Latest / The Original Self Podcast / Episode 17- Food Noise: Why You Can't Stop Thinking About Food

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Episode 17- Food Noise: Why You Can't Stop Thinking About Food · The Original Self Podcast

0:12
Welcome to the Original Self podcast. I'm Evet
0:15
DeCota, owner of DeCota Life Coaching and a psychology
0:20
-informed life coach exploring resilience, mindset,
0:24
and the courage to become your authentic self.
0:27
This is a space for honest conversations about
0:31
growth. identity, relationships, and all the
0:35
messy moments in between that shape who we become.
0:39
Between the salon chair and coaching sessions,
0:42
I've watched people move through life in patterns
0:44
they rarely notice. Patterns that are subtle
0:48
or familiar and incredibly hard to see from the
0:51
inside. Today's episode begins with a simple
0:56
question. How much time do you spend thinking
1:00
about food? Most of us have never stopped to
1:04
consider that answer. Today I want to explore
1:07
why that question matters, and what does it reveal
1:11
about the way food has come to occupy our attention.
1:16
This is episode 17, Food Noise. Why you can't
1:21
stop thinking about it. Hello and welcome back.
1:40
In the last episode, we explored how hyper palatable
1:44
foods are engineered to capture our attention
1:48
and keep us coming back for more. We discussed
1:52
how the combination of sugar, fat, salt, flavor
1:58
enhancers and food technology can override the
2:02
body's natural systems of hunger and fullness.
2:08
More importantly, we discuss the possibility
2:11
that many of the struggles that people experience
2:14
around food are not evidence of weakness, but
2:19
predictable responses to an environment designed
2:23
to encourage consumption. At the end of that
2:28
episode, I mentioned the term food noise. Over
2:33
the last few years, the term has become increasingly
2:38
common in conversations surrounding GLP -1 medications,
2:43
like Ozempic, Wegovy, and ZepBound. People have
2:49
described an unexpected experience when they
2:51
first start these medications. And the headlines
2:55
focus on the weight loss, which is completely
2:58
true. They do help you lose weight. But many,
3:02
many users described a quieting of the constant
3:06
mental chatter around food in their minds. So
3:12
what fascinated me was not just the medication,
3:17
but the language people were using. Again and
3:21
again, I read and heard people who had never
3:26
met one another described the same experience.
3:29
They talked about food taking up less spaces,
3:32
less space in their mind. They described feeling
3:36
relief. And some realized for the first time
3:41
that not everyone spends as much time thinking
3:45
about food as they do. The one I liked the most,
3:49
I read this, described it as though a radio that
3:54
had been playing in their heads for decades had
3:59
suddenly had the volume turned down. My own experience
4:05
is finally being able to stop thinking about
4:09
the four pieces of pizza that were still left
4:11
in the box simply because I wasn't hungry anymore.
4:16
And then my brain just didn't think about it
4:19
anymore. And listening and experiencing those
4:24
stories really made me think, how much time do
4:28
we actually spend thinking about food? I think
4:32
most of us have never stopped to measure it.
4:35
We simply assume it's normal. And that raises
4:40
an interesting psychological question. If millions
4:44
of people are suddenly discovering that food
4:47
can occupy less mental space than they thought
4:50
possible, what exactly was occupying the space
4:54
in the first place? What is food noise? Where
5:00
did it come from? And then why do people, some
5:05
people, experience it more intensely than others?
5:08
Because I know that I really experienced it.
5:12
most of the time for a good portion of my life.
5:18
And perhaps it's super important to think about
5:23
what if this constant preoccupation with food
5:27
is not simply an individual problem to solve,
5:31
but a predictable response to the world we live
5:34
in. So before we talk about where food noise
5:40
comes from, We need to understand what it actually
5:43
is. Because food noise is not the same thing
5:47
as hunger. I think understanding the distinction
5:51
may be very important part of this conversation.
5:57
Hunger is a biological signal, right? It's your
6:00
body's way of communicating that it needs energy.
