Food Noise, Part II: The Effect of the Food Environment (You’re Not Broken or Powerless)
This is Part II of a blog series that is based on the transcripts of my podcast series on Food Noise, which includes these 4 episodes:
Ep. 198: Food Noise, Part 1: Bingeing is Not a Solution
Ep. 199: Food Noise, Part 2: The Effect of the Food Environment (You’re Not Broken or Powerless)
Ep. 201: Food Noise, Part 3: Mindset Shifts for More Peace and Self-Trust
Ep. 203: Food Noise, Part 4: Eating Foundations for More Stability and Ease (with Marcus Kain)
In this post, I’m going to address an aspect of the food noise topic with the hope that this discussion will give you a better understanding of why food noise is coming up for you. I also hope it helps you have less self-blame and self-criticism when it does come up. The goal of what I’ll talk about here is to shift your perspective so that the food noise starts to feel like less of a threat and more like a natural, expected, and common response—but one that you absolutely can learn to overcome.
As a recap from Part I, I discussed what I believe is the most important thing to understand as you approach food noise in the context of binge eating recovery, which is that binge eating is never a solution to food noise. And in fact, bingeing makes food noise so much worse. I explained that you can learn to avoid acting on the urges to binge even if you have food noise, and that idea is the foundation for this series. You never want to feel powerless against bingeing because you struggle with food noise.
However, just because you can avoid bingeing when you have food noise doesn’t mean you want to stay stuck having a lot of food noise. Once you remove bingeing from the equation, you can start working on solutions; and actually, removing bingeing is a huge part of the solution to food noise. I believe that another part of the solution is simply a better understanding of food noise and even an acceptance around it—not in a way that you’re resigning yourself to it, but in a way that helps it make sense as far as why you’re having it. When you approach it with some acceptance and some self-compassion, you gain clarity, and it becomes much easier to implement solutions.
So here in this post, I’m going to help you with developing that understanding and self-compassion by talking about a factor in food noise that affects everyone. And that’s simply the food environment that we live in, particularly in developed countries.
Looking Beyond Yourself at the Modern Food Environment
Since the idea of food noise became popular, I think a lot of the conversation has suggested that there is something “wrong” with people who are having food noise. Then, the message is that they need to “fix” themselves, and the suggested fix is often a GLP-1 medication. I don’t think there’s enough conversation about why it makes sense that more people are having more food noise at this point in history.
The fact is that increased food noise is an expected effect of our modern food environment on our biology, and especially our modern food environment combined with the pressure to look a certain way. I’m not going to spend a lot of time here placing blame on any one thing like food manufacturing, marketing, social media, or diet culture. The point here is just to have you look outside of yourself to see the bigger picture and to stop blaming yourself for something that is a larger issue that’s affecting all of us.
If I had to sum up what I’m going to talk about today, it would be to not let the food environment make you feel like you’re broken, but also not to let the food environment make you feel like you’re powerless. There’s a middle ground here that I think is really important. We can acknowledge that the environment around food, weight, and body image has developed in ways that have increased the tendency for us to struggle with food noise. We can acknowledge that some of us are more sensitive to this environment than others because of our upbringing, genetics, and many other factors; but we can still hold onto the truth that we can learn to determine our own actions within the context of this challenging environment.
The message here is not, “well, of course it’s hard, so just deal with it.” The message is about having compassion for yourself first and foremost for the situation that you’re in, and then developing a greater understanding of the factors at play so that you can respond more skillfully, instead of thinking you’re at the mercy of those factors.
If you’re fortunate enough to live in areas where food is abundant, highly stimulating food can feel like it’s everywhere. It’s in the gas station, at events, on your phone, on your TV, in ads, and it can be delivered to your door in minutes. It’s engineered to be highly rewarding. It’s packaged in a way that grabs your attention. It’s talked about constantly, either as entertainment or in marketing as something you “should” desire, and it’s also talked about as a problem to be solved. There’s just a lot of focus on food out there, and there’s a level of food reward that our biology didn’t necessarily evolve for.
How Body Image and Restriction Can Amplify Food Noise
We also live in a culture that’s extremely focused on the body’s appearance and weight, so then all of this highly stimulating food out in the world becomes the enemy in a way. It becomes something to forbid yourself from having and something to criticize yourself for wanting. Food becomes this loaded thing, and eating can feel like it’s constantly tied to whether you’re good or you’re bad—and that’s definitely a recipe for mental preoccupation. It’s well researched that having rigid food rules and forbidden foods tends to increase food cravings and food thoughts and obsessions. To sum this up, we’re in an environment with a lot of already appealing foods that are manufactured to be more stimulating, and then we’re inundated with messages telling us that we should not eat those foods, which can have the unintended effect of amplifying the appeal of those foods.
When you step back and look at this, I hope that it helps you stop jumping into “something is wrong with me” when you have food noise. It may simply be that your brain is responding to an intense environment the way a human brain is supposed to respond to stimulation, reward cues, and also restriction. Here I want to acknowledge that all of us have a different experience with this. I think there are a ton of messages out there blaming food manufacturing—saying that we’re all victims of this overstimulating food environment. And yes, that has some level of truth in various degrees for each of us when we’re comparing the world we live in to an ideal world. But some people exist in this environment without it creating any major issues. I hear this a lot from recovered people (and I’ve definitely experienced this myself) in that when you stop viewing food as forbidden, nourish your body, stop the restrictive dieting, and stop the bingeing, all of this highly processed and overstimulating food loses a lot of its appeal.
I now look at something like, let’s say, the candy aisle at a grocery store and mostly just think, “yuck.” Genuinely, it just doesn’t look that good to me. There are certainly desserts, sweets, and processed foods that I absolutely do enjoy, but some of this “food” that really isn’t even food does the opposite for me now, so that instead of creating temptation, it creates a lack of interest and even aversion. And maybe people who have never been on restrictive diets and who have had a healthy upbringing around food may have this reaction from the start. I just wanted to mention that because there are so many messages today—especially from the fitness and health influencer world—saying that these highly processed foods are like “drugs.” But in contradiction to that, some people just aren’t that attracted to them, some people overcome their attraction to them, and so many people eat them without a problem. I’ll add that these people don’t eat them because they feel “powerless” against their cravings; they eat them because the world is set up in a way that eating them is sometimes the most convenient or cost-effective choice, or they simply don’t have a choice for various reasons.
