To ask what causes 'food noise'?

[AllyHayHay]

I don't know an awful lot about obesity or the new weight loss drugs, but some of the positives seem to be a reduction in 'food noise' and the merciful cessation of years of endless diet cycles.

I would like to understand more about food noise though - I understand, from what I have read, what it is, but I am puzzled about how it actually starts?

From what I can make out, food noise seems to be integral to not being able to lose weight for many people. Is it something that is permanently there, say from childhood onwards, or does it develop once a certain weight has been maintained for some time?

It is something that I have only really heard about since the chatter about GLP-1 drugs became more popular online, and it would be great if a better understanding of food noise could create more awareness and understanding for doctors and healthy weight people alike, who may have previously been ignorant of it.

I presume when the noise is switched off by the drug you are able to find space in your head to approach eating in a calmer way?

A lot of the chatter online looks at the potential downsides to this, but i think it enables some essential space to recover, on that wouldn't get off the ground with the 'noise' at the forefront.

I read an argument where a doctor said he would prefer his patients to do the work of traditional diet and exercise first, with a reticence to prescribe the drugs until much later.
One patient replied 'I am sure that most people who want to lose weight have already tried that, buddy!'.

And they had a point!

I had a dreadful abusive childhood. I have always experienced “food noise” including dreaming about food, since being very very young.

I have been on Mounjaro since January and have lost four stone. I don’t think about food at all now unless I am physically hungry, with rumbling tummy etc.

I think food noise happens for various reasons. For me it was a symptom of PMDD. For a couple of weeks every month I was obsessed with food and eating.
I got fat as a teenager and struggled to lose weight all my life.
Then peri menopause started and I lost 100ibs fairly easily. Because it was hormonal it was literally like a switch being flipped and my whole personality changed.

It's the difference between having no willpower, constantly craving junk food and not even needing willpower because the thoughts just aren't there.

Food noise: waking up thinking about what you will eat that day, thinking about what you will eat next while you’re still eating something else, best part of Christmas being aaaall the food, all the time. Actually it’s worse than smoking because you have to eat to live, and I thought about food far far more than I thought about the next fag.

Ex smoker 16 yrs.

For those on the drug, do you enjoy your food more now? I hope the lack of interest doesn't eliminate the good bits.

Not as much, but honestly, it’s a relief to not have it the centre of your existence

Is that the one that's also called ghrelin? I agree. The other variable is how well equipped you are to resist the cravings. If you're in a bad way, stressed, poor or have a chaotic life you often don't have the energy to fight them.

I remember being so hungry as a child, all the time. My mum was very opposed to the concept of snacking and I remember a lot of shaming comments from all family members along the lines of 'you can't possibly be hungry, this is just greed' - but I was hungry, I really was! I was a fussy eater and I likely didn't fill up well on my meals, I definitely wouldn't have been eating much protein or anything satiating. We were a typical 80s low-fat household, so the fact that I wasn't so keen on meat or fish meant I mostly ate the carb components of meals and in retrospect that set up a craving cycle.

In later years, me and my mum have talked about it and she has said she can't understand now why she didn't just give me snacks, and why she'd insist on me waiting til mealtimes even on special occasions when we'd be going out and eating later. I remember feeling faint in restaurants on holiday, and my bad temper in such situations is a family legend now!

It drove me to secret eating and set me up as a binger. I would obsess about food and eat whenever I got the chance and it created such disastrous habits. I was so ashamed. My sisters were naturally like my mum - they ate well at meals, they didn't turn food into a battle and they just weren't very hungry between meals. I couldn't understand what was wrong with me and thought I just had no self control.

I think food noise comes from restriction. I have taken care to listen to my children's needs when it comes to food - one of mine can't manage big meals and is naturally more of a grazer. I've always endeavoured not to make a thing out of it, and no one in my house ever asks incredulously 'how can you possibly be hungry?' My mum has really changed her attitude too. It was a product of the time and the advice given back then. It definitely created food noise for me - the combination of a bigger appetite, lots of fussy preferences around food and a low-fat dieting household. It gave me a drive to eat, and to overeat, that I couldn't fight against.

I used to have constant 'sex noise' but never food noise!

I wouldn't say it was so much the psychology of eating, as the biochemistry.

