What causes 'food noise'?

[ThingsToDoWithStickyStars]

I have noticed more and more chat online about weight loss injections this past year, and after having a nosey around, became interested in learning more about it.
In doing so I have naturally become familiar with the term 'food noise', and how this impacts people's relationship with food and satiation. I also am aware that the GLP 1's dramatically reduce this.
So I understand what it is, but not quite how it comes about in the first place.

It seems like a good thing that we have more awareness of this now, and how it may help people who experience it to discuss and understand it (as well as those who don't), as opposed to previous attitudes which emphasised only dieting.

What I am still a bit puzzled by is why food noise affects people in the first place, and is there something which triggers that? Or is it something some of us are genetically linked to from birth? Like what is essentially different for someone who can't stop the sensation of hunger compared to someone who has never had to think about it?

But people who diet already had the food addiction issue otherwise they wouldn't have needed to join or look for diet clubs, the obsessive compulsive bingeing can be before any diets and in childhood.

@Catdrama2

well no actually. Looking back to my 20s, i didn’t need diets. I was perfectly slim

It has been present since the dawn of humanity.. it’s what drove humans to hunt and forage and eventually farm, to make and find more and more food. It’s only an issue in the presence of excess food access.

Well done. Interesting! I have tried IF but i still over eat but only between 12 and 5pm

It's crazy how similar it sounds to alcoholism.

We recently discovered the old series 'supersizers go' with Sue Perkins on youtube, it was really fascinating.
I noticed that the best health outcomes out of all the past era's diets were during and just after WW2 (rationing), and noticed they ate a good amount of basic, British, healthy foods such as roots, tubers and butter, some meat, etc.

Most of the pre 20c diets were incredibly meat-centric, which I had not known, although this would have been more common amongst the wealthy.

Most of the crazy stuff seemed to pop up in the 70's, although it was present before, perhaps not as easily accessible?

For me it’s carbs. I cannot moderate them.

The food noise for me is the insistent and unrelenting urge to eat more. For example if I got a bag of crisps and took some out in a small bowl, closed the bag and put it away, before I am even finished the bowl I will already be feeling the urge to go get more.

I cannot mange them so I abstain from them. Just like an alcoholic. Anyone that suggests everything in moderation needs to understand that it’s exactly like an alcoholic or drug addict. Nobody in their right mind would suggest a drug addict try to moderate their intake.

The sooner people recognise carb addiction for what it is the better.

I’m not overweight but am in recovery from bulimia. The binging would happen as if I was almost in a dream, it was compulsive, as PP have said, like an intrusive thought. I felt really empty and out of control, and would almost sleepwalk to the shop and buy huge bags of sweets and biscuits and eat them as quickly as I could to try and self soothe, then after purging would feel really guilty but with a huge sense of calm afterwards as well. I imagine binge eating disorder could be similar without the purging.

Therapy and getting in touch with my emotions helped. I still get urges sometimes but manage them by eating really well. Carbs only with protein, don’t restrict food but avoid sugars and UPF’s. My blood sugar stays stable, I don’t crave sweets and don’t think much about food anymore.

I wonder what's going on with people who don't have carb addiction, or who don't care for much of it. It does look like it's extremely common.

I am the opposite, and am not safe around cheese or savoury. My dad was similar (he had angina eventually). I can easily sit with a loaf and only want once slice. I wonder if the gut or boime has anything to do with the preferences? I do recall preferring to graze on cheese and crackers when very young, and could take or leave the easter eggs. Those little sausages and cheese on sticks at parties were evil, I would toss the pickle aside and eat the rest of the plate. Same with olives, maybe it's salt...

Charcuterie, OMG.

I'm exactly the same with certain foods and I don't know why. I can't understand how someone can open a box of chocolates and only eat one. As soon as I have one chocolate it sends me into a spin and I have to have more. I know it's to do with the pleasure receptors in your brain but why don't some/most people have this response?

I'm the same with alcohol, I can't just have one drink. I can abstain easily but can't moderate 🤔

Well often initially a problem drinker has a weakness for certain drinks only like just prosecco or lager that they cant stop and brandy or red wine might be take it or leave it but then any alcohol even perfume will do once deeply entrenched into the addiction. People who binge will tell you they can binge on things that they dont even like.