Food Noise Does Not Have to Be Inevitable
When you look at the fact that the environment does tend to create noise, have compassion for yourself, but also look to these examples that I’ve mentioned to help yourself believe that it’s not inevitable to struggle. Some people who used to have noise don’t anymore, even though the modern food environment has not changed. When you think food noise is inevitable, or you put a lot of attention on the messages saying that certain foods are like “drugs,” it can serve to make the food noise even worse. When you go into eating a food with the expectation that you’ll respond like a drug addict and that you’re powerless, you’re going to interpret the desire the food may create as a threat, and that can activate your nervous system, amplify the desire, and make you feel more powerless.
All of this is to say that yes, the noise that the environment creates is real, and it affects some people more than others; but the messages telling us that “certain foods are like drugs” can be another part of the food environment that may be making things worse for you.
This is where I’m going to go down a path in this discussion that might be slightly sensitive (and it’s an adult topic), but to explain the environment’s contribution to the food noise, I think it’s a lot more helpful to compare addictive issues in our culture surrounding food to addictive issues surrounding sex, rather than making that comparison to drugs. When we think about drugs—and here and I’m talking about drugs used for non-medical purposes—they are something we don’t need to face on a daily basis. Having drugs that are not for a medical reason is not a true need. Stopping an addiction to drugs is very difficult and takes courage, but people do accomplish this, so as a little aside…even if we do compare eating certain foods to drugs, that still does not mean we’re powerless because people do end their drug addictions.
That being said about drugs not being true needs, on the other hand, food and sex are true needs. Food is more immediate as far as something we truly need to do each day to survive, but sex is also a need in terms of the survival of our species, and most of us feel pulled toward it as a need to varying degrees in our lives. People often tell me they wish they could just stop eating like a drug addict can stop taking drugs, because the idea of facing food each day feels daunting. It can almost feel easier to be a drug addict at that point, with the opportunity to just quit the substance cold turkey. So that’s where my suggestion comes in to stop seeing it as similar to a drug addiction and seeing it as more similar to a sex addiction because eating and sex are both behaviors that you don’t stop entirely even when you stop the addictive behaviors.
Comparing Food Addiction and Sex Addiction in the Modern Environment
I’m going to go somewhere with this comparison as far as the food noise, but as a background to what I’ll discuss, it helps to recognize that the treatment for a sex addiction or porn addiction would never be a lifetime of abstinence from sex. With addictions that surround true needs, it’s about finding or rediscovering the healthy part of you that can fulfill your needs in a satisfying way, without harming yourself or others. Sex or porn addiction recovery and food addiction recovery are not about never finding pleasure in that activity again. It’s about learning to overcome the unhealthy noise and the unhealthy urges and engaging with food or with sex in a way that feels aligned with you and that nourishes you.
So getting back to the topic of food noise, when we consider our modern food environment and how all of the overstimulation has created a lot of food noise, that can also lead us into thinking about other ways that our modern environment is overstimulating us. Sex is one of the biggest examples of this, in that our modern environment has created something maybe we could call an overabundance of “sex noise.” That’s not an official term as far as I know, but it’s a way of describing how the modern world can overstimulate another natural human drive.
We’re living in a time where sexualized imagery and content are far more available than at any other point in history. A person can be exposed to sexual cues very frequently without even seeking them out, and then there are, of course, many ways to seek it out. All of this can possibly create more thoughts, more cues, more stimulation, more preoccupation, and for some people, it can contribute to compulsive and extremely harmful patterns surrounding these behaviors. There’s been more awareness about this in recent years—about how our hypersexualized world can hijack the brain to the point where normal sexual relationships feel dull or uninteresting, in the same way that maybe a normal meal feels uninteresting to people who struggle with bingeing.
Just like the food noise, this type of “sex noise” affects some people more than others based on various factors. I believe it’s likely harmful to everyone at some level, just like overstimulating food is harmful to everyone at some level. However, some people go through their lives not paying much attention to these messages and keeping a healthy relationship with their natural desires—or even having an aversion to these messages and content—while others get completely wrapped up in that world and it takes over their life, and they end up hurting themselves and others. It’s the same environment, but different reactions; and those differences, again, show that it’s not inevitable to struggle in an overstimulating environment. It shows that we’re not powerless, but it also makes it understandable why many people do struggle. Always remember that people can and do learn to exist in an overstimulating world without letting themselves go down unhealthy paths.
Desire and Temptation Do Not Necessitate Action
If you’re someone who struggles with food noise in this overstimulating environment and you don’t struggle with sex noise, this could be a really good example for you because the world is overstimulating us in both of these ways, but you’re able to ignore some of that noise, and it’s very possible for you to do the same with food. When we have an understanding of how certain factors in the environment affect us and create noise in our minds, we can have compassion for ourselves and for the reactions that our brains have to all of these unnatural inputs—while still taking responsibility for what we choose to do about it.
Getting back to the sex noise, most of us who have been in committed relationships can agree that having increased sexual desire because of the environment does not make it okay to act on these urges outside of the relationship. Most of us wouldn’t say to a partner who, let’s say, cheated, “Oh, that’s okay. It’s just the modern world that we live in.” No, we would acknowledge that there is temptation out there, but that we still expect proper behaviors. The noise does not excuse betraying commitments, and it certainly does not excuse even more terrible behaviors in that realm. I know it can be a bit of an extreme example, but I think it’s one that most people understand and may have experience with at some point in their life—and I’m talking about the idea that desire and temptation can be present while you still stay true to a commitment. Basically, sex noise from the environment doesn’t necessitate acting on that noise. In areas where actions have harmed us in terms of relationships, we understand that very clearly. I think when we make the comparison to food, we can hold ourselves to that same standard in that we can keep our commitments to ourselves to nourish our bodies and to recover—even if there is food noise from the environment.
