What does ‘food noise’ feel like to you?

[fluffycushionsnear]

I was trying to explain ‘food noise’ to a friend and struggled to put it into words but to me, it’s mostly two things - guilt around food choices or anticipation around food choices.

Guilt happens if I have a choice to make. For example if I’m going out to eat and can choose between a healthy salad or a burger, fries and dessert, I’ll have this almost unconscious battle in my head. If I choose the salad, I’ll stay on track but if I choose the burger (which tastes far better), I’ll ’blow my diet’ and will feel porky in tomorrow’s dress but then to feel better about feeling porky, I’ll probably have another nice meal the following night and as it’s nearly Friday, might as well just keep eating and then start afresh on Monday. Or a thought process like that - all over a burger! Why can’t I just eat the burger, enjoy it and stop thinking about it as though it’s the gateway to Hell itself?

The other one, anticipation around food choice is me, planning to have a big meal on Friday night (nice bit of cooking, bottle of wine) and thinking about it on and off all the time from Wednesday onwards. I can even be sat in a meeting at work and all of a sudden I’m thinking about creamy pasta and Prosecco and the feeling of walking in the door and the lovely food smells and the first glass of wine.

With ‘food noise’, it always seems to be one or the other for me and it’s very tiring. It’s also very privileged to have the luxury of this thought process, especially when so many have so little (and that compounds the guilt).

For years I thought I was going loopy, round and round in self sabotaging loops trying to lose weight but then ultimately defeated by my own brain. MJ has stopped all of that and I’m trying hard to retrain my thought processes.

But yes, wondering what ‘food noise’ feels like to you?

You’ve explained it very well.
For me it’s just constant. When I’m not eating well I’m constantly planning my next snack or meal or shop trip. Getting excited about it. I just want to graze 24/7. Then feeling so much guilt and regret after and planning to be good.
When I’m being healthy I’m constantly feeling tortured with people around me eating junk food and all the nice food around just walking through a town or city. Thinking about what I’ve eaten that day. Feeling like I’m missing out. It feels like everyone else can just pop to the bakery and get some nice food and think no more about it. But actually looking round most people have too much weight on them so I think it’s a rare thing for someone to be a healthy weight and not have to think about what they’re eating.
But yeah it’s just there in my thoughts all the time no matter what is happening in my day or life. I lost all my weight 7 years ago and the noise is an every day battle, wish it would fuck off!

Ah, interesting question! For me it’s usually the ability to walk straight past a tray of brownies or cakes. My work canteen lays on a ridiculous amount of sweet things around 10 every morning. However, I have also done the guilt gymnastics around having a burger and then making up for it by eating a salad for dinner and going to bed hungry.

When you know you have chocolate in the fridge and you can't rest until you've eaten it all.

For me its quite simple. A constant stream of 'eat, eat, eat' in my brain. And me constantly trying to fight it. Results in thinking of when I can eat next, what etc. Its all the time.

Yep, this is it for me, along with strongly imagining the taste and sensation of having different, very specific, foods in my mouth.

It's stronger in the evenings and comes with intense cravings for particular junk foods, such as crisps and it's frustrating because I actually love vegetables and salads when I eat them, but my cravings are still stuck with crisps and other crunchy, high fat foods. Mounjaro (even at 1.25mg) completely removes all excessive food noise.

This is really fascinating!

Because I don't think I have any food noise at all, and am puzzled by the concept. I mean..... I love food, have a big appetite, like eating new and interesting things, and get a lot of enjoyment from eating good food, but I don't think about it until it's in front of me. I don't have any interest in snacking between meals, still have chocolate sitting around from Christmas, and can resist most temptations. I might watch a video of someone eating a lovely squishy pastry and think oooh, that looks nice....but there's no feeling that I need to act on it.

The only time this is different is when I've been drinking alcohol....I suddenly start craving a little something, and my resistance is lower.

Does this mean weight loss jabs wouldn't work for me? If there's no food noise to subdue I can't see how they would work....

I have a lot of mental battles going on - eg. In the supermarket’

• I’m a bit oeckish, maybe I’ll get some biscuits and have one in the car
• yes but you know you’ll end up eating 5, and then what happens to the rest of the packet?
• ok, I’ll get an apple
• but biscuits are nice! Get some chocolate covered rice cakes, they’re healthy
• yes, but I’ll eat them all
• so get an apple!
• but I want biscuits!

or,I’m having fruit and yoghurt for pudding, that’s healthy

• it woukd be nice with honey drizzled on…
• yes but you don’t need extra sugar
• bur it’s niiice

it’s not just about sugary things btw, it’s just blah, blah blah, all the fucking time.

It’s the biscuits and chocolate in the cupboard calling out “ Eat me, eat me “

Constant intrusive and obsessive thinking about food. I know I am not hungry, I know that I do not need to eat, but my mind is agitated and fidgety and it feels as though my head is filled with screechy monkeys all chattering about food. The agitated, fidgetiness in my mind then makes my body agitated and fidgety until I eat something and then a brief measure of calm returns.

I can't believe I lived like this for most of my adult life. I wouldn't have even known that I had it until it stopped when I took my first injection of MJ.

I’d love to be able to take WLI or something but because I’m only slightly overweight I can’t. Even though someone who is on WLIs will at some point be the same bmi as I am but will be ‘allowed’ to carry on taking them until they reach their goal weight. And now there is talk of staying on them for life.

I’ll just continue with borderline obsessive dieting and unhealthy attitudes to food, and the constant noise.

Well, would you even need WLI if you don't think much about food? I mean how does one get obese for example if not bothered about food.

WLI slow digestion and act in a few other ways, so people feel less hungry, any hunger seems less urgent and it is much easier to resist and make sensible choices. It does help reduce craving for example and then a thought can just be a thought and is not an urge to eat. They have not switched off food noise for me completely, but I can finally manage it.