I think food noise is our body telling us it is short of minerals. Our land and food is depleted. Our water is an abomination. It's a soul hunger.

Since I've been taking three types of broad spectrum mineral salt on a rota and a multimineral supplement, I have far less food noise and cravings.

Bingeing is very different to food noise.

I wish I could shut the food noise down, anyone got any good ideas? I'm a good BMI, at the lower end of the range, but all day, every day my brain is full of 'what am I eating tonight, what's in the cupboard, what can I have for pudding'. I CAN ignore biscuits, crisps etc, but if I eat one, that's it, I struggle to ignore the rest of the packet. I just want to eat a sensible meal and stop eating.

My only saving grace is that I have iron willpower and prefer being thin so I can overrule the noise. But I can't shut it up.

There is a theory the weight loss triggers food noise. Just as we’ve evolved multiple ways to
ensure we don’t die of dehydration (thirst, concentrated urine, reduction in urine, reduction in sweat, hormonal changes etc) so we have evolved multiple ways to help us not starve, but because for 99.999% of human evolution we’ve been short
of food these kick in whenever weight is lost rather than below a healthy weight. So as soon as you start losing weight from your set point, a number of systems kick in- increased hunger, food noise (ie awareness of food even when not hungry- because your body wants you to regain the lost weight, not just maintain), reduced metabolic rate etc.

I don’t know whether this theory is correct but I find the work going on in this area really interesting. It may well be that there are multiple causes.

Between food noise and tinnitus, my head is a busy place. I wish loop earplugs worked to turn that off instead of the outside world.

For me it's carbs - eating low carb makes my whole attitude to food and hunger very different. I can feel hunger, but it's not at all the same desperate craving to get carbs into my system. So: in my case I think it's related to blood sugar and insulin.

But I would suspect there are a whole load of potential interconnected things going on here. For some people it might be insulin, for others it may be different hormonal triggers like leptin, or perhaps something related to gut bacteria or serotonin. Or ultra-processed foods. Or something else. It's a complex system and I doubt there's one single explanation for everyone.

@Flaok I’m the same.

I have to eat keto with zero sweet food. I can tolerate in season berries once or twice a year but anything else sends me into a spiral.

I guess it’s the same question why some become drug addicts and others don’t. Same mechanisms I assume.

I can be around carbs, have them in the house as long as they’re “not mine” so I don’t touch them.

Food noise to me is wanting something comforting.

How is it very differen? Does it not precede bingeing? And the guilt after is not food noise? It's like wine noise, porn noise or any addiction noise.

Obviously sugar does something to your brain ans body that meat doesnt, someone can be addicted to weed but never addicted to gaming for example, it just doesn't hit that way to them.

I don’t have food noise but as a recovering alcoholic, whenever I read about it I have huge empathy as it reminds me of when a tiny quantity of alcohol would engender a feeling that I needed/wanted to drink until I passed out. It was completely unmanageable and no amount of trying to control it worked. Thankfully I haven’t had a drink or, more importantly, wanted one for many years.

Oh that's interesting. My food noise went through the roof when I had to go on steroids for months and despite coming off them 2 years ago the food noise has never reduced 😕

@ThingsToDoWithStickyStars , I’m no expert but this is my understanding of ‘food noise’.
Food noise is a feeling that nags at you and compels you to eat.
Why do we experience ‘food noise’? The answer to this is very complicated and liable to lie somewhere between our genetics, our hormones and our food choices.
We can’t do anything about our genetics but we can influence our hormones and food choices.
In a nut shell:- processed foods are very unhelpful and very likely to increase food noise.
Certain foods raise blood sugar exponentially and therefore exacerbate food noise.

Timing of calorie consumption has a big impact on blood sugar and therefore impacts food noise.
For more details I would recommend:-
Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken.
The Obesity Code by Jason Fung
The Glucose Goddess
The Zoe podcasts.

My food noise doesn't compel me to eat (but I realise this might just be me). It's like a child whingeing away in the background about 'wanting' something. I can NOT act on it, I can realise that it doesn't need my attention right now, I can rationalise it away. But I can't shut it up.