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Hunger obviously builds gradually over time.
6:08
And for most of human history, it served a completely
6:12
practical purpose. It motivated us to seek food,
6:17
eat enough to survive, and then move on with
6:21
our lives, move on with our day. Food noise is
6:25
something different. It's a mental preoccupation
6:30
with food that exists whether you're physically
6:33
hungry or not. It's a running commentary in the
6:37
background of your day, that constant awareness
6:41
of food, the planning of it, the bargaining with
6:44
it, the anticipation, the cravings. And sometimes
6:51
if you're me, most of the time, it's the guilt
6:56
that accompanies thinking about food. For some
7:02
food noise shows up as thinking about lunch while
7:05
you're still eating breakfast or For others it
7:09
appears as a promise that tomorrow is going to
7:13
be different. You're you're gonna be good in
7:16
quotations It can also look like scrolling through
7:21
recipes despite having no intention to cook them
7:25
or Like when I used to watch the Food Network
7:30
on most days, I thought that I was absorbing
7:35
chef skills when in reality I was only indulging
7:39
my food noise. Another aspect of food noise is
7:44
wandering into the kitchen when you're not hungry
7:47
or feeling distracted by thoughts of food when
7:51
your attention has to be somewhere else. What's
7:55
interesting is that Many people who experience
7:58
food noise don't necessarily expect it to ever
8:02
disappear. It's just part of their daily life.
8:07
That's why so many people were surprised when
8:11
that noise quieted. For the first time we felt
8:19
a different relationship with food. And that's
8:23
when we realized that the noise wasn't as inevitable
8:26
as we had once believed. Psychologists have long
8:33
understood that our attention is influenced by
8:36
more than biological need because humans are
8:40
highly responsive to the cues in their environment.
8:45
Psychologists have long understood that our attention
8:48
is influenced by more than biological needs.
8:51
because we're responsive to the cues in our environment.
8:56
We notice things that are associated with reward
9:00
and pleasure, comfort, and basically survival.
9:06
For example, people can walk past a bakery and
9:10
they may suddenly think of an almond croissant
9:14
despite having eaten an hour ago or some people
9:20
watching television may find themselves craving
9:22
a product they had no interest in before the
9:25
commercial appeared. Think about the millions
9:29
of dollars advertisers spend on the Super Bowl
9:32
alone. Commercials about McDonald's, Domino's,
9:37
Snicker bars, and how DoorDash can deliver it
9:42
to your door in under 30 minutes. The industry
9:46
knows the power of how attention, memory, emotions,
9:53
and reward interact. Food is uniquely powerful
10:00
because it sits at the intersection of biology
10:05
and psychology. We need it to survive. That's
10:09
the biological part. But we also attach meaning
10:13
to it. And then over time, our brains become
10:18
very efficient to linking food to emotional experiences.
10:24
The result is food begins to occupy mental territory,
10:29
extending far beyond simple nourishment. Researchers
10:34
have increasingly recognized that food noise
10:39
appears to operate primarily in the hedonic hunger
10:43
system. Remember, that's not, I'm super hungry
10:47
and I need to survive. That's the pleasure reward
10:51
part of hunger. This system cares less about
10:57
the body's need for calories and nutrition and
11:00
more about the brain's anticipation of a rewarding
11:05
experience. That distinction, completely matters
11:09
because it shifts the conversation away from
11:13
the idea that people only eat because they're
11:15
hungry. The more we learn about eating behavior,
11:21
the more difficult it becomes to reduce it to
11:24
a simple matter of choice. It develops within
11:29
a culture where food is always available. It's
11:33
relentlessly advertised. and it's constantly
11:37
competing for our attention. Every day we are
11:42
surrounded by cues designed to keep food on our
11:45
minds, whether we're hungry or not. Yet despite
11:49
all that complexity, many people still treat
11:54
food noise as a personal failing. They assume
11:58
that it's their preoccupation with food and they're
12:01
flawed. I did. But perhaps another question is
12:08
if so many people experience food noise Why are
12:13
we treating it as an individual problem? What
12:17
if it isn't a reflection of personal weakness
12:20
or poor choices Again what if it's a predictable
12:27
response to the environment we've created created
12:30
around food To answer those questions We need
12:35
to look at how food became more than food and
12:39
how an entire industry learned to compete for
12:42
one of the most valuable resources we have, our
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attention. Okay, so if food noise is partly a
12:53
product of the environment around us, then it's
12:57
worth asking, how did the environment come to
13:00
be? Most of us think as food is something simple.
