What to Do About Food Noise [Ep. 150]

0:00 This is Eat Well. Think Well Live Well podcast I am Lisa Salsbury and this is episode 150. What to Do About Food Noise? Welcome to eat well. Well, the podcast for busy women who want to lose weight without constantly counting, tracking, or stressing over every bite. I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certified health weight loss and life coach, and most importantly, a recovered chronic dieter here. You'll learn to listen to your body and uncover the reasons you're reaching for food. When you're not truly hungry, freeing you to focus on a healthier, more fulfilling approach to eating. So I didn't even really register until today that this was gonna be episode 150, which is like, so fun.

0:45 Um, it's just, you know, little milestone things. So I was like, oh, I should do something special. But, um, I didn't have anything like new or unusual other than just like a really great episode if I do say so myself. I'm really excited to share this information with you. I've done quite a bit of research for this episode, so let's just jump right in. To understanding food noise, what is it? And, you know, what is this like nagging thing that, that we maybe have? So first I wanna define it, food noise is the persistent, intrusive thoughts about food, and it's often unrelated to physical hunger. So some examples of this would be like thinking about dinner while eating lunch.

1:29 Not so much like, what am I going to have for dinner? Like, oh, we're gonna have Mexican food, so I don't want to eat a quesadilla for lunch, but like, when do I get to eat next? That kind of thought. See the difference there? It's um, constant food planning beyond meal planning. It's the background chatter and it's also questions like, did I eat too much? Um, I can't wait till lunch. When should I eat next? When can I eat next? When will the next time that food be available? Maybe there's something better in the pantry. These are the kinds of thoughts that would be considered food noise. You can differentiate it from normal appetite or interest in food because it's often like thinking about food while you're still eating And so.

2:13 People without a lot of food noise can often go several hours without even thinking about food or when they'll eat again. A good friend of mine described this as like that siren call to the pantry at night when she was trying to wind down, and it's also often the first thing you think of when you wake up. So it's persistent. Even when you're not physically hungry, and it's kind of an ongoing background mental activity. So it can be tied to emotions, to habits, to mental load, which we're gonna talk about. It doesn't always lead to eating. This is an interesting kind of caveat, but it takes up a lot of brain space.

2:58 So it's different than cravings. I wanna kind of differentiate the two between food, noise and cravings. Cravings are strong and often sudden desire to eat a specific food. You're probably gonna feel this in your body, like, um, that pole towards salty chips or chocolate. And it can be accompanied by physical sensations like mouthwatering or restlessness. Cravings tend, as opposed to food, noise cravings tend to be more acute. And specific I want ice cream, right? Whereas food noise is more of the background chatter for any food. When are we going to eat next? Right?

3:38 Cravings tend to be triggered by um, emotions, restrictions, habits, and they are a little bit more easily managed with awareness or distraction. And of course, using some of my tried and true coaching methods for managing cravings, which. Is, you know, involves processing them just like any other feeling. So lots of episodes available on this for you, but cravings tend to sound a little bit more like an emergency, whereas food noise is that constant background. Hum. Okay, so that's a little bit of the definition and how it's different than cravings. I, so I hope that's clear and you can identify if this is something that you, um, that you notice in your life or if it's kind of, um, something that happens to you like in certain periods or certain times of the month.

4:28 So it's not something that has to be, like, it has to be all consuming to be considered food noise. Okay. There's definitely different levels. Let's talk about how food noise can develop. So one way is that it could be an innate or on the biological level. So some people may have a brain that's more responsive to food cues. So there's obesity research that suggests that that those living at higher weights have a higher sensitivity in their reward pathways. Things like in the dopamine pathway, in the ghrelin pathway, those kinds of things. These studies also show that people with lifelong struggles with weight often experience more intense food thoughts.

5:08 So when it comes to understanding why food noise shows up, for some people more than others, especially in those who struggle with overeating or with obesity, researchers have two main theories that seem almost opposite, but both can make sense depending on the individual. So number one is the hyper H-Y-P-E-R, hyper responsiveness theory. So this view suggests that for some people, the brain's reward system is extra sensitive to food. So when they see or even think about food, especially highly palatable processed foods, their brain lights up more than someone without that sensitivity. Imaging studies have shown that people with obesity often have greater activation in the brain's reward areas when they're shown pictures of food.

5:55 And this might help explain why food thoughts feel more persistent or harder to ignore because the brain is responding to those cues more intensely, which could lead to more cravings, more food, noise, and potentially overeating. On the flip side, we have the hypo HYPO, hypo responsive theory. This one is a little bit of a different angle. It suggests that in some people, the brain doesn't respond enough to food once it's actually consumed. So while the anticipation of food might still be strong, the satisfaction or reward. After eating is blunted. So in this case, people may keep eating more than they need, not because the food is more tempting, but because their brain isn't getting that satisfied signal.

