? Choosing to spiral? Could I actually stop if I wanted to?
The answer is yes. It’s like getting on the scale you can get on the scale and choose to spiral and say screw it or you can choose to look at it as data. The choice is yours. We act like we have no choice in the matter, but that is surrendering your power. You have more power than you are giving yourself credit for.
If you feel like you have no control, you need to retrain your brain. That’s why it feels hard when you first practice something like this. It’s crossing your arms. Most people cross their arms a certain way.
But now if you start crossing your arms a different way, it feels really weird, and this is almost this feeling of wanting to cross them the way you always have. It is no different with food and feeling like once you start you can’t stop. Your brain literally can be re-trained at any age.
If you’ve always practiced not honoring your cravings, restricting food too much and demonizing foods that have fewer nutrients I’m honestly not surprised you struggle with feeling like once you start, you can’t stop.
You have never practiced including these foods on your plan. So now, like crossing your arms differently, it feels weird. You have an urge to cross them back the normal way.
You will have an urge to keep eating when you first practice this, but your brain will learn over time, and you will gain control. This is how you achieve freedom and peace, by doing the thing that feels weird. Day after day, it goes on the plan.
Now your brain begins to see, oh I do have control. But you have to actually go through the hard and the discomfort of doing this over and over and over, for your brain to trust and learn that you do have control. This is how to silence food noise!
It’s like ignoring your teeth for decades and having a ton of cavities and dental issues and thinking they should be fixed in two weeks. Um no, it’s gonna take a minute to fix that. Same with once I start, I can’t stop.
Number four reason you have food noise is you’re always thinking about food. A lot of my clients when they come work with me in my coaching program tell me they are constantly thinking about food, and they just want peace.
I’m not surprised you’re always thinking about food if you’ve been trying to lose weight for years and doing different fad diets and suppressing your cravings, cutting out foods you love, eating as little as possible, making yourself hungry all the time. I’m not surprised at all that you are thinking about food so much that it consumes you.
Do you guys remember awhile back when I talked to you about the Minnesota diet and how all the men who were on that diet because obsessed with food? Talked about food, talked about recipes, began overconsuming gum? Their food noise was through the roof, and it all stemmed from restriction.
The thing is if you work on the last three things I just mentioned – honoring cravings, satisfying hunger – feeding your body properly, and once I start, I can’t stop – this will help tremendously with the constant thoughts about food. You thinking about food all the time is related to those things. If you want to know how to silence food noise, it's by working on all those things.
It may also be that you are distracted and not present in the moment. What I mean by that is you are not present in your life; you’re always thinking about the next thing. You’re always busy. Always scrolling. You’re on autopilot.
You need to be in the moment. You need to present with yourself. Be with yourself and meet yourself where you are. If you are always thinking about food, you may not be present in the moment. Understand it is not an easy task to be present. You will have to remind yourself before your brain learns to be present.
It could also be emotional why you’re thinking about food all the time, which is the number five reason why you have food noise.
Running to food when anxious, stressed or emotional. Hiding, distracting or suppressing your negative emotions with food. You are sad, you want to eat. You are stressed, you eat. You don’t feel good, or you are sick, you want to feel better, so you run to food.
That is emotional eating and can get intertwined with always thinking about food.
If your life is not happy and your only outlet is food, it is no wonder why you think about food all the time. Food is literally your friend.
But if you’re always emotional, stressed, overwhelmed, anxious and unhappy and the only way you know how to handle those things is by eating food then you will always be thinking about food because that is the state you are always in.
You need to learn how to spot your emotions and hold space and compassion for them. Ask yourself how you are feeling? Take a walk, journal, practice deep breathing, talk to a friend or get a therapist.
This sounds easy, but dealing with emotions is not easy. Most of the clients I have worked with are avoiding their feelings and distracting with food. They don’t want to deal with how they are feeling, so they distract with food.
Imagine not wanting to deal with a small child who’s sad and just telling them to eat food. You’re teaching them to distract away from the sadness. That would be no different than telling a child who’s happy to eat food because they shouldn’t be happy.
Most of us would never do that when someone is happy, but we sure do it a lot when we have a negative emotion. We don’t know what to do about our emotions, so we just eat food and then we’re trying to lose weight on top of that.
Losing weight on top of emotional eating doesn’t work. You gotta work on the emotional eating piece and learn to hold space for your emotions and not distracting yourself with food before you can lose weight. This is how you silence food noise.
So, those are the five reasons why you have food noise and again food noise is not the issue. Food noise is a symptom of these deeper issues that are going on. Now I’m going to say this. Going on a weight loss medication doesn’t solve these issues.
Even if you are on weight loss medication, you still need to work on these things. These issues will continue rearing their head if you don’t address them, and I do fear there are many people out there on weight loss medications who don’t realize that these deeper things are going on.
But for those of you who are not and keep trying to lose weight and don’t understand why you’re stuck and why’re you’re constantly craving food and constantly hungry and not losing weight, I want you to think about what I said today.
You cannot lose weight and keep it off permanently unless you silence food noise and address these issues first. They are pre-requisites before you can lose weight. You cannot expect weight loss (sustainable) if these issues are not remedied first. If you’re struggling with these things, you should not be attempting weight loss yet.
This is one of the reasons why in my program, I don’t put people into a fat loss phase until they have a good relationship with food. I constantly have women who want to rush right into a calorie deficit, and I have to remind them that if a calorie deficit worked, they wouldn’t be here. I always go back to the house analogy.
If you don’t have a foundation, you can’t put the walls and ceiling up because your house will come crumbling down. Fat loss is much easier when you have these foundational things in order.
Trying to lose weight before dealing with these things will just make your food noise worst and relationship with food worst. I see it every day and honestly, it is a sad thing to see. So many women suffering and restrictive dieting and miserable and stuck and not feeling good because they don’t know how to do this.
There is a way to get unstuck and feel good, but it requires you taking a radically different approach to weight loss then you have previously and not rushing the journey.
Accept where you are. Meet yourself where you are in this journey. As long as you are on the path, you are guaranteed to get there. That’s what I always say to my clients. Who cares that you haven’t lost 10 pounds yet.
You are on the path and as long as you do the best you can stay on the path; you are guaranteed the weight will come off. It just a matter of time. All this stuff I’m talking about is simple, but it’s not easy. But is the path to food freedom and how to silence food noise!