13:05
Food is nourishment. Food is fuel. Food is pleasure.
13:12
We assume that food companies are primarily in
13:15
the business of selling products people wanna
13:18
eat, right? But over the last several decades,
13:22
something changed. Beginning in the 1980s, tobacco
13:28
companies began purchasing food companies. Philip
13:32
Morris acquired General Foods and later on Kraft,
13:37
while R .J. Reynolds acquired Nabisco. But these
13:43
were not random acquisitions. These were humongous
13:47
industries in tobacco, in cigarettes. And then
13:53
they purchased food companies. Their goal was
13:57
not only to sell food, but to sell products people
14:01
would continue to buy. The tobacco industry had
14:06
already invested enormous resources in understanding
14:11
what captured attention, what created desire,
14:17
what encouraged repeat behavior. Those same principles
14:23
proved incredibly valuable in the food industry.
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If this sounds familiar, it's because we touched
14:30
on it last episode when we discussed hyperpalatable
14:32
foods, how they override the body's natural signals
14:36
of hunger and fullness, like I said in the beginning.
14:40
But what these companies understood was that
14:44
attention drives behavior. They work with lots
14:48
of psychologists, lots of money spent in R &D.
14:53
The longer A product, they found this. The longer
14:57
a product occupies space in your mind, the more
15:00
likely you are to buy it. The more often you
15:03
buy it, the more profitable their product becomes,
15:07
right? It's Econ 101. Food companies weren't
15:11
just competing for shelf space. They were competing
15:15
for space in your mind. For most of human history,
15:22
obtaining food required great effort. You had
15:26
to grow it or hunt it. You had to gather it,
15:29
preserve it, prepare it. It demanded time and
15:33
energy. But the flip side of that today? Resisting
15:40
food often requires effort. Isn't that a remarkable
15:45
shift? That's crazy. Think about how food appears
15:50
in modern life. It's on television, social media,
15:54
billboards. There's podcasts, streaming services,
15:59
sporting events, even the food order apps on
16:03
our phone. A few taps from that app and the food
16:08
will be delivered to our doorsteps in less time
16:10
it takes to watch one episode of a show. That
16:16
helps explain why food noise is not simply an
16:18
individual experience. It exists in an environment
16:23
specifically designed to keep food visible, accessible,
16:30
and competing for our attention. There's a predictable
16:36
outcome when an entire system becomes exceptionally
16:40
skilled at driving consumption. Unfortunately,
16:45
the outcome are rising rates of obesity, type
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2 diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic illnesses
16:56
like high blood pressure. It didn't emerge by
17:01
accident. And as those conditions become more
17:06
common, then there's another industry that will
17:10
profit from the consequences. The profitability
17:15
of food and over consumption. created those health
17:21
conditions, obesity rates climbed, type 2 diabetes
17:25
became more common, and all of those health dysfunctions
17:32
were widespread. Of course, let me just say no
17:39
single food company caused these outcomes. There
17:42
was no single factor. But Human health is always
17:48
more complicated than that. We have to think
17:51
about genetics, stress, sleep, socioeconomic
17:58
factors, and lifestyle. It all matters. When
18:03
I look at my own family, I see all those influences
18:06
at work. Heart disease and type 2 diabetes have
18:11
affected generation after generation. It's one
18:15
of the reasons I wanted to create this series
18:18
in the first place. But it's also difficult to
18:21
ignore the role the environment encouraging people
18:25
to think about purchase and consume more food
18:29
than at any point in human history that's going
18:34
on right now. The pharmaceutical industry did
18:38
not create food noise or hyper palatable food.