6:44 Some imaging studies here show that people with obesity can have a lower activity in the part of the brain called the dorsal striatum, which plays a role in that feeling reward. So, it can have a lower activity there when they eat. So while these two mechanisms are different, the hyper and the hypo responsive one is about the brain lighting up too much in anticipation. And the other is about it not lighting up. Enough after eating both can contribute to overeating and a constant mental focus on food and either one could be a factor in why food noise feels so loud.

7:25 For some people, it's like you think about food because it's so amazing. In the hyper responders or because you're just never satisfied in the hypo responders. So that is one way that, researchers believe that food noise can develop. Um, the second way is actually my theory. I have not like confirmed this other than anecdotally with other women. And especially I talked to a woman, um, who has been on. GLP one medication for about a year and a half, and she was like, a hundred percent. That is my lived experience. So, you know, my sample size is very small, but I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give you this theory anyway.

8:11 I think that food noise can be especially common in women who have been the food manager in their homes. If you hold the mental load of managing the food for the family, let's think about what that entails. I've been married for 29 years and my oldest child is 26. I was a stay at home mom, a home engineer, if you will, and one of my jobs was to keep everyone fed and this is what I feel like that entailed. Knowing the inventory of the fridge, the pantry, the freezer, making grocery lists and shopping for all the food, usually at multiple different. Locations, the regular grocery store, the Costco type grocery stores. Sometimes I even went to, um, a, like a cheaper place because of course, when we were young and had little ones, we were living on a budget.

8:57 So keeping track of the staples as well as the perishables. You don't need flour and, you know, oats every time you shop, but you've gotta keep track of that inventory, remembering everyone's preferences and requests for food, knowing which kid likes Hammond mustard on their sandwich and which, which kid likes Turkey and avocado. Right. You gotta remember who likes what when you're out and about. Are the kids going to get hungry? Do I bring snacks? Will there be food when we get there? Will they like said food when we arrive at someone else's home, trying to make dinners that are healthy, affordable, quick, and liked by everyone. This is a impossible task. Figuring out what meals align with the schedule, right? We need quick dinners on practice nights, freezer meals for when I'm working late, remembering who's eating where and when.

9:42 You've got kids that are eating at friends' houses. You have a partner that might come home late and not be available for dinner. I know my spouse traveled quite a bit for work, so my meal plans were different based on if he was home or if he was not home when they were little. I made breakfast and lunch also plus snacks. And if you're not a stay at home mom, you're packing all of that stuff. So you've gotta make all of that food ahead to send with them to daycare or school. And maybe it's taken care of at some, but not always. Um, then you have to keep track of the leftovers from the dinner you made. Make sure those don't go bad. Make sure we have left overnight. Are there things that need to be used up? Like you have ingredients that you used a partial amount for, something that you purchased and you need to plan something else to use it up before it goes bad?

10:29 All the while trying to feed yourself and trying to model healthy eating while managing your own relationship with food. Are you exhausted listening to that list? This can continue into midlife even after these responsibilities lessen and kids leave the home. Because this is so ingrained in what you have done. If this wasn't your lived experience, maybe because you didn't have children or your partner really split the food manager role with you, then that's great, but this is just one way that I see food noise showing up for my midlife clients. This kind of mental rehearsal around food day in and day out can absolutely condition your brain to keep food top of mind.

11:13 And over time, this contributes to your own personal food noise, even when you're not actively hungry or needing to make all of these decisions. Okay. What could make food noise worse? So let's say you have what you consider food noise, but you notice that some days it's better, some days it's worse. What? What's going on there? So. I know you're gonna be like, not at all surprised when I tell you this list, but obviously stress, poor sleep, those are gonna be top of list for making food noise worse. Also, over restriction and diet mentality. I. So diet mentality specifically here is, um, well, it's a lot of things that I talk about on this podcast, but think about things like labeling food, good or bad, believing that some foods are off limits or special occasion foods, earning foods with workouts.

12:04 Um, the constant feeling of needing to start over because you had one like off limit food. Those kinds of diet mentality thoughts can make food noise. Worse. Um, another thing that can make it worse is exposure to food cues. So things like ads, social media, constant availability of food, just driving by your favorite donut place every single day. Um, or on a closer to home example, walking by the pantry that you stock with what you're calling kids specific snacks, but of course you love them as well. another thing that can make it worse is like emotional triggers or boredom. So this can be a big one, and that is also like that, that sort of siren call to the pantry at eight 30 or nine o'clock.

