Do you find yourself constantly thinking about food? Do you start planning your next snack or meal before you even finish what you’re currently eating? Do you experience continuous hunger or never feel quite satisfied after meals? THAT is food noise – when your thoughts about what to eat become excessive and harmful, when you become preoccupied with food around the clock, and you experience feelings of continuous hunger. Food noise can cause weight gain/obesity and often makes weight loss feel even more challenging.
What Causes Food Noise?
There are many internal and external factors that come into play regarding the cause of food noise. From a biological standpoint, food noise may stem from hormonal imbalances, genetic predisposition, and emotional factors such as stress, anxiety, boredom, etc. It can also be triggered by external stimuli like seeing or smelling food, eating ultra-processed (low satiety) foods, seeing advertisements about food, social media posts involving food, as well as extremely restrictive dieting and binge cycles.
How to Reduce Food Noise
The good news is that food noise can be managed and reduced with lifestyle changes, as well as with medications that are extremely effective at significantly reducing, or even eliminating, food noise. Here’s how to reduce food noise:
Balance Meals for Improved Satiety
When you eat a healthy balance of lean protein, non-starchy carbs (ahem, FIBER), and healthy fats, it can help you feel more satiated after each meal.
Limit/Avoid Ultra-Processed Foods (Chips, Cookies, Pizza, etc.)
Ultra-Processed foods are highly palatable and usually calorie-dense (high calorie / low volume) which typically leaves you wanting more, leading to increased thoughts/obsession about food and when your next meal or snack will be. To reduce this, try to avoid ultra-processed foods – or – if you are going to eat highly processed food, pair it with a low-calorie, high fiber whole food that will help with your satiety (ex: one slice of pizza with a big green, veggie packed salad).
Meal Plan / Prep
When you’re struggling with food noise, it can be helpful to have a meal plan in place, so you don’t have to wonder what you’ll be eating next. Also, having some prepared healthy snacks (chopped veggies or washed fruits with yogurt) ready to go in advance will help you avoid snacking on ultra-processed foods.
Mindful Eating
We educate our patients about this regularly on our program – mindful eating. Have you ever found yourself watching TV while snacking or eating and before you know it, you’re down to your last bite? This can feel disappointing and unsatisfying. It’s important to sit down to enjoy your meal, remove distraction, eat slowly, and savor the food you are eating. This will help you feel more satisfied after each meal.
Stress Reduction (Exercise, Meditation, Walking, etc.)
Stress can cause cravings / food noise and impulsiveness with food & drink, so find ways to reduce your anxiety, and therefore, food noise. Some great options include exercise, walking, meditation – whatever helps YOU feel better!
Medications (GLP-1s or Phentermine)
While all the above lifestyle changes are highly encouraged regardless of medication, it still doesn’t fully address the fact that some people are more genetically predisposed to struggle with food noise. That is where weight loss medications, such as GLP-1s and Phentermine, come in. These medications are game changers, with many patients reporting that their ‘food noise’ has completely disappeared while on the medications.
Schedule your first appointment to find out if you qualify for weight loss medication!