I don't think food noise is hunger or cravings. For me it wasn't a specific craving, it was just a constant, relentless awareness of food, when I last ate, what I would eat next, when I could find an excuse for a restaurant get together, popping to the shops and coming out with twice as much as I planned, at bedtime getting in bed all sleepy and feeling like I NEEDED four slices of toast and jam before I could sleep. It wasn't a specific food, and I wasn't hungry.

I just bloody LOVE food, so much, really relish it, enjoy it, enjoy trying things, socialising over it, everything. I feel like that's one thing different between people with food noise and not, or differing amounts. People who are foodies probably have a lot more than people who are nonplussed, eat for sustenance and aren't easily impressed with foods!

Ah yes sorry, that makes sense, the chemistry not the psychology.

There's a growing body of evidence that GLP-1 agonists like Mounjaro, Wegovy etc, can also be used to tackle drug and alcohol addiction. So, that in mind, 'food noise' is another form of craving and reward-seeking behaviour. I think some of it is biological and some learned behaviour, often from childhood relationhips to food, but it's not easy to unpick the two. More about that here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/18/nx-s1-5156068/ozempic-semaglutide-alcohol-drug-treatment

For me, yes, MJ definitely helps me enjoy my food - I always loved food, but it changes it from 'this meal is delicious' to 'this meal is delicious and I will not stop eating it until I'm in pain'; also using food as an emotional crutch. I came off it for a few months earlier this year before returning for a second round, and found that in the interim period, my 'food noise' had mostly gone.

I have experienced just that. When I had bad PMDD I would be mindlessly shoving the vegetables I was chopping for dinner into my mouth. Anything. When I was/am more hormonally regulated I just wouldn't think to do that.

That’s literally the point of WLI is it not? Food noise is a symptom of a lack of GLP1, I would imagine the professionals know about it.

Yes, had it from childhood personally. You’ve only recently heard about it because up until now everyone who experiences it thought they were a freak and if only they had a bit more willpower they would be thin.

Hey, at least it's low calorie 😆 (but very time consuming, I've been there too!)

Yes, we all probably lie somewhere on that sliding scale of interest. I am probably somewhere in the middle. However, I can relate to those who have more passion for it than those who have none...

It is a pity we can't just switch where we sit on that scale of interest by choice. People at the far reaches of either side of the scale probably can't relate to each other at all.

Look at the ghrelin hormones created by the stomach. Some individuals have a natural higher levels of this hormone. Is commonly called the hunger hormone.
Some gastric surgeries eliminate this hormone, therefore you eat less, there’s no food cravings/desire, and on top of that, you get your stomach reshaped and your intestines re-routed to “host” less food.
GLP-1 also acts as a inhibitor of this.

Me too. However, I'm on cyclical HRT and still get food cravings in my progesterone phase, great 🙄. Not as bad as some of the episodes in my 20s when I felt I could uncontrollably eat yet it wasn't even touching the sides.

I find this interesting regarding compulsive behaviours. I used to pick the skin around my nails constantly, to the point of bleeding. It looked awful and I found it really difficult to stop. I started Mounjaro and realised a week in that I hadn't picked my cuticles for a week. My skin was healed and looked great. I hadn't even noticed, and I'd been doing it for years.

It looks to me like much of this, from the hormonal to the trauma aspect, is not very well understood by the general public. I think it's great that more awareness of these details are circulating now.

The old presumptions that willpower and hard work lie at the root of it need to die a death.

As a lifelong nail biter this really interests me. I have never been able to figure out how to stop. I make inroads, then something just happens and we are back to square one.
Oddly enough, my dad used to do it, too. I doubt it is a learned behaviour as I apparently did it as soon as my teeth arrived

I would love to know ore about the mechanism here, like what are the drugs actually doing to enable this? It's quite groundbreaking really.

It starts at birth because for literally the whole of human history, finding enough high calorie food has kept human beings alive. It makes no sense for any animal not to have a drive to eat food.

@Poodleyin the US the drug licenced for treating binge eating disorder is Lisdexamfetamine which is often the ADHD medication of choice (Elvanse in the UK). It seems to quieten the general noise and with it the food noise. I don’t know if that’s your medication. I think it really helps with the ability to switch attention (including away from food). I found this another benefit of the medication as well as being able to think straight and get a nights sleep!

I think it really helps with the ability to switch attention (including away from food

I wonder about the PP who mentioned how it helped her to stop harming the skin around her fingernails, since like my own nail biting, this mostly happens when I am NOT giving it attention. I imagine some people might use food in a similar way, more unconsciously, too?