12:50 It's not, it can be a craving. Sometimes it's like a specific thing you're heading for, but often it's just this underlying need to go get something. I have to have some food. So, okay. I think we've pretty well established what it is, what, what causes it, what makes it worse. Let's talk about some solutions for managing the food noise. Some of these are gonna sound similar to managing cravings, so that's why I wanted to be clear about the differences in the beginning. Even if some of these solutions tend to sound the same, they, um, they are some of them, but they also can, there's also some things that we're gonna be talk that I'm gonna give you that are specific to food noise.

13:32 Also, remember, there are different levels of food noise, and not all food noise is problematic in terms of weight for a person. So not all people with obesity. Struggle with food noise and conversely, There are people of normal weight who do struggle with it and can do some managing of it through some of these solutions. Okay, so number one would be awareness and self-monitoring. So journaling when food thoughts come up. If it's a constant chatter, we can't be writing all day. So if you are on like the lower end of food noise where you're hearing it, but it's not super intrusive, you can journal at the end of the day about some of these thoughts. It's not like in the moment having to do it, you know, journaling in the moment I.

14:16 There is a new tool called the Food Noise Questionnaire to assess patterns. This just came out in a study that was published in January of this year. So I have not personally incorporated this into my practice yet, but there is some evidence that it could be used going forward. So this would be something on the self-monitoring aspect where you would take it and then several months later after doing some work, you would take it again. It was shown in the study to have. Excellent internal consistency and strong test, retest reliability. So it, that indicates that it consistently measured the construct of food noise over time. So that's kind of how this study read like this was kind of their, their.

14:58 Uh, conclusion, if you will. So it could be a good tool for self-monitoring, um, right now to see if what you're doing is working. I just, like I said, I haven't incorporated it. I, I didn't even find like a ready to go one that we could use. So, um, this is kind of like one of those, like possibly on the horizon kind of thing. Um, but. Until we get that, using your journal to just be like, noting down how you are feeling can be really helpful. So there's also some cognitive and environmental strategies, so. Simply like pausing before eating, managing stress and sleep.

15:39 Obviously I said those made it worse. So managing stress and sleep and then reducing exposure to unnecessary food cues. So this is some environmental strategy. Sometimes my clients and I talk about not just not bringing certain foods into the house when we're working on cravings because it just requires so much extra work. Right. When you have a craving for something that's readily available in the house, it's, it's just more work. And so it's not that we can't do that work to process the urge, it's just about making the early part of doing this work when you're really working on the change part a bit easier. So same with food noise. You can just choose not to have certain foods in the house.

16:22 Or another way if you're like, well, I have to have like. A cheese cracker for my kids, like choose snack foods for other members of your household that don't interest you. I, I'm not like a huge cheese cracker person myself, but I have half my family like Cheez-Its, and the other half like goldfish. And so if you were like part of my family, if you were just like, okay, well I don't have any interest in goldfish, like that would be a solution for you to just like choose the goldfish for the kids and then you're not interested if you're like a Cheez-It fan. Right? So, um, just trying to choose snack foods. That you, that might not interest you as much as, um, some of the ones that might be more of a trigger for you.

17:03 And then another thing you can do on the like cognitive environmental strategy side is to set up. Structured predictable meals to reduce the constant decision making. Ah, I love this one. I love it. It's the core behind my go-to meals free ebook. I eat the same breakfast like 95% of the time because I just don't wanna think about it. And it really does help reduce that. Like, what am I gonna eat for breakfast today? Food noise for me when I wake up, because I already know it's already decided. It's a go-to meal, so if you don't have that, be sure to download that. It's, um, that link is always in the show notes. It's been a free resource for years and years for my clients and, and future clients, so that's always available to you.

17:47 But yeah, just getting a structured, predictable meal plan going can really help so that you can just reduce some of that decision making, if that is one of the causes of your. Food noise. Okay. And then we have the emotional work side. You might need to address some emotional attachments and roles tied to food, especially, uh, if you have this as a caregiver. So taking a look at that mental load that you may have carried over time, if that is still affecting you today. Um, so coaching or therapy. It could possibly help unpack some of this. Maybe you could call it over responsibility for others' food needs. Um, there also might be some scarcity feelings here, especially if food was not plentiful for you as a child.

18:34 So if you grew up in an environment where there was food insecurity, that most likely would be a good thing to work through. With a therapist that is some emotional work that could be contributing to your food noise and that would be a good thing to get worked out, in therapy. Just, and I, and I say that because therapists are much better equipped than coaches and the way I was trained to work on childhood issues. Um, okay, so. A couple more things we can do. Um, nutritional interventions. So from the nutritional side, making sure you're getting enough protein. And this obviously goes back to some of those like go-to meals. All your go-to meals are going to be high protein.

