Turn Down The Volume : Silencing Food Noise

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You're listening to Smaller Stomach, Bigger Life.
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Practical guidance, psychological insight and real world support for anybody on a GLP-1
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or weight loss surgery journey.
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Welcome to Smaller Stomach, Bigger Life and today I'm going to talk about something that
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you will either completely get and totally relate to or something that will seem completely
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foreign to you and you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.
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So let's see what category you might fall into.
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I'm going to give you a few hints now.
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Let me think, hmm, I might have some ice cream in the fridge, yeah I think I bought
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some ice cream last time I was at the shops.
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Now what am I going to have for dinner tonight?
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Oh, do I fancy a piece of cheese?
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I think I fancy something sweet, I wonder what I've got in the cupboard?
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Now do any of these sound like something you might say to yourself?
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If they do you probably have and suffer from, I'll even go as far as say suffer, food noise.
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Is this something that you have?
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A lot of people that come to see me talk about food noise.
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This voice in their head that constantly goes around and around thinking about food, talking
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about food, planning food.
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So today I want to break that down.
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What is food noise?
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Who suffers from it?
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Why do we suffer from it?
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And most importantly, perhaps what can we start to do to fix it?
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To start to think of things differently.
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So as I said at the beginning, you may already go, oh yes, I know what she's talking about.
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If you don't know what I'm talking about, great, switch off now, go live your life.
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You're one of the people that doesn't have to worry about this.
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But I know for me, I had food noise for decades of my life.
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And it's something that was a constant battle.
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So the first thing I want to describe is the difference between people that have food noise
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and those that don't.
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Just for those of you that maybe have it and imagine what the hell life could be like if
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you didn't have this thing going on.
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So people that do not have food noise, they don't think about food all day.
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But it's not because they have incredible willpower.
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It's just because food does not have an emotional attachment for them.
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It's just food.
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Some even think of it as just fuel.
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You've probably met those people that just go, oh, it's just fuel.
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I'm not particularly bothered.
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Sometimes they find it pleasurable, but it's just part of life.
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It's not the center of life.
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It's not the focus of life.
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It's just part of life.
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And the mental chatter is simply not there.
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So think of something else in your life that you're not particularly bothered about.
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I don't know, gardening maybe.
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Do you constantly think about gardening?
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You probably don't because you haven't attached any emotion to it.
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It's just something that plays out in the background of your life.
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And for some people, food falls into that category.
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So these people trust themselves around food.
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They don't have to negotiate around it.
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They don't have to be telling themselves there's rules and these rules might be broken.
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They don't worry about that.
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They never start again on Monday because they've broken no rules.
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It makes no sense.
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These people eat when they're hungry and they stop when they've had enough and they simply
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move on.
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They don't think about it any more than that.
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So food is not a test.
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It's not a challenge.
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It's not something that they have to negotiate.
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They don't have weak moments.
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They don't fail at this.
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It just is.
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It just goes on in the background.
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They also don't sort food into good and bad categories.
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What they care about is how it tastes and is it pleasurable in that moment.
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How does it make them feel?
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Do they feel satisfied?
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Do they feel full?
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Has it fulfilled the role they expected it to fill?
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But there's no guilt attached to any of that.
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Nothing is off limits and also that food holds no power at all.
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It's just food.
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You know, if I have a piece of cheesecake, if I choose a piece of cheesecake over an
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apple, there's no context to that.
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It's purely that in that moment I fancied the cheesecake, I didn't fancy the apple.
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And I don't think any more beyond that.
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These people do not spend their whole day planning or working around eating.
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Lunch is just lunch.
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It's something quick that they fit into their day or maybe it isn't.
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Maybe if they're invited out to lunch it becomes something bigger and more social and special.
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But that just happens.
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It's not part of a bigger plan.
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And again, dinner.
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Dinner is something you either just get on your own and it's simple and it's basic.
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Or sometimes dinner means going out with friends.
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Dinner is a big occasion.
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Dinner means eating a lot more on those occasions.
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But really not thinking about that.
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Sometimes it's great, it's fun, it's socialising.
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And sometimes it isn't and both are absolutely fine.
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People don't think about it any more than that.
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Their brain simply has more interesting things to think about, more interesting things to
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do.
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They're also completely unbothered.
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So even when they overeat, let's go back to that occasion when maybe you might go out
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for dinner and you have a starter and you have a main and you have a dessert.
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Maybe you have a few too many drinks as well.
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They're not bothered about that.
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They don't have the big post-mortem when they get home of, oh my God, what did I do?
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How many calories did I consume?