This comparison is meant to show you how our natural drives can sometimes get skewed by the world we live in, with some of us responding more strongly than others. No one is defective for having a brain that reacts to this unnatural environment, but we’re all responsible for our actions within this context. There’s actually another tie-in here that I was thinking about as I was writing this, in that the loud “sex noise” in our culture can include a constant focus on appearance, which contributes to negative body image in a lot of people. Then that negative body image can lead to dieting, restriction, and attempts to tightly control the body. Then that deprivation can trigger a very real survival response in the brain and body and make food more compelling, cravings more intense, and thoughts about food more persistent. In effect, the culture’s obsession with sex can actually end up creating food noise for a lot of people. This is just another example of why you need to have compassion for yourself for the food thoughts that you have. What you’re calling “your” food noise is not just a random personal defect. It can be the result of a whole chain of cultural, social, and biological factors.
Understanding Food Noise Without Giving Up Your Power
The point of recognizing the chain of factors that lead to food noise is not to say, “Well, then I can’t help it.” The point is to say, “Okay, this makes sense, and of course this is challenging for me. I don’t have to shame myself for being personally affected by the food environment, but I also don’t have to hand over my power or think my actions are outside of my control.” There’s a big difference between understanding why something is happening or why something is difficult and using that difficulty as a reason to give up.
It’s worth noting that in the past, before this level of constant stimulation, it was probably easier for many people to stay within healthy limits in a lot of areas. It may have been easier to stick to simpler foods when convenient, engineered, hyper-palatable food was not everywhere and available at all hours. It may have been easier to stay faithful to a partner when there weren’t constant cues and constant content. But just because something might be harder now in the world we live in does not mean it’s impossible. I want you to take away this balanced perspective: I want you to acknowledge that the modern environment can increase food noise and make it harder to feel peaceful around food, especially if you have a dieting history or you’re struggling with bingeing. I want you to give yourself some grace for the food noise that you experience. I want you to recognize that every period of history has had its unique challenges, and overstimulation is one of the challenges that we face. This is not to minimize anything that you’re going through, but I think sometimes perspective can help in that if you’re reading this and you’re lucky enough to have food abundance, start trying to generate gratefulness as you approach food, despite our food environment riddled with problems and despite the food noise.
In talking about gratefulness for food, I do want to mention that issues surrounding food noise can also bring up some social issues and issues of food access, and I don’t want to be insensitive to that. But this post is assuming that, at this point in time when you’re reading this, the food noise is in the context of you having food available. And to add even more self-compassion to this discussion, if you had issues with food scarcity in your past or any food insecurity, that has also been shown to make you more prone to food preoccupation and eating issues once food is no longer scarce. This is another way that our environment—or your past environment—can contribute to the food thoughts that you may be having now. Please don’t criticize yourself for having more food noise when your younger self did not even feel safe with food or didn’t know if you were going to be able to get enough. Your brain likely learned to prioritize food and find it even more rewarding than someone who did have food safety at home.
Seeing Your Food Thoughts in a Larger Context
Seeing any of your patterns from the larger perspective of the environment you grew up in and from the larger context of our culture can help you soften just a little bit around the food noise. It can help you take it less personally. It can help you to see it—not as a flaw within you—but as more of a result of what you’ve been through and all of the inputs around you. When you understand that, you stop making the noise a threat. You stop thinking, “this must mean something terrible about me,” and you start thinking, “okay, my brain is doing what brains do when they’re exposed to what I was and am exposed to, but I get to choose what I do next.” That’s the shift from feeling broken to feeling capable of experiencing the noise and deciding what to do in response.
When we stop fighting, resisting, and making every habitual thought and desire that runs through our minds so meaningful to us, we can start to rise above the food noise. This post is nearing its end, but I’m going to close this discussion—like I also did in Part I—by talking about the GLP-1 medications, because they’re so interconnected to conversations around food noise, and they’re a big part of why food noise is such a hot topic right now. I’ll always remind you that I’m not a doctor, and everyone needs to make medical decisions with their providers; but I do want to say something that relates to the point of today’s post.
In the GLP-1 era, the message can sometimes start to sound like, “none of us are capable of living in this food environment and we need to shut off the noise with medication.” I think it’s worth asking a gentle question here. With these GLP-1 medications, are we shutting off too much in terms of our natural desires and needs? The GLP-1s are often quieting more than just the harmful noise. They can often shut down appetite and desire in a way that can go beyond what may be healthy for someone. Those of you who follow my podcast know that I’m not completely opposed to the use of GLP-1s in all cases, and I think there can be ways to mitigate the risks. If you want to hear a more detailed discussion about this, you can listen to Episode 183: GLP-1 Medications, Food Noise, and Binge Eating Recovery with Marcus Kain. One of the many risks of these medications is too much suppression of the natural and healthy drive for food, which can be especially problematic in those with an eating disorder history.
Making Peace With Natural Appetite and Desire
Here I want to come back to the comparison I made earlier with food addiction and sex addiction. With someone who struggles with sex addiction or porn addiction, the answer is not shutting down the sex drive altogether. That would not be normal or healthy. The goal is to stop the harmful behaviors, to regain choice, and to regain control of the body and mind—while still allowing the underlying drive to exist. I think it’s reasonable to approach food and the drive to eat in the same way. We don’t want to build recovery by erasing desire and shutting down our natural appetite. We want to learn to make peace with our appetite, our desire for food, and the food environment as a whole without going into harmful behaviors. Wanting food is very natural, but as I’ve talked about throughout this post, the food environment and social pressure can cause this natural drive to get skewed.
When you have more acceptance around this and stop blaming yourself for the food noise, it’s a powerful starting point for change. When you stop reacting to the noise as if it’s dangerous, you stop intensifying it. When you learn to exist with your natural appetite and nourish yourself amidst the noise in today’s world, your brain can start to quiet down because it starts to feel safe. Then you’re in a better place to start working on helping yourself overcome any noise that remains.
