IF you find yourself obsessively thinking about food, you’re not alone – and an eating psychology coach has revealed three simple tips to bust the habit.
Rachel Foy, who helps people to lose weight by focusing on the thought processes behind food, has said that ‘food noise’ is far more common than you might think.
Food noise is when someone is constantly thinking about eating, even when they’re not hungry – and it usually leads to binge eating or boredom snacking.
According to Rachel, this is a trained brain response, and can be something that slowly develops over time – especially for those who have been immersed in diet culture for years.
Speaking to her 61.9k followers on TikTok, Rachel explained: “It’s the constant thought looping of: ‘What can I eat?’, ‘What should I eat?’ and ‘What shouldn’t I eat?”
“It’s when your brain is basically chattering about what food feels like 24/7,” she added.
read more on binge eating
So if this sounds familiar, you might want to have a read of Rachel’s top three tips to quieting your food-focused brain.
Eat food you want to eat
Rachel explains that her first tip is a little counterintuitive when losing weight, but it helps to rewire your brain habits.
She told her followers on her Rewire Your Weight account: “One of the first steps that I give all of our clients is that they have to start giving themselves permission to eat what they actually desire and not what they think they should.
“Because food noise is amplified when we are in restriction mode.”
She explained that when you’re eating things purely because you think you should, but you don’t really fancy it, the food noise gets louder.
So that means if you’re eating things you kind of think you should eat, but you don’t really want to, the food noise gets louder.
“A calmer brain creates a quieter brain,” she added.
Don’t fight the thoughts
Her second tip is all about accepting the food thoughts and allowing them to pass.
She said: “I want you to stop arguing with your thoughts. If you say to yourself, ‘I must not think of food’, what are you going to do?
“It’s going to make your brain think about it more. So whenever you are aware of food noise, you’re going to just observe it.”
She said that the more you practice this, the food thoughts will fade and will happen less.
Relax without food
Rachel, who has been working in the field for 14 years, said that most of her clients who struggle with food noise also have stressful jobs and lives.
“They very rarely switch off, so food becomes their thing to help them to do just that,” she said.
She explained: “You want to start giving your brain something different in order to switch off. Food is often how your brain relaxes.
“Can you try something else that’s actually going to calm you down, that’s going to switch you off, and that’s going to put you in a kind of state of relaxation?”
She also added that struggling with food noise doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong.
She said: “It just means your brain is doing the very best that it can to help you cope.”
Rachel’s followers sprang into the comment section to share their own experience with food noise.
One wrote: “I find I boredom eat… that’s when the noise is at its worst, I do try and ignore it but it’s harder than I thought.”
Another added: “Thank you, going to give this a good go!”
A third wrote: “Oh this is so true.”
What is food noise?
FOOD noise is when a person’s mind keeps thinking about food almost all the time, even when they are not hungry.
It can feel like a constant chatter in your head about what to eat, when to eat, cravings, or worries about food that do not go away easily.
These thoughts can interrupt your day and make it hard to focus on other things.
Food noise is not the same as normal hunger — it can happen after eating and may be linked to stress, emotions, dieting rules, or habits rather than real physical need for food.
People describe it as intrusive or unwanted, and it can sometimes make eating and food choices feel overwhelming.