18:41
but it found itself in a position to treat many
18:44
of the consequences associated with that. Medications
18:50
for high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes,
18:53
weight loss, plus an ever growing list of treatments.
18:59
It's part of our health landscape, the modern
19:02
health landscape. All these drugs, you see it
19:04
on television, on these commercials. One of those
19:09
weight loss medications are GLP -1s. This drug
19:16
though, the GLP -1s, they were originally developed
19:20
for type two diabetes, but they quickly became
19:24
part of a much larger conversation about weight,
19:28
appetite, and food. What made them particularly
19:33
interesting was not simply the effect on body
19:36
weight, but their effect on our attention. People
19:41
describe that food noise, that quieting of food
19:44
noise, that they were less preoccupied with food.
19:49
They were less distracted by their cravings.
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If you do experience food noise, but you've never
19:56
tried a GLP -1 medication, I like to tell you
19:59
about my experience. For nearly four decades,
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it was like I was a sheep blindly following diet
20:08
culture's herd mentality. I counted points. I
20:13
logged calories and apps. I readied my restaurant
20:17
menu order before I even stepped foot in the
20:20
building. I clung to the hope that the next diet
20:25
would finally unlock lasting health and happiness.
20:29
And I tried to control my body and mind by controlling
20:34
food. Sound familiar? Over time though, points,
20:41
calories, good and bad foods. They became a constant
20:48
tug of war between, I don't know, control and
20:52
chaos. I told myself it was discipline, but really
20:58
it was mental noise. I've been overweight a long
21:02
time. The weight didn't come on from a hard year
21:07
or a loss, right? It accumulated through seasons
21:13
of stress, boredom, and that relentless chatter
21:17
in my brain. I thought about food, I planned
21:22
it, I avoided it, I negotiated with it. All of
21:26
that noise, it built into a cacophony that never
21:31
seemed to quiet. Just for years, it was my normal.
21:38
That cycle defined me. But then I learned everything
21:43
I've been telling you in the last two episodes.
21:48
I had to look honestly at the ultra -processed
21:51
foods I was eating. The poor sleep patterns I
21:55
had. I was normalizing it. And then I also live
22:00
with chronic inflammation. A lot of it was probably
22:04
from the foods I ate. The real epiphany came
22:09
when I understood that stress elevates cortisol,
22:14
which is a hormone in your body. When it's elevated,
22:18
the majority of the time, your cravings increase
22:22
and you store fat. It's that whole fight or flight
22:28
response. You need your energy. So everything
22:31
you put in your mouth, your body holds onto.
22:35
It stores it. And then I finally realized my
22:40
body and my mind weren't broken. They were adaptive.
22:47
Then a prescription of a GLP -1 entered my world.
22:53
And that background chatter of food noise actually
22:57
stopped. I felt like I won the lottery or I discovered
23:05
a cure. If that sounds hyperbolic, trust me,
23:11
when you've lived with constant food noise for
23:13
decades, its silence feels miraculous. It feels
23:19
spacious, calm. And for whatever this means,
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it felt normal to me. For once. It was a completely
23:33
new experience to me. For me and for many people
23:38
the longer we stayed on the GLP ones The quieter
23:44
the food noise got The cravings didn't demand
23:48
the attention they once did they didn't go completely
23:51
away They weren't they weren't gone completely,
23:54
but they were very very quiet Like I said the
23:58
negotiating the planning the guilt it began to
24:02
lose its grip on me That grip felt like a chokehold
24:08
I had lived with for decades. It was gone. I
24:13
could breathe. I think it was life -changing.
24:19
GLP ones have improved health markers. They've
24:22
reduced disease risk and in some cases even reduce
24:27
interest in behavior such as smoking, alcohol
24:31
use, and even gambling. Researchers are still
24:36
learning why this happens, but it appears these
24:40
medications influence some of the same reward
24:45
pathways involved in craving and anticipation.
