What If Your Food Noise Is Actually Hunger?

Food Noise has become one of the most common terms in conversations around eating and weight loss. I think the language can be useful. It gives people a way to describe thoughts and feelings around food that may have taken up a tremendous amount of mental space for years.

But I think we need to be careful about making the term absolute.

Not every thought about food is automatically Food Noise.

Sometimes you might simply be hungry.

That seems incredibly obvious when I write it, but look at how much the conversation has changed. Five or ten years ago, intuitive eating was everywhere in the fitness space. We were being encouraged to pay attention to hunger, fullness, satisfaction, and the other signals our bodies were giving us.

Now, some of those same thoughts and feelings can immediately get labeled as Food Noise.

I think that deserves a little more nuance.

Your Body Is Giving You Information

I am a big believer in building an eating plan around your preferences. That means more than choosing foods you enjoy. Your preferences include meal frequency, when you like to eat, how different meals make you feel, what satisfaction feels like, and what hunger feels like for you.

Those are things you learn by becoming connected to yourself.

Maybe you have been told that you need to “get used to being hungry.” That may work perfectly well for somebody else. I have no interest in getting used to being hungry. If I am hungry at night, I usually do not sleep as well. I would rather figure out an eating structure that prevents that.

Neither experience needs to become a universal rule.

The question is what actually works for you.

What If Your Calorie Target Is Too Low?

Calorie calculators can provide useful starting points. The calorie target a coach gives you may also have originated from one of those calculators.

But the number is still a starting point.

If you consistently hit your calorie target and remain hungry, consider whether the target itself needs to be questioned.

You could experiment by adding around 200 calories per day while keeping the rest of your routine relatively consistent. Instead of judging the experiment after three days, give yourself enough time to actually collect information.

Notice your hunger. Notice how often you think about food. Notice your satisfaction after meals. Continue whatever progress measurements you normally use.

Then look at the entire picture.

A small change on the scale does not automatically mean the experiment failed. You are trying to learn something about how your body responds and what eating enough actually looks and feels like for you.

Relearning Your Own Cues Takes Time

This is where patience becomes incredibly important.

You may have spent years or decades listening to outside opinions about how you are supposed to eat. You have heard what is optimal, what is bad, when you should eat, when you should stop, and how much hunger you should tolerate.

Untangling all of that can take some time.

I think intuition is something we develop. You notice. You experiment. You collect information. You gradually become better at understanding what your own thoughts, feelings, preferences, and physical cues mean.

That same curiosity is something I come back to throughout Love The Body You Have. Thoughts and feelings themselves do not automatically tell us that something is wrong. We can notice what is happening, become curious about it, and decide how we want to respond.