This post has been more of a general discussion rather than a practical set of steps and actions, but the takeaway is an overall understanding of the situation that we’re all in, so that you can hopefully have less anxiety about the food noise when it comes up. You can start to recognize that you did not choose for this to happen, and there are so many factors that you can’t necessarily control that are at play. When you become a little more gentle with yourself when the food noise arises, it gives you more space and more capacity to learn to make different choices. With this perspective, you can start to be more intentional and self-caring even in the middle of a challenging environment, and you can begin proving to yourself that the environment does not have to dictate your actions.
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Food Noise, Part 1: Bingeing is Not a Solution
I’m starting a blog series that is based on the transcripts of my podcast series on Food Noise, which includes these 4 episodes:
Ep. 198: Food Noise, Part 1: Bingeing is Not a Solution
Ep. 199: Food Noise, Part 2: The Effect of the Food Environment (You’re Not Broken or Powerless)
Ep. 201: Food Noise, Part 3: Mindset Shifts for More Peace and Self-Trust
Ep. 203: Food Noise, Part 4: Eating Foundations for More Stability and Ease (with Marcus Kain)
Food noise has been getting a lot of attention right now, and I want to provide what I hope will be a helpful perspective on how to understand and deal with food noise while also ending the binge-eating habit. Food noise is something that needs to be talked about in the world of eating disorder recovery, and I’m glad to see others in the field discussing it, and I hope to add something meaningful to the conversation.
I’m calling Part 1 of this series, Bingeing Is Not a Solution to Food Noise, because when it comes to binge eating recovery, I truly believe that is the most important thing to understand and remember as you approach learning to manage your food noise.
What Is Food Noise?
Food noise is a term that I’m hearing everywhere recently, and you probably are too. It’s not that food noise is new—people have likely experienced some variation of what we’re now calling “food noise” since eating existed. I looked a bit into the history of the term “food noise,” and it seems like no one can really pinpoint exactly where the phrase comes from, but it’s thought to have originated from patient anecdotes that led to more conversation in the media and among clinicians.
Based on Google search analysis, public interest in the term “food noise” hit an all-time high in the spring of 2024 and then has remained fairly high since then, and the interest is primarily coming from the United States. I’m getting the background information in this post from the article, Food noise: definition, measurement, and future research directions (Journal of Nutrition & Diabetes), which has a lot of good information that could be helpful if the term food noise is new to you.
As far as an official definition, an expert panel convened at the American Society of Nutrition meeting in June of 2024 and defined food noise in this way:
Food noise is persistent thoughts about food that are perceived by the individual as being unwanted and/or dysphoric and may cause harm to the individual, including social, mental, or physical problems.
This concept is receiving a lot of publicity lately in the mainstream media, in the weight loss industry, in research, and in relation to the rise of the GLP-1 medications (and many people’s experience that those medications quiet food noise).
Food noise is not defined by thoughts about food alone, because thoughts about eating are very natural to the human experience. You could think about food noise as not just thinking about food but really ruminating about it. Rumination involves obsessional thinking or excessive, repetitive thoughts that interfere with your life. Again, this is not a new experience for people, but it’s the label of “food noise” and the widespread public discussion about it that’s relatively new.
The Difference Between Food Noise and Urges to Binge
Now let’s turn to the point of today’s post specifically, which is that binge eating is not a solution to food noise. With all of the talk out there about food noise, I’m starting to hear an unintended message in relation to binge eating, which sounds like, “If I have food noise, I’m destined to binge,” or “Food noise is the cause of my bingeing.” I don’t believe those statements are true. Food noise and binge eating can absolutely be related, but food noise does not make bingeing inevitable.
To help explain this, I’m going to separate food noise from urges to binge because this is an important distinction. When we think about food noise, it’s an overabundance of thoughts about food and eating—whether that’s thinking excessively about what you’re going to eat, obsessing about calories, craving certain foods persistently, or not being able to focus on other things because of the food thoughts. Food noise can absolutely feel intense, consuming, and distracting.
Urges to binge can also feel intense, consuming, and distracting, but binge urges are the desire to binge eat. Binge urges are the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that encourage the act of bingeing. From a clinical perspective, binge eating means eating, in a discrete period of time—for example, within a two-hour period—an amount of food that is definitely larger than what most people would eat in similar circumstances. Binge eating is also defined by experiencing a sense of lack of control during the episode.
An urge to binge usually has that “screw it, I’m going to eat everything and start over tomorrow” quality. People can and do have food noise without ever experiencing an urge to binge, which is an urge to eat massive amounts of food. Some people have both food noise and urges to binge. Some people have urges to binge and not that much food noise otherwise, but that is more rare because the act of bingeing itself leads to increased food noise.
You could think of urges to binge as an extreme type of food noise—encouraging the specific food behavior of binge eating. This extreme type of food noise often develops after a period of food restriction, which is part of the brain’s survival response. Then eventually the bingeing becomes a habit that’s reinforced over time, which can perpetuate the urges to binge even if normal eating is reintroduced.
Even though there is a relationship between food noise and urges to binge (and the two very frequently exist together in someone who is struggling with binge eating disorder or bulimia), I still believe it’s important to avoid blending the two experiences together too much. I understand that there can be some overlap and gray areas, but that does not stop us from acknowledging that these are two—possibly related—but different experiences.
You Can Have Food Noise Without Bingeing
It’s crucial to realize that you can have food noise and still choose not to act on the urges to binge. You can ruminate about food and still not obey the thoughts that encourage you to let go of all control and eat massive quantities. You can obsess about servings or ingredients and still not follow thoughts that say, “Screw it, just eat anything and everything.” You can be unfocused because your mind keeps thinking about sweets, and you can still not act on the urge to eat sweets until you’re stuffed and sick. You can have anxiety about food without believing your thoughts that say a binge will solve that problem.
Bingeing is a harmful and dangerous behavior, and it’s never a valid response to food noise. Of course, constantly thinking about food or having anxiety about food is not an ideal state to be in, but it’s so important to recognize that bingeing is a much worse state to be in and that bingeing does nothing to solve food noise.
Why Bingeing Doesn’t Solve Food Noise
Even if you understand that bingeing doesn’t solve food noise, you may be thinking, “But, at least I get some temporary relief from the food noise when I binge.”
This is crucial to talk about because this is where food noise often turns into urges to binge. The urges to binge convince you that bingeing is a way to get relief from the experience of food noise. To stop bingeing, it’s necessary to stop believing this.
By telling you to stop believing that bingeing will give you relief, it may sound like I’m telling you to just stay stuck in the misery of the food noise. I hope that by the end of this post, you’ll understand that is not my goal. However, it’s important to acknowledge that even if that’s exactly what I am saying—that you need to stay stuck in the food noise—that actually is the more appealing option. That is the safer path. The discomfort of the food noise is preferable to the discomfort and the pain of a binge.
It’s like having a heart-to-heart with a smoker and saying, “Yes, staying with the cigarette cravings is preferable and safer than having the cigarette to get relief.” Your thoughts and urges can make it feel like bingeing is the compassionate thing to do for yourself—to give you some relief from the food noise—but if you’re reading this, I know that you understand the pain that bingeing brings. I know that you understand it’s never truly a relief. I know that you’re never glad you binged. I know that you never come away from a binge thinking that was a kind thing to do for yourself. I also know that you can likely recognize that bingeing just makes the food noise so much worse as soon as the binge is over.
A Better Way to Think About the Relationship Between Food Noise and Binge Eating
Think of the relationship between bingeing and food noise as if the binge is like blasting music at an extremely harmful level to cover a sound you don’t want to hear (and that sound is the food noise). For a brief time, yes, the blasting sound can divert your attention, but you can’t keep listening to that harmful level of music forever. You eventually have to turn it off, and, in effect, you’ve hurt your hearing in the process and sensitized yourself so that the original sound you were trying to drown out becomes even more bothersome.
In this analogy (and with binge eating), the perceived solution is more harmful than the original problem and makes the original problem worse, and then the cycle continues. I know it’s not a perfect analogy, but it explains the experience that many people have of bingeing to try to make the food noise go away and ending up with even worse food noise.
I encourage you to start seeing the thought that says, “I need to binge to quiet the food noise,” as not aligning with your actual experience and as not speaking your truth.
Something I also think is worth considering is that the temporary relief you may feel when you binge is actually just another form of food noise. When you’re bingeing, you’re thinking about food, you’re eating, you’re highly focused on food, you’re eating in a harmful way, and you’re thinking of the next thing you’re going to eat in the binge.
Even though you might interpret this as “relief,” when you step back and think about it more deeply, it’s just a heightened focus on food—a more extreme and harmful form of food noise. A binge is trading one form of food noise for another, and the food noise of a binge is dangerous.
I always want to remind you that bingeing is not a neutral behavior that simply “makes you feel better”. That’s what your lower brain thoughts will say, but that’s never actually true.
After a Binge, Food Noise is Worse
To further this idea that bingeing is not a solution to food noise, also think about what happens to your food thoughts after the binge. Most people end up ruminating about the physical effect of the food, worrying about the impact the binge will have on their weight and health, feeling guilty about the food and the quantities they ate, thinking about how they’re going to eat to try to “undo the damage,” and ruminating about new diets or new weight loss plans.
In addition, on a physiological level, eating large amounts of the food that people typically consume in a binge leads to more cravings, heightened hunger, and dampened fullness—which are all more forms of food noise. Think of the binge eating itself as one of the biggest factors that keeps the whole food noise system activated.
If you’re trying to recover and you do have a binge, I want you to have as much self-compassion as possible and not criticize yourself for all of these thoughts that may come up after the binge. Simply notice them, and notice that the binge was not the solution to the food noise and, in fact, created more. Then, try to redirect your brain to more healthy thoughts, and also toward some healthy thoughts about food—determining how to learn from the binge and move toward recovery by getting back to nourishing your body properly.
To end the binge eating habit for good (even if you still have some food noise), it’s necessary to dismiss any lower brain’s message telling you that a binge is a helpful or logical response to food noise.
Making Bingeing “Not an Option” to Deal with Food Notice
Once you realize that bingeing is never a solution to food noise and makes it worse, it puts you in such a powerful position—because you get to start to work on real solutions to the food noise and discover strategies to support yourself while the food noise is present.
The goal is to completely cross out bingeing in your mind as a viable option for dealing with food noise or getting relief from it. When you do that, you give yourself so much freedom to be able to truly help yourself in those moments of difficult food noise.
There are so many variables at play when it comes to food noise, including genetics, upbringing, food environment, dieting, restriction, metabolic issues, stress, sleep, activity levels, emotions, weight loss attempts, certain medical conditions…and the list goes on. In the following posts in this series, I will discuss some of these factors and potential ways to support yourself.
The fact that the culprits in food noise can be complex and multifaceted is all the more reason not to wait until food noise completely goes away to stop bingeing (which, like I’ve discussed, may be impossible anyway because bingeing creates food noise).
Some of the factors that may be responsible for your food noise could require some work and time to solve, and you don’t want to be bingeing in the process of trying to solve those factors, because it will hinder your progress. So, if you’re someone with a binge eating habit and you want to work on solving your food noise, your first step should be giving yourself the gift of not bingeing in moments of food noise. When you do that, you’ve stopped inadvertently making the food noise worse, and you’ve stopped inadvertently covering up one problem with an even worse problem.
I say inadvertently because I know that your intention is not to make it worse. I know how convincing the lower brain can be when it feels like bingeing will provide that “relief”. You’ve been doing the best you can, so there’s no need for self-criticism here, but I hope you’re starting to see through the illusion that bingeing provides relief. I also hope that stopping bingeing allows you to start using whatever tools and strategies help you with the food noise.
A Brief Note About GLP-1 Medications
It’s impossible to have this conversation in 2026 without mentioning the GLP-1 medications, which, for many people, have the effect of reducing food noise. This is something I’ll dive deeper into in a future post in this series, but here I want to say that even if you are someone who (with your doctor) decides that these medications are a good fit for you—it’s still not a guarantee that they get rid of all of the food noise.
That means, in order to stay binge-free on a GLP-1, you’ll still need that fundamental belief that you can have food noise and still not binge. You’ll still need to know that bingeing is not a solution to the food noise. That goes for any strategy that you use to try to reduce food noise, because in order for any strategy to work, you will have to dismiss the urges to binge in response to the food noise—so that you can use that strategy effectively.
Basically, it takes stopping bingeing to start to chip away at and resolve the food noise. Another way to say this is that you can’t wait to have a completely quiet mind in relation to food in order to stop bingeing. It takes stopping bingeing to start to quiet your mind.
You can absolutely work on both the food noise and the urges to binge at the same time, but you’re going to make the most progress when you never believe that food noise needs to lead to bingeing.
Stopping Bingeing and Eating Enough Helps Quiet the Food Noise
The great part about working on both the food noise and the urges to binge is that stopping bingeing naturally helps reduce food noise. Furthermore, in order to stop bingeing, it’s crucial to eat enough food to nourish your body—and eating enough food is one component that is immensely helpful and necessary in reducing food noise over time. In effect, what helps you with stopping bingeing is also very beneficial in stopping food noise.
Every time you have food noise and don’t follow that with a binge, you’re weakening the connection that your brain has made between the food noise and the bingeing, and you’re changing your brain pathways.
A helpful way to think about this topic is to understand that food noise and urges to binge are both experiences, but bingeing is an action—and you have the ability to choose your actions despite your experiences. The great part about this is that changing your actions rewires your brain and improves your experiences over time.
Looking Ahead and Final Thoughts
As we move forward in this series, I’ll talk more about how food noise can show up and how to distinguish problematic thoughts about food from normal food thoughts. I’ll also discuss practical ways to support yourself when food noise comes up and some mental shifts you can make that can help you feel more in control.
For now, I want to end this post by encouraging you to believe that quieting your mind completely around food is not a requirement for binge eating recovery. So many people have completely stopped binge eating before the idea of food noise became popular.
In the past, we definitely had other ways to talk about uncomfortable food thoughts, and it’s always been a goal in recovery to have more mental peace with food. However, there was not so much hype around the idea that it’s necessary to shut down the noise in order to control our actions. I hope that if I contribute anything to this conversation, it will be to help you understand that learning to control your actions can absolutely help turn down the noise.
If you’re struggling with food noise right now, try to stop any self-judgment you may have about it. Try to take care of yourself as well as you can while it’s present, use any strategies that currently help you feel more peaceful, and really try to adopt the belief that food noise never makes you destined to binge.
Do you need more help as you stop binge eating?
Free Inspiration Booklet – The booklet contains 31 daily messages to help you stay focused and motivated each day as you let go of binge eating.
One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn Hansen. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.
Group Coaching – Includes 4 group coaching calls per week with Kathryn. You’ll also get access to a forum for encouragement and accountability, and course access.
Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.
Brain over Binge Books – Get Brain over Binge and the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide on Amazon and Audible.
Boredom is Better Than Bingeing
(This blog post is based on the transcript of Episode 204: Boredom is Better Than Bingeing)
Many people have described to me the experience of getting some traction in recovery so that they are bingeing much less or not at all, and they are also doing their best to eat normally. And while they can absolutely see the benefits of this and they can see the stability and the health that they are creating, they simultaneously have an experience of feeling “flat” or “bored” or just emotionally “blah”.
This experience is not specific to stopping binge eating. It can also happen when someone is cutting back on something like alcohol, overuse of social media, or any other habit or substance that has created a lot of artificial excitement or escape.
Even though the people I’ve talked to about this are genuinely happy and excited to be binge-free or moving toward being binge-free, they still have thoughts like, why does everything feel dull? Or why don’t I feel more joyful? Or why does normal life feel flat?
If you’re experiencing this, you may find yourself confused, especially if you’ve wanted recovery for a very long time. It can feel strange to have the experience of finally getting a taste of what recovery feels like, and maybe it doesn’t feel quite as wonderful as you were hoping.
I know that you can rationally see that it is actually wonderful in so many ways to be binge-free. It is wonderful to wake up without that regret and shame. It’s wonderful to go to bed without feeling physically awful from bingeing. It’s wonderful not to be wasting so much time, energy, mental space, or money on binges. It’s wonderful to know that you’re no longer doing something that’s hurting you, but that doesn’t mean every moment of recovery feels exciting.
The absence of chaos can feel like boredom
Sometimes, especially early on, recovery can feel a lot quieter than you expected; and sometimes the absence of the chaos and the struggle can feel like boredom. I want to discuss this in depth because it’s something that—if not properly understood—could put you at risk for going back to the habit.
Having the experience of boredom after stopping bingeing does not mean anything has gone wrong. It does not mean bingeing was giving your life true excitement and meaning. It does not mean the habit was helping you, and it definitely does not mean you need to start bingeing again in order to feel alive.
It simply means that your brain and your life are adjusting to being without the extreme highs and lows of the habit. Bingeing creates intensity, anticipation, urgency, and very temporary feelings of pleasure, escape, or relief. But then, of course, it always creates the other side too. It creates all of the consequences that come with bingeing: the physical pain, shame, lost time, disconnection, exhaustion, and the repeating cycle of trying new things to “fix yourself” or to “get back on track”.
When you remove the bingeing, you are removing those awful consequences and taking away the pain and the chaos, but you’re also removing those artificial spikes of excitement or pleasure that your lower brain has learned to expect. Because of that, it simply makes sense that life could feel flatter for a while.
An important thing to remember is that flatter is not worse. Feeling stable is not worse. Being able to be functional in your life is not worse. However, stable or functional may not feel like the high you were expecting from recovery.
Recovery does not automatically produce an exciting life
An important message I teach is that recovery does not mean a perfect life. I discuss this a lot on my blog and podcast in terms of emotional issues and why it’s so important to realize that recovery does not lead to a you who copes perfectly with everything. Thinking that’s necessary for recovery can prolong recovery indefinitely.
I believe it’s the same when it comes to the idea of boredom. Recovery doesn’t produce a you who finds life fun or exciting. It produces a you who does not binge, and that you who does not binge is likely out of practice finding other pleasures or fun in life. Furthermore, without the extreme dopamine rush of the binge eating habit, there is some recalibrating that needs to happen in your body and brain.
Know that what you might find dull or boring at first after recovery won’t always feel that way. You can learn to reframe it as peace or steadiness that, in fact, feels really good and not like anything is missing at all. The recalibration does not happen overnight, so it’s really important to have some awareness about this possible stage of boredom so that it doesn’t trip you up, or trick you into going back to the “excitement” of bingeing.
Boredom isn’t harmful, bingeing is
A mantra you can repeat to yourself if you’re dealing with this right now is: Boredom is better than bingeing.
Even if boredom is uncomfortable, even if it’s not your favorite feeling, and even if your lower brain tries to tell you that bingeing would make life more exciting again, boredom is still a preferred state to bingeing.
To really see this, it’s helpful to think about what you would tell someone that you care about who told you that life felt boring without a harmful behavior. You would have compassion for them, knowing that the adjustment might be hard, but you would never say, “Okay, then the solution to that boredom is to go back to the harmful behavior.” You would know that boredom is not a reason for that person to hurt themselves, and it’s the same for you.
Remind yourself daily that boredom—like any emotion—is not a reason to binge. The lower brain will likely argue against this logic because, remember, its goal is immediate gratification and getting you to maintain the habit. If you feel bored, the lower brain can start to paint a very dreary picture of what life is like without the habit.
You may have thoughts like, “You’ll never find anything else as pleasurable as bingeing,” or “Normal eating is so boring,” or “Your daily routine is boring,” or “Being responsible is boring,” or that “Working or doing daily tasks without constantly eating is boring,” and those thoughts can seem very believable in the moment. But again, remind yourself that boredom is better than bingeing.
Seeing the full picture of boredom vs. bingeing
One of the main reasons for the boredom is better than bingeing mantra is that it does not make feeling excitement or having a fun life a requirement to stay binge-free. Even if you can’t talk yourself out of being bored, you need to know that you can still avoid a binge.
Later in this post, I’m going to discuss ways that you can help yourself with boredom; but fundamentally, you have to know that boredom is still the preferred state to the awful cycle of bingeing. When you think about it this way, then even in moments when you truly feel like the choice is between boredom and bingeing, you’re still going to choose recovery.
Also, in those moments when you believe it’s a choice between boredom and bingeing, remember that this is not the whole picture. This is an oversimplified and dramatic version that the lower brain is creating. When the lower brain presents bingeing as the “only solution” to boredom or as the “only choice” in moments of boredom, it sends messages making you think that bingeing will be a source of fun or relief or comfort or excitement. It completely leaves out the reality of what bingeing costs you and the harm that comes to your life as a result.
If you were to believe the lower brain and choose to binge as a “solution” for boredom, it’s truly a terrible one that you always regret. I’ve never talked to someone who was happy afterward that they chose bingeing over boredom.
So, when those thoughts that say that “bingeing is better than boredom” arise, you can begin to recognize them for what they are. They are faulty messages that make bingeing seem appealing or useful in the moment, but that lead you into behaviors that you don’t want. Granted, those behaviors might not be boring, but there are far worse things in life than being bored, and bingeing is one of them.
Once you see that clearly, you don’t have to give those thoughts so much meaning. You don’t have to analyze them, argue with them, or get pulled into a long debate about whether your life is exciting enough. You can simply understand that the lower brain is not offering you any wisdom here. It is just encouraging you to return to the habit. Your higher brain can see the full picture that any anticipation or excitement of giving into the urge always, always includes pain.
Recovery leads to being functional and free
We need to be really honest with ourselves that we simply cannot separate the brief period of escape into the binge from the aftermath of the binge. We can’t say, “I just want the pleasurable part to relieve the boredom,” because that “pleasurable” part and the painful part are always tied together. Even if your lower brain tries to show you only the first scene of the movie, your higher brain knows how the movie ends.
When you see this full picture, boredom starts to look a little different. Boredom may not be pleasant, but boredom does not destroy your life or your health. Boredom does not leave you ashamed. Boredom does not take away your ability to function the rest of the day or the next day. Boredom is not harmful. Bingeing is harmful.
When you don’t binge, even if you feel dull, you gain the ability to be functional in your life. I know the word functional may not sound very exciting, but functionality is a gift. When you’re not bingeing, you can show up for yourself and others. You can make plans and actually follow through (or at least start thinking about what plans you may want to make). You can pursue goals (or at least start thinking of some goals that you might want to pursue). You can share your gifts with the world (or start connecting with and trying to develop your unique gifts).
You can be present for the people you care about. You can simply move through your day and take care of your responsibilities without dragging the pain of a binge behind you. In short, being binge-free gives you your life back. And sometimes, especially in the beginning, getting your life back does not feel like fireworks. Sometimes it feels like doing the dishes, going to work, dealing with your finances, watching some mindless TV, calling an old friend, or just having an ordinary evening.
That may feel boring to the lower brain, but to your higher brain, it is freedom taking shape. When your lower brain says, “boring,” answer with “functional” or “free.” Let boring be a launchpad for more stability and the ability to start building a life that you can feel good about.
Boredom around normal meals and snacks
Another place the “boring” thought could come up is in relation to your meals and snacks. When you’re used to eating a large amount of very highly stimulating foods in the binges, then eating normal amounts—of possibly less stimulating foods—consistently might feel unsatisfying to the lower brain.
We are absolutely meant to enjoy food. It’s okay to take pleasure in what you eat and enjoy things like desserts and sweets in ways that work for you. But in the beginning, eating in moderation might give you that dull or unsatisfied feeling.
Again, remind yourself that boredom is better than bingeing, and trust that as time goes by and your body and brain stop expecting such extreme amounts, then the normal amounts will start to feel more enjoyable and satisfying. It’s about trusting in the recalibration that needs to happen in your body and brain.
Try to see it as a good thing that your normal eating is not giving you that “hit” that binge eating was, because that “hit” was harming you. The goal is not to try to recreate that binge feeling with your normal meals or to find something else to do that lights up your brain with that exact same intensity as bingeing. Your new goal is to just let normal enjoyment be enough, and let normal eating be enough—even if it does not feel like enough at first.
When your lower brain says, “Life is boring because nothing else feels like bingeing,” you can tell yourself, “Nothing else has to feel like bingeing.” A walk does not have to feel like bingeing. A shower does not have to feel like bingeing. A TV show does not have to feel like bingeing. Music, reading, calling a friend, folding laundry, going to bed early do not have to feel like bingeing—so don’t expect them to.
Stop trying to replicate bingeing and work on letting go
Expecting other activities to feel like bingeing creates more frustration, so stop trying to replicate bingeing with something else. Your goal is to let go of the extreme highs and lows and start to create something different in your life.
When your lower brain says, “Nothing else will satisfy like a binge,” you can answer with, “Fine. Nothing else has to satisfy me in that specific, harmful way.”
That response can be so powerful because you’re no longer arguing with the urge. You’re no longer trying to prove that something else will be just as exciting. You’re no longer putting pressure on yourself to find the perfect substitute for bingeing. You’re simply saying, “I do not need that type of satisfaction anymore. I can live without it, and I’ll be much better off.”
Now, everyone needs comfort, pleasure, rest, connection, and enjoyment, but the key is to see that you do not need it in that particular form of bingeing—which is hurting you. The sense that you need that specific form of escape is part of the conditioned habit, and as the habit fades, so will that sense of need and desire.
It’s about giving up what is hurting you, knowing that nothing else is going to give you that same feeling right now (nor do you want something to), and trusting that in time, you’ll find new and healthier forms of satisfaction, healthier forms of enjoyment, and real solutions to boredom.
Moving beyond bingeing and boredom
Here I want to move on to solutions for boredom, because even if you understand that boredom is better than bingeing, you understandably want to move beyond that phase. You want to start thinking about what you want your days and nights to look like, what you want to do with your time, and who you are without this habit.
First, I want you to see that the fact that you’re experiencing some of these bigger questions is a gift. It means there is space opening up, and the habit is no longer consuming every bit of your attention. Boredom can be a gentle motivator to discover new things for yourself, and you do not have to rush this. You do not have to create an amazing new life overnight. You do not need to suddenly become a person with 10 hobbies, perfect routines, or constant joy. You can start very small.
The reason it could feel challenging at first is simply because by bingeing in response to boredom, you haven’t truly given yourself a chance to discover new things to fill your time. I’m not talking about trying one new thing and then deciding it’s “not as good as bingeing;” I’m talking about really deciding that bingeing is never an option—no matter how bored you are and no matter how unsatisfying new activities feel at first—and committing to that over the long term.
Eight categories of things to do
I want to give you a simple framework that you can use to start to help yourself in these moments when life feels boring or flat without bingeing, or when the lower brain produces the common thought that “there’s nothing else to do except binge.”
This is simply never true, and you can see this by realizing that you would never tell someone else that there is nothing to do except binge. At every moment, there are millions of people doing a multitude of things that do not involve bingeing.
You can always find something to occupy your time, but when you’re out of practice doing other things, it can help to have a framework to remind your brain that there are other things to do. The framework is eight simple categories of things to do that you can use to guide you or to brainstorm. I recommend writing down as many ideas as you can think of in each category.
- Connection
Involves reaching out to others in some way, such as calling a friend or writing a letter. It could include spending time with or making plans to spend time with people that you care about, or determining how to meet someone new. - Creativity
This could be any project or hobby such as writing, art, home projects, or music. - Recovery
I included this category to remind you that during times when you feel bored, you can turn to binge-eating recovery resources. You can journal, you can join a recovery community like the Brain over Binge Group or any other community. - Responsibilities
This includes all of those necessary things in life that we simply have to do to make our lives function—like running errands, doing chores, completing tasks, or paying bills. - Self-care
Any form of relaxation or rest or any form of hygiene that you enjoy, like a warm shower or skincare. - Fun
This could include a wide variety of things that you could possibly find pleasure in, from something as simple as playing with your dog to taking a trip. - Service
You can do something to help a cause that you care about. You can do something kind for a neighbor, or do volunteer work. When you’re really feeling stuck in your own mind, it can really help to shift to thinking about how you can best help someone else. - Purpose
You can engage in something that makes life more meaningful to you. This could include things like evaluating your career path or determining how to get involved in your community. It can also include any form of spiritual practice that connects you with who you believe yourself to be on a deeper level.
You will likely be able to think of other categories as well, but doing any of these things or anything else that you find personally beneficial can support you in riding out the urges, and countering the faulty lower brain story that “bingeing is the only thing to do” or that “recovery is boring”.
The main message here is that although you absolutely can be bored and still not binge, you do not have to stay stuck in boredom either. Celebrate yourself when you do anything from these categories instead of following the urge. Even if the activity you chose felt flat or you still couldn’t quite shake the boredom, you still did an amazing thing for yourself by choosing boredom over pain.
Trust that your body and brain will adjust in time. Trust that boredom is not an emergency. Boredom is the start of a better life for yourself.
_________________
Do you need more help as you stop binge eating?
Free Inspiration Booklet – The booklet contains 31 daily messages to help you stay focused and motivated each day as you let go of binge eating.
One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn Hansen. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.
Group Coaching – Includes 4 group coaching calls per week with Kathryn. You’ll also get access to a forum for encouragement and accountability, and course access.
Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.
Brain over Binge Books – Get Brain over Binge and the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide on Amazon and Audible.