24:50
For many people, the result is a quieter relationship,
24:53
not only with food, but the reward itself. The
25:00
popularity of these medications has revealed
25:03
that the conversation about obesity has never
25:06
only been about weight. It's also about appetite,
25:11
attention, reward, environment, and all the stories
25:15
we tell ourselves about self -control. And perhaps
25:20
the most interesting thing about the GLP medications,
25:25
it's forced us to recognize the nature of the
25:28
problem itself. If millions of people have suddenly
25:32
discovered that the noise got quieter, then maybe
25:36
the question we should ask is why was this noise
25:39
so loud to begin with? For decades, the conversation
25:46
about weight has revolved around how do I lose
25:50
it? Entire industries have been built around
25:55
answering that question. Think about it. Diet
25:59
books. fitness programs, apps, influencers, and
26:03
even healthcare providers have focused on helping
26:06
people reduce a number on the scale. Success
26:13
is measured by pounds lost, calories counted,
26:17
clothing sizes, and that before and after photo.
26:23
I mean, there was an entire show dedicated to
26:25
it, The Biggest Loser, where people would lose
26:29
hundreds of pounds in, you know, like a day.
26:32
I'm kidding. But it was very quick. And I used
26:37
to watch it. And I would, you know, at the reveal
26:40
at the end, how much weight they had lost, I
26:43
would cry. That's a whole nother episode of why
26:48
that emotion got me so much. But I think it's
26:53
people that have this food noise, people that
26:54
are overweight, we strive to find the solution,
27:00
to find the answer of what goes on in our brain.
27:04
Why can we not stop? I can't help wonder if we've
27:11
been asking the wrong question or questions the
27:16
entire time. What if the most important question
27:20
isn't how much weight you want to lose? What
27:24
if it's more meaningful than that? What if the
27:28
question was what kind of relationship do you
27:31
want to have with food? Those aren't the same
27:34
things. One focuses on an outcome while the other
27:38
focuses on the experience. One is concerned about
27:43
changing your body while the other is concerned
27:46
with changing the way we live inside our bodies
27:51
every day. When we talk about food noise, we
27:56
rarely describe a desire to become obsessed with
28:01
nutrition and calories or weight loss. What we
28:06
describe is a feeling of carrying that extra
28:08
mental burden. It's the realization that an extraordinary
28:14
amount of attention has been devoted to food,
28:18
to weight, dieting and body image. for years,
28:23
for decades, for me, almost my entire life. That's
28:30
what makes food noise such an important concept.
28:34
I think it shifts the conversation away from
28:36
weight and toward attention. The real cost of
28:41
food noise is not simply what it may do to our
28:44
waistline or our health markers, but to the mental
28:48
space it occupies. Over time, That mental occupation
28:54
becomes so familiar that we just stop noticing
28:57
even if it crowds out other things that matter
29:02
Family events You know people talk about their
29:06
reunions like oh I have to lose all this weight
29:08
and then they don't lose weight and often don't
29:11
go Think about that. They missed out on an experience.
29:15
I mean, I don't care about a high school reunion,
29:16
but people do or a wedding or whatever that could
29:22
be an important milestone in their lives, and
29:26
they may miss out because of that food noise.
29:31
Many people whose food noise has quieted describe
29:36
not simply eating less, but they realize they
29:39
have more room. They are more focused on work,
29:45
relationships, hobbies, goals. basically experiences
29:51
that have nothing to do with food. I feel much
29:57
more present than I have been and felt in years.
30:04
I think it's why this conversation matters. Obviously
30:07
now we know food noise isn't only about food,
30:10
it's about our attention. And if you think about
30:14
it, wherever our attention goes, a piece of our
30:17
life goes with it. Basically, we become what
30:22
we repeatedly attend to. I've learned that awareness
30:28
rarely changes our lives in a single dramatic
30:31
moment. More often, it changes the questions
30:34
we ask. For years, many of us have approached
30:39
food as the problem to solve. You search for
30:44
the right diet, the right plan, the right amount
30:46
of willpower. always believing that if we could
30:51
just find that missing piece, everything would
30:54
fall into place. When I lose weight, I'm going
30:57
to. When I lose weight, I will have the perfect,
31:02
you fill in those blanks. But food noise, it
31:08
definitely invites a different conversation.
