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You might know this voice.
The one that tells you what you should eat, what you shouldn’t eat, the treats you deserve after a hard day, or what you don’t deserve after eating “too much” the day before.
It’s constant.
Relentless.
Exhausting.
This is what many of us call food noise.
It’s that never-ending mental chatter about calories, control, cravings, guilt, and rules. It’s always there, like a background radio droning on, dragging our focus away from life.
Often people think that food noise is a symptom of failure.
A failure at dieting.
Or a failure of willpower.
Or that food noise helps you to be “good.”
But it’s none of those things. And it doesn’t have to be permanent.
Let’s face facts: we’re swimming in diet culture. Diet culture surrounds us, and the people around us, from an early age. It teaches us that our bodies and diets need controlling or fixing. That we can’t trust our appetite because of comments from others like “You’re not going to eat all that are you?” or “You can’t be hungry, you just ate.”
We are taught that food is either good and healthy for you, or you are indulging in sinfulness and bad food.
Over time, these external rules become internalised, creating our inner voice, our food noise.
Even if we know diets don’t work.
Even if we want to stop obsessing.
Even if we’ve promised ourselves a thousand times we won’t start over again Monday.
But here’s something often overlooked:
Sometimes food noise isn’t solely psychological. It’s often biological.
You might be hearing constant thoughts about food because:
>> You are not eating enough.
>> You are not eating often enough.
>> You are not eating foods that truly satisfy you.
When your body feels deprived, whether from dieting, skipping meals, restricting food groups, not eating the foods you really crave, your brain turns up the volume. Loudly. Persistently. It’s not broken. It’s trying to protect you.
That noise might actually be wisdom in disguise urging you to eat more, eat more consistently or in tune with foods you actually want.
So how do we listen and lean into this wisdom?
Instead of listening to food noise rules and judgements, mindful eating is about pausing long enough to ask:
>> What food do I feel like eating right now?
>> What do I need?
>> Am I hungry?
>> Am I enjoying this food?
The goal isn’t to have no noise from your inner voice, it is to have a voice that is curious and aware. To begin to hear the difference between food noise and wisdom telling you real needs.
If the old thoughts show up and tell you that you are “eating too much” or the person next to you has less on their plate than you have, we can acknowledge them and name it. This is food noise.
And then gently bring your focus back to the here and now.
To the meal in front of you.
To the body you’re in.
To the life you want to live, not the one ruled by rules we have learnt through diet culture.
Food noise gets louder when we restrict.
It softens when we start to listen.
When we feed ourselves fully, regularly, and with satisfaction.
We can be here in this moment.
There is this bite.
And this breath.
And for now, that’s enough.
~
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