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Because one meal is just one meal.
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It doesn't threaten anything.
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It doesn't change who they are as a person.
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And one messy evening doesn't spiral into days of, I've blown it, I've got to make up
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for that.
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I've got to make amends.
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I've got to reset the rule book.
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I've got to pay more attention.
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There's just no rules attached to it at all.
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If they eat dessert, they just forget about it straight away.
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These people also leave food on their plate.
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They don't finish everything just because it's there.
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Because this loop isn't running in their head of, I must do this, I mustn't do that.
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It's just, they're being very present in the moment of how they feel and how their body
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feels.
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And they have space in their head for other things, for work, for creativity, for relationships,
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for life.
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Food takes about as much mental energy as deciding what to wear, or deciding which way
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to drive to the shops that day, or, you know, it really isn't a big decision.
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It's just purely something that, you know, I've got to make a decision over.
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There you go, that's a decision.
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It's all done.
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And what happens as well, the people around them grow up seeing this.
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So if you've got children, for instance, and you have this attitude to food, then your
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children will see that.
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There won't be scales in the house, there won't be any guilt around food or eating.
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And this pattern normally doesn't get passed on to your kids if you have that very relaxed
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pattern.
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So a lot of people that I see, I get constantly asked for advice about what I should do with
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my kids.
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And a lot of parents think that if they introduce a really controlled food environment for their
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kids, where there's no snack foods, there's nothing sweet in the house, the kids are given
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an apple, they're not given ice cream, they think somehow that they're creating this ideal
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culture that the child is going to grow up in.
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But the thing is, all the rules are still there.
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So what they're creating is this really rule-bound emotional attachment, not to overeating, but
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an emotional attachment to control, to having to control the food environment.
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So think what you're passing on to your kids and think maybe what's been passed on to you
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in this regard.
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So most people think that food noise is about food, but it's actually about our thoughts
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and which thoughts we choose to take seriously and give attention to, and which thoughts
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we just kind of disregard and gloss over.
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So let's think about this a little more.
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You have thousands of thoughts every single day.
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Some are really random, some are scary even, some are helpful, some are just background
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mental noise, and most of them just pass through your mind and you don't do anything with them.
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So you might think things like, oh, I must phone my friend later, I haven't talked to
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them for a while.
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It enters your brain and it leaves again.
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Maybe you sort of lodge it in there and go, must do that later.
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Sometimes you have a thought, oh, if you're having a difficult day, I should just quit
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my job and I should just move to France and buy a chateau and renovate it.
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This is a thought I have all the time.
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And then we just laugh at ourselves and we don't end up doing it.
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I don't live in France, I'm not renovating a chateau, but it passes through my mind every
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now and again.
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And you don't do anything with those thoughts, they just pass on through.
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So what the thought is, if it's about food sometimes, and this is where it becomes different,
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is if the food is about thought, something like I need something sweet or, oh, I remembered
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I bought ice cream last time I went to the shops, suddenly for us it feels really important
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and it feels kind of urgent.
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There's this sense of, I must do something about that and I must do it now.
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That sort of urgency we don't get when, for instance, it enters our head to phone a friend
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that we haven't spoken to for a while.
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We don't tell ourselves, I must do that immediately and get our phone out.
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But with food somehow, there's this urgency, there's this feeling I must respond to this
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thought that's entered my head and I must do it straight away.
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So it's the same brain producing all these thoughts, let sometimes the way that we react
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to food thoughts is very different than the way we react to other thoughts that randomly
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enter our head.
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This is the part that's kind of overlooked when people talk about food noise.
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So it's not the fact that the thoughts are there, it's the fact that we focus so much
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on those thoughts and we add this sense of urgency to them and we're treating them not
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just like a thought, we're treating them almost like an instruction instead of just this kind
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of mental background noise.
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These are instructions we're being given, commands we're being given.
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So instead of passing straight through your head, you decide which thoughts deserve your
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attention and which do not.
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And we've learned over the years that noticing a food thought without automatically acting
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on it is quite a skill.
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This is a skill that we're going to have to practice and we'll get onto that later.
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And it's the one that changes everything when it comes to food noise.
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And food is the loudest subject in your brain for a really, really simple reason.
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Now, this is a big one and I might even say this sentence twice so it really clicks into
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your brain.
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Over the years, you have been training your brain to obsess about food and then blaming
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yourself when it works.
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I'm going to say that again because I really, as I say, I want this to sink in.
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You have been training your brain to obsess about food and then blaming yourself when
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that training works.
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So how?
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How have you been doing this over the years?
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Well, it's simple.
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You've been creating food rules.
