Sit With the Thought

We receive a lot of messages about food noise now. We hear about it from companies, medical professionals, social media creators, online communities, and other people going through their own experiences with food and weight loss. After hearing the term enough times, I think it can become very easy to have any thought or feeling around food and automatically decide that it belongs in the food noise category. Once that happens, the label can start shaping how we feel about the thought before we have even taken the time to understand what we are actually thinking.

I think there is an important difference between saying, “My food noise is back,” and saying, “I am having a thought about food.”

The words we use can change our relationship with the thought.

Food noise can start to sound like something outside of us.

It is intrusive.

It showed up.

It is happening to me.

Now I have to do something about it.

But when I say, “I am having a thought about food,” I am acknowledging what is happening without immediately deciding that the thought is a problem.

That creates a little more room.

It creates ownership.

And I think that space matters.

The tone I try to take with this is the same one I use throughout Love the Body You Have. The goal is not to tell you how you should feel. It is to help you become more aware of what you are already thinking and feeling, get curious about it, and then decide what you want to do with what you discover.

One of the simplest things you can do when a food thought shows up is sit with it.

You do not have to analyze it immediately.

You do not have to suppress it.

You do not have to decide whether it is good or bad.

Take ten seconds.

Maybe thirty.

Maybe sixty.

Just let the thought be there.

Sometimes the most useful response to a thought is giving it enough space to exist without immediately reacting to it.

That pause can interrupt the chain reaction that sometimes follows.

One thought becomes another.

Then another.

Then the anxiety starts.

Then the guilt.

Then you are not only thinking about food. You are thinking about the fact that you are thinking about food.

Taking a step back can slow that process down.

Maybe the thought passes on its own.

Maybe it sticks around.

Maybe you decide it is worth writing down.

You can journal about it if you want. You can make a simple note on your phone. You can say the thought out loud.

I really want a cinnamon roll right now.

Okay.

Now the thought is in front of you.

You do not have to fight with it.

You can decide whether it needs anything from you.

And you may discover that a lot of thoughts do not.

The e-book talks about this same idea in another context, that thoughts can come and go without becoming something larger, and that we can become more intentional about what we do with them.

I think this becomes especially useful over time.

The more often you practice sitting with your thoughts, the less unfamiliar they can feel.

You start developing a system.

When your mind gets noisy, you know you can pause.

You know you can observe.

You know you can write something down if you need to.

You know you do not have to turn every thought into a deep investigation.

The point is not to become obsessed with understanding every thought. The point is to become more comfortable knowing that you can handle them.

That is where self trust starts to become more important than control.

You will still have food thoughts.

Some will be random.

Some may be connected to hunger.

Some may come from seeing an advertisement or remembering a food you enjoy.

Some may carry more emotion.

You do not have to know exactly what every thought means the moment it arrives.

Give yourself a little space first.

Then decide what you want to call it.

If you’re new to Your Level Fitness, start here.