19:16 And so you don't have to think about to, am I getting enough protein? Because if you're designing these meals around protein and um, fiber. You are going to be getting enough. So making sure you're getting enough protein. And I define this by the way, as 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. So there are online calculators that can help you with that. You don't need to go all the way up to the gram per pound of body weight. That is a bigger number. that's going to be a lot more. That's that number when you see that one out in the world in online spaces. Is typically for muscle building. So if you're trying to really put on pounds of muscle, that's when you're looking at a pound, or sorry, a, a gram of protein per pound of body weight.

20:04 Um, but to maintain muscle as well as to get just kind of be in that I'm getting enough protein to help calm my brain, 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. second nutritional thing you can do is limit added sugars. Of course, this is not including the sugars found in dairy or fresh fruits and vegetables, but limiting, adding, um, added sugars. So these are, you know, sweet treats, cakes, cookies, brownies, muffins. So those are really the two. There's, there's other things that we could do nutritionally, but just, just for starters, these are the two main things that are going to really help from the nutritional aspect.

20:45 Okay. And lastly. solutions for managing food noise is of course, medications. So the GLP one, medications like semaglutide and tirzepatide have been shown to reduce food noise. Remember, these medications are not approved. They're not FDA approved to reduce food noise, meaning you can't go in with a diagnosis of food noise and get these medications, however. There's very, very good data that this totally works. It's not a magic fix. These definitely lower hunger signals and reduce mental preoccupation, but they don't erase the emotional or habit driven food thoughts completely.

21:26 Basically, the food noise quiets think about turning down the volume on the soundtrack, but they don't automatically make you not habitually head for the kitchen when you arrive home. Like that's just your. Body's gonna just do that automatically. Right? So it's important to pair these medications with coaching or other therapeutic support for long-term success because these medications don't lose the weight for you. They give you the mental and physical space to. Build the habits that actually will end up changing your life. So they just allow you to be in a space of quiet so you can actually do the activities like prioritizing protein, like I mentioned, like making those nutritional changes, um, you know, and getting some movement in, whereas before you maybe knew what you were supposed to do, but like the food noise was so distracting, it was just really hard to make.

22:23 You know, quote unquote good decisions. So, remember also that medication is not the first line of action. If you are someone that is, feels like food noise has been kind of a recent development or you feel like it's something that you're just kind of recently recognizing in yourself. It's not that I like recommending that you go to medication as a first line. It's a great line. Of action for sure. But before you go and think that your neighbor who finally lost some weight was lazy up until the moment that she took that first shot, and now she tried eating right and exercise for the first time, like that's just not true. Most people that choose to go with medication have tried and tried hard.

23:04 And GLP ones finally give them the peace to be able to make the habits stick. And that's why I support my clients that want to go this route. So if you feel like you have tried some of these other solutions, you have tried the coaching, you have tried the, the, um, nutritional interventions and it's just not working, just know that GLP ones. Do help calm this food noise. So if food feels like it's just taking up way too much real estate in your brain, if it's the background hum, you can't turn off, you're not broken and you're not alone. We talked today about how food noise might show up because of lifelong patterns.

23:45 The mental load of being the food manager, or even just brain chemistry that responds differently to food cues. And we looked at how food noise is different from cravings. So this, remember, it's not just wanting a cookie. It's thinking about cookies all day long and cake and muffin. And chips. So the good news is there are ways to quiet the noise. Go back and listen to that section if you need some help there. They are really valid tools. And then, yes, medication is on the table for some people as well. The key is finding what quiets your mind. Not just your appetite, okay? If the things in this episode hit home for you and you want support working through that constant chatter around food, I would love to support you.

24:32 I have two free resources right now that I know will help. So first, download the What to Do When You Overeat Course, if you find yourself. Overeating too many times in a week to see lasting weight loss. You'll get the reset and recover guide and figure out how to reduce overeats and not beat yourself up about it. Or number two is you can grab my brand new GLP one Success Starter kit. This is for anyone already on GLP ones from like their primary care physician. That don't have any support or structure around what to do, or maybe if you're just getting them from an online pharmacy compounded, uh, you know, you might not have the kind of support that I offer.

25:13 this also is for you if you're even remotely considering medication. Grab this so you know what to expect. You can also schedule a free consult session to see if my Premier 12 week one-on-one coaching program is right for you, or my brand new GLP one confidence method that I have recently developed is the perfect fit. So all the links are in the show notes for both of these free resources as well as the link to schedule an appointment. With me. Remember, it's not just about the food. It's about empowering yourself with the choices that truly serve You. Have a great week and as always, thanks for listening and sharing the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.