Have you ever been on a serious diet that would requite consistency for 6+ months? It's nigh impossible for most people, because when you are in a calorie deficit for a time your body might react with cravings, urgens and trying to get back to a higher weight. WLI help mute or eliminate that. WLI mean you still have to do a lot of work, but it is finally doable.

It's because if you are slightly overweight you are obviously not struggling with a disease called obesity. For an obese person, the risks of obesity outweigh the risks of WLI. Once someone is obese it is extremely difficult for them to exit the cycle of yoyo-ing. Honestly, be glad you aren't affected by this.

Not obese, maybe, but if one is post-menopausal then the weight does start to pile on around the midriff without too much effort, I find....

I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near being a candidate for WLI, but I always wondered how it would work for someone who has no food noise but just naturally eats a lot of food!

Re: "serious diets" - I am a long-time low carber, and one of the good things is that the higher amount of protein/fat you eat does seem to keep the deprivation feelings at bay, so there's no hunger or calorie deficit. I recognise that I am lucky here.

Until my late 20s I was naturally slim and would have said I loved food and could eat whatever I liked without putting on weight. Although I did sometimes decide I wanted to eat more healthily, I never felt guilt or conflict over my food choices. I rarely skipped a meal but didn't really think much about food unless I really felt hungry or was cooking/eating a meal. If I felt like eating a chocolate bar or dessert I just had it and would have said I had a 'sweet tooth'. If I received a box of chocolates etc, I would eat it pretty quickly but I rarely wanted to snack between meals. I now think this is what it feels like to NOT have food noise.

Now that I am older I have put weight on and notice that I think about food almost constantly. As soon as I have eaten one meal I will be planning what to have for the next meal. I frequently go searching for snacks even if I am not hungry, just because I feel like I want something tasty to eat. Then once I start snacking I don't stop until either there is no more left or I feel physically over-full. If I think about something I'd like to eat, I don't feel I can really properly rest until I've eaten it. I might try to choose a healthier alternative (eg an apple instead of chocolate) but once I have eaten the healthy version I can't stop thinking about the unhealthy version. If I am going for a day out, or a weekend away etc the first thing I consider is what I'd like to eat there. This is what food noise feels like to me.

Well yeah. It's a medication for a medical condition. I think people forget that or do not view obesity as a medical condition.

Without food noise, you'd still feel fuller on much smaller meals. That's how it works.

For example, it's almost 4pm and I only had about 500kcal today so far and am not hungry. I'll probably only eat dinner because I should and need to get some calories in.

For me it is something in or a takeaway and I really wanted it, like I couldn’t stop thinking about it and wanted to eat it, and all of it, not a healthy portion but keep going.

now I don’t have that any more, haven’t done since I started the jabs a couple of years ago, been maintaining for a year, I chose healthy foods, the crisps, chocolate icecream, takeaways, fatty stuff on menus don’t really interest me, I pick my food for health reasons and enjoy it, I may have a fleeting thought on the burger, but that’s about it,

Honestly, when I’m hungry I’m a rabid bitch so for me it’s stress about having a snack on me. Now I have kids it’s actually way better because I’ve always got snacks on me.

My food noise and constant hunger has really calmed down since I had my third child though. To the point my mum and DH have commented I eat much less and am not as much of a hangry menace. I don’t know if it’s permanent or what but it’s been 11 months now. Very weird.

But I am affected. As I said, I cope with restrictive and obsessive behaviours.

That's something for a psychotherapist.

For me it is food having such a hold over me. I wish I didn’t like eating so much! I wish I could just have three healthy filling meals a day and not always be thinking about snacks.
Right now it’s not so bad, I’m trying to eat better and my desperate desire to feel more comfortable in my own skin is keeping be motivated. I’m trying to identify triggers and be mindful of my emotions so that I can be more self aware of when I’m eating to
fulfill something other than hunger. Food noise for me is like ‘I’m so bored- what can I eat?’, ‘I’m feeling stressed- some chocolate will help me feel better’ or ‘I’m sad, a packet of crisps will cheer me up’. I’m also trying to question those behaviours by telling myself stuff like ‘those chocolates will not make you feel less bored or stressed, you will just feel sick and depressed later’. I’m absolutely fascinated by the psychology behind emotional eating and food noise.

A psychotherapist can’t switch off the food noise for me can they? If they could why would anyone ‘need’ WLIs then?

I do think about food a lot - I love food, love going out for a meal, looking at menus and planning what I'm going to have, watching cooking videos for inspiration... I often cook things I've seen on Saturday Kitchen etc! I try not to go to the supermarket hungry because then I buy way too much crap! I'm trying to channel my food noise into meal planning to be healthier - not dieting but eating more nutritionally dense meals with lots of protein and fibre to fill me up and cut down on mindless snacking, especially in the evening!

They would still work in that you would get fuller on smaller portions and stay full for longer.

In fact, not having food noise is an advantage in that when you stopped the jabs you wouldn't have the return of food noise to deal with.

This is exactly what it’s like for me too. In my youth, i could eat anything and didn’t put on weight. I rarely thought about food, could skip meals or eat large portions - food didn’t really register at all. Now I am in my 50’s i constantly think about food. As I’m finishing one meal, i am planning the next one. I like eating healthy foods but snacks will generally be unhealthy choices and even if i try and fob myself off with a healthy snack, i will be plagued with the thought of the unhealthy alternative, (even though i know i am no longer hungry, if i even was before the snack), until i eat the unhealthy option. Then of course, the guilt washes over me until the cycle repeats.

Desperate panic like urge to eat - panicky desperation for food otherwise will feel more terrible than can describe