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You've been trying to suppress food urges.
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You've been restricting.
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You've been controlling.
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You've been trying to be good all those years and all of this serves to tell your brain
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one really, really important thing is that food matters more than anything else.
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Food is super, super important and also food is something you have to be really careful
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about and you have to control at all costs.
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So think about that.
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What rules have you been telling yourself?
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What stories have you been telling yourself over the years about food that has made your
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brain obsess about it?
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So your brain has just learned to do its job basically.
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It's constantly scanning.
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It's constantly planning ahead.
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It's thinking about food because you've trained it to do that.
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It's not doing anything wrong.
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This is what it believes that you need.
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It believes you want this because you've told your brain it has to do this over the years.
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This is a pattern you've been reinforcing maybe for decades over and over again telling
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your brain this is important.
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This is important.
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We have to be careful.
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So your brain is doing its job.
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It's hypervigilant around food.
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So once you realize that food noise isn't a character flaw, it's not lack of willpower,
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it's not weakness, it's a learned brain response.
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You've created this.
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It's not about shame.
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It's not about guilt.
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You don't need to carry those two emotions along with this.
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This is purely something you have trained your brain to do so effectively that it's
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left you with this constant food noise.
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So how do we stop making it mean something?
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And this is what we'll get onto towards the end.
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So knowing that it's a learned brain response means you can unlearn it.
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Just like you learned it, just like you installed it as software in your brain, you can actually
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uninstall it.
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However, think of how many years it took to install this.
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It's going to take a while to uninstall.
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Don't expect quick results with this.
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So another thing I want to cover, because this comes up time and time again with the
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people that come to see me, is why are evenings so much harder?
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Because what you'll notice, and one of the tips I'm going to give you at the end, is
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to look for patterns.
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And this seems to be one.
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So for many people, the evening is the first time in the day where everything actually
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slows down, where our brain suddenly isn't as distracted as it's been all day.
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So all day long, you've been operating in your head.
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And remember, it's your head that's going to control that food noise.
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What you've done all day is distract your head into other things.
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You've been working, you've been thinking, you've been solving problems, you've been
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keeping things moving, you've been organizing.
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So you're managing all these different things in your life.
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Your work, your household, your children, your partner, your responsibilities.
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You're wearing all these different hats, and you're switching between all these roles constantly.
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Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
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Your brain is on from the moment you wake up, and it's occupied, and it's distracted
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from this training that you've given it over the years, where food is the most important
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thing.
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Especially during the day, other things are more important.
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Then the evening arrives, and suddenly things don't need your attention as much.
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The emails stop, work quietens down, the house settles down.
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So many people say to me that the food noise kicks in once the kids are in bed.
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So it's that real kind of everything winding down.
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For the first time in the day, nobody needs you.
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It's just you.
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In that moment, something shifts, and you drop out of your head, back into your body,
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and it frees up all this wonderful space in your head.
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But that also gives you space to start feeling other things.
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So stress, emotional tension, fatigue.
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When you've been too busy all day to notice all this stuff, suddenly all these things
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come into the picture, and then your brain reverts to what it's been told to do.
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Think about food.
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Food's important.
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And suddenly you feel a bit terrible because you haven't thought about food all day.
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You've been busily living your life, and suddenly, whoa, I have to think about food now.
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And food suddenly becomes the reward, the comfort for getting through your day, for
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rewarding you for everything you've done.
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Food can become a form of self-care and a way to sort of soften the edges after a long
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day when you can finally stop thinking and just switch off.
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So if you notice that food noise gets louder in the evenings, it's rarely about hunger.
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It's more about relief or comfort or reward.
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And it's up to you to really give it the space for you to decide what it's actually about
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at that time.
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So this is not a lack of discipline.
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This is purely a pattern.
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And once you understand that pattern, you can start to change it.
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So let me tell you the four things that you can do to start to quieten down this food
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noise.
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And the first one, they all begin with P, by the way.
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The first one is pause.
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Pause.
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Take a moment and tell yourself that just because you've had a food thought, it's not
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a command and it's not urgent.
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It's not an order.
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It's just a thought, just like all the other thoughts that you've had during the day.
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And it's up to you to just sort of realize this thought's entered my head.
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What's it telling me?
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I'm going to think about it for a while.
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I'm going to pause.
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I'm going to sit with this and really experience what this thought is telling me.
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So if the thought is saying, you need something sweet, you fancy something sweet, then I'm
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just going to sit with that and go, I wonder why?
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Just be curious.
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Now, this isn't a technique to distract yourself and impose willpower and override that thought.
