Hold on... is this how "normal" people feel all the time?

[Wildewheat]

I no longer think about food every minute of the day.

I eat a tiny cake then don't want any more.

I leave chocolate in the cupboard untouched for days or weeks - I don't want it.

I eat, notice I'm full then want to stop eating.

I only think about food when I'm hungry.

When I am hungry, I don't want junk food - I actually want "proper" food.

My mind is so quiet.

I've struggled with my weight since puberty. Feeling like this, I can totally see why so many people had no idea why it was so hard and why they'd say things like "just eat less and move more". They must have thought I was mad, just doing something that ruins my health for years when it's so easy not to.

This has also really annoyed me and I really wish I'd been able to experience this years ago. It also makes me wish I could explain how hard it is to people who've only felt this their whole lives.

No- I think I am 'normal' and I think about food all the time and struggle with just having one of something. I have a BMI in regular range (size 12). I have food noise but have to control what I eat otherwise I would be huge. The food noise doesn't stop though!

I don’t think its normal to think about food all the time

Nope!
im absolutely starving most of the time

Honestly, no, I dont think its how “normal” people feel. If that was the case we wouldn't be in the midst of the current obesity epidemic in this, and other, countries.

I’d love to switch off the noise.

You've more or less described me OP and I've never had any weight issues in my life (56 years old).

Apart from the last bit about junk food because sometimes I fancy it and sometimes I don't.

I understand OP . Just having the ability to not notice food and carry on with your life is a game changer. Ignore people who are wired differently and don’t understand.

Thanks for all the responses coming in. It's interesting to hear that some people have never been overweight but still think about food constantly. It sounds like it must be a hard battle every day and I think it's very impressive to go the whole time without gaining excess weight.

I wonder what causes some people to experience 'food noise' so intensely and some not.

why do you think slim people are normal and what is normal anyway

food noise is the new furlough gets right on my tits 🤣

I am enjoying feeling full - and having to react to it - on injections. My body also has stopped shouting for more more more food.

I think about food and eating the whole time it’s hell . I weigh 55 kg and have never been overweight but every day is a struggle not to just eat what i want when I want!

Me too! I never really used to feel full and now I enjoy my food a lot more and really like the way I can feel the sensations in my stomach change as I go through a meal.

Wow - it sounds like a lot of people of a healthy weight struggle with constantly thinking about food too.

I hope in the near future we see medicines developed that help reduce it that that are less risky and therefore accessible to anyone who wants it.

I have to admit 'food noise' does my tits in. I don't know why it's replaced 'intrusive thoughts' or 'cravings' but it has.

But I admit that's totally my problem and not the OP's or anyone else's 🤭

I think how you manage weight changes as you get older & your metabolism / mindset changes. When I was young I knew how to “get thin”. Now I know how to “not get fat”. They are different things. I think food noise becomes louder for some.

When you wake up,not actively hungry, but instantly and a yptively thinking what you will eat that day. When you start eating and while you’re eating you are thinking of not just the next thing you’ll eat, but the next 4 things, and some. That’s food noise.

Yes the term has appeared out of nowhere and I can see why it's annoying but I confess I do like it and think it fits.

I have OCD and those kinds of intrusive thoughts are very different to me and I'd reserve the term for those for me.

Cravings perhaps works but I think of pregnancy cravings which again felt very different to me.

I think food noise captures the idea of a constant chatter that's always there grabbing your attention and how noisy your mind feels with it.

I don’t think about food much. It doesn’t really interest me. That’s my normal.

My husband thinks about it constantly. Eating, buying, cooking, watching cooking programmes - he loves it all.

We’re both slim.

I’m afraid that a lot of people regardless of their weight, do think about food and have cravings, I know that I do. If chocolate is in the cupboard, I’m going to eat it! Not buying treats and eating “proper food” is my way of ignoring it. Personally, I find that the less I have treats, the less I want them. Plus exercise, somehow that puts me off too.

I wonder what causes some people to experience 'food noise' so intensely and some not.

This is an interesting question. Does anyone have any expertise in this area?

There is likely to be a complicated neurological explanation.

My theory is that we find ordinary meals more delicious than they used to be and thus amplify a food noise. As a child I remember being fed a fairly monotonous diet of curries and stews, and use of other flavours like herbs were minimal. You ate them until you were full and not more.

Today we seem to eat a lot more variety, and meals feel more enjoyable. So we eat more.

I think about food a lot and I'm not obese. I'm constantly thinking about what I'm going to have for the next meal. As for stopping at one piece of cake, or a couple of bits of chocolate - I've never been able to do that!

Are you on injections? GLP1 makes you feel like this. And it's not how people who aren't on it feel at all.

IME when you are slim you realise how little you need to eat. It puts into perspective how much you overate before but it defdoesnt make you not want to eat junk food occasionally.

Keep going. You will lose weight. Try to do what you're doing and retrain yourself to eat healthily otherwise you'll put all the weight back on.

Good luck!

I'm still a fairly ok weight in my 50s. Bmi of 23. But I'm always thinking about food. I don't think 'normal' people have zero food cravings.

I fast and eat nothing before 12 noon because it's easier for me to do this than try to moderate my food intake all morning. If there are biscuits at work I think about them all afternoon and probably eat too many. I think about my dinner most of the afternoon too and then in the evening after dinner I keep thinking about snacks. I try to keep snack food in the house to a minimum otherwise I'd eat loads of it.

I’ve been a healthy weight for most of my life and thought ‘food noise’ (also hate this term!) was normal. For me, it’s things like eating cream crackers while cooking my tea, just because they’re there. Eating my lunch at work by 10.30 because the food is there next to me. Knowing there’s a birthday cake in the kitchen and gradually eating most of it but only a tiny bit at a time, because a tiny sliver is nothing is it? Only all the tiny slivers add up to half a cake eaten in an evening.

I could definitely do with losing a few pounds now and will have to find a way to ignore the ‘noise’ and manage it somehow like I have in the past. But I assumed everyone had this.

I don’t think about food all the time but I definitely don’t not think about it either. Never had issues with being overweight/obese, but I have to maintain a low weight (though still healthy BMI) because my face is the first place ANY weight gain goes and I don’t like how I look in the face when I’m not stick thin. This means watching what I eat and thinking about food a lot.

But what will happen when you stop the injections..