31:11
Again, instead of asking how to control food,
31:15
we might begin by asking, what role we want food
31:18
to play in our lives. Instead of viewing every
31:23
craving as a failure and every indulgence as
31:27
a setback, we could become curious about the
31:32
forces that influence those choices. Curiosity
31:36
often takes us farther than criticism ever will.
31:41
Once we recognize the systems, the environment,
31:45
the habits and patterns shaping our relationships
31:48
with food, we're no longer operating on autopilot.
31:54
We can't control every influence around us, but
31:59
we can begin making decisions with a clearer
32:01
understanding of what we're responding to and
32:05
why. You'll stop asking, what's wrong with me?
32:11
you start asking better questions. Questions
32:15
that are rooted in understanding and not in shame.
32:22
That shift brings me back to where this series
32:25
began. Before the points, the calories, the apps,
32:31
the diets, the endless advice about what we should
32:36
and shouldn't eat. Eating was much simpler. There
32:41
was hunger, there was fullness, there was pleasure,
32:45
there was nourishment. Over time, a lot of us
32:51
stopped trusting those signals. Food became tangled
32:56
up with stress, with comfort. Food is identity,
33:03
right? Reward, expectations, and food rules.
33:10
Somewhere along the way, eating has become so
33:13
complicated and that complication disconnects
33:18
us from ourselves. What I hope you take from
33:23
this episode and from this series so far, again,
33:28
not a new set of rules. The world has so many
33:32
rules around food. It lacks the understanding.
33:37
the understanding that many of the struggles
33:41
we carry around food are, again, not signs of
33:44
weakness, but are human responses to complex
33:49
influences that most of us rarely stop to examine.
33:56
Awareness is not going to solve every problem.
33:59
It's not going to magically remove cravings,
34:03
erase habits, or make healthy choices effortless.
34:08
What it will do, it provides a perspective. Perspective
34:15
helps us change the conversations we have with
34:19
ourselves. In this podcast, I'm not promoting
34:24
GLP -1s. That's your journey. Whether you want
34:29
to take them or not, that's totally up to you.
34:33
I'm not trying to promote them. I'm just telling
34:36
you what many have said about it and how I've
34:40
experienced it, how I realized, became aware
34:44
of this constant food noise and how it changed
34:50
me, how I felt free. But that's all I'm saying
34:55
about GLP -1s. Just know, if that's not your
34:58
choice, that's not your choice. But now you're
35:00
made aware of what food noise is, and if you
35:05
are constantly occupied by it, maybe this episode
35:10
can start to help you see the why of that. Remember,
35:18
there was a version of you before the noise,
35:23
before the rules, before food became something
35:25
to negotiate with every single day. That version
35:30
of you knew how to eat. It trusted hunger and
35:36
recognized fullness. And that original self didn't
35:39
spend cognitive energy bargaining with themselves
35:44
over dinner. That person isn't gone. They just
35:49
had a lot of noise layered over them. And understanding
35:54
that, like really understanding, not another
35:58
rule, is how we find our way back to our original
36:02
self. In the next episode, we're going to move
36:07
from the outside in. If the system was built
36:12
to hijack your appetite, what's it actually look
36:15
like inside your brain? Episode 18 will look
36:19
at the neuroscience of why you eat, and we'll
36:22
take a deeper dive into dopamine, stress chemistry,
36:27
and the real emotional grip that willpower has
36:31
on us. That's up next on the original self podcast
36:37
Thank you for spending this time with me. I really
36:40
appreciate it If you'd like to learn more about
36:43
working with me, you'll find that information
36:46
in the episode notes But until next time take
36:50
good care of yourself