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So remember, we're getting out of that emotional attachment.
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We're getting out of control.
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This is purely curiosity.
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This is interesting.
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My brain's telling me I need something sweet.
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I wonder why?
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And just asking yourself that question and gently pondering it for a while.
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I wonder why?
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Is my brain telling me I need a reward?
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Does this feel like a reward?
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Is that what it is?
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Just put a little bit of thought into it.
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And if you do actually get up out of your chair and go and get something sweet, don't
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beat yourself up about that.
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All we're asking at this stage is that you put in the pause, that moment of thought in
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between where you just consider, I wonder why this thought is in my head.
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The next P is pattern.
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Once you start to pause and think about these things, you might after a while start to notice
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patterns forming.
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You might start to realize that at a certain time in the evening, you feel like you need
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a reward.
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Or at a certain time in the day, you feel like hunger just hits you all of a sudden
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and it's something else that's going on.
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Is it me time?
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Is it a reward?
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Is it a sense of comfort?
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Once you start noticing these patterns, it becomes easier to try and realize what you're
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asking of the food and how else you can deal with that.
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But you must know, first of all, what's going on for you.
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The next P is permission.
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So going back to what I said a few seconds ago about this isn't an exercise in saying
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no or controlling your food.
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This is giving yourself permission to stop treating food like it has power and start
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giving yourself permission to stop making it forbidden.
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It's the one thing that turns the volume down more than anything else is you saying,
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I can have the ice cream if I want it.
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There's not a sense of, I don't have to justify, I don't have to build up to it.
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If I want the ice cream, I can have it.
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Not a problem.
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And I don't need to feel any guilt around it because the ice cream isn't special.
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It doesn't have any power.
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It's just ice cream.
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And it's just the same as any other food.
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It just tastes different.
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It tastes sweet.
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It tastes creamy, whereas an apple tastes sharper and fresher and is more crunchy.
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And a piece of cheese tastes, again, creamier and the way that it melts in my mouth and
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the way that it dissolves, cheese gives a whole different flavor.
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And start thinking of other foods, you know, how does a glass of red wine taste?
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You know, how does that taste in your mouth?
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All these things are very different.
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None of them are necessarily good or bad.
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They're just very different.
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The way that they taste and the sensations that they give us.
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So we've got to give ourselves permission to eat a piece of cheesecake or drink a glass
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of wine, just like we would give ourselves permission to eat an apple or have a salad
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or something like that without labeling them good or bad.
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So we're not attaching power to either one of them.
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Now the last P is the big one, practice, practice, practice, practice.
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Think of how long this took to install in your brain and think of how long it's going
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to take to uninstall in your brain.
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A lot of people try these things and they don't work straight away.
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Well, it's not going to work straight away.
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Get that into your head straight away.
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It's not going to work straight away.
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There is no straight away here.
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This is going to take time.
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And a lot of people that I see where I give them an exercise to do and they come back
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in a few weeks and they say to me, no, it didn't work.
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I tried it a couple of times.
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It didn't work.
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And the expectation is that these things will just click into your brain automatically without
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you doing anything.
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And if it doesn't work instantly, people get frustrated and they go, this doesn't work.
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See, I told you so, I'm a lost case.
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I've got no willpower.
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Think about everything I've said today.
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This isn't about a character trait.
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This is about reprogramming a brain that you've spent years programming in a certain way.
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You have to practice this, not just a couple of times, not just for a couple of weeks or
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a couple of months, but maybe for a couple of years.
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Let that sink in.
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Maybe for a couple of years, it might take that long for this to really start to cause
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effect.
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You may be sitting here going, ah, this is ridiculous.
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I don't have two years to waste on trying to get rid of food noise.
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But think how long that food noise has been in your head.
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Think how many more years you potentially have on this planet and ask yourself, do I
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still want this food noise when I'm 60 or 70 or 80 or 90?
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If I live that long, do I still want to be doing this day in, day out?
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And you may have to give this a long while and really, really work on this to let it
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sink in and connect through for you.
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But trust me, you may be saving yourselves decades of future food noise and a much more
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relaxed relationship with food.
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So I hope that's been helpful.
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This has been Smaller Stomach, Bigger Life.
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And if this has resonated with you, perhaps share this episode with someone or subscribe
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00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:01,280
to this podcast and make sure that you get all future installments.
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So I hope to have your company next time.
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In the meantime, thanks for listening.
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Goodbye.
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Don't forget to check the links in the episode notes to our six-week Change Your Relationship
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with Food course and to the Change Your Relationship with Food workbook and journal, which is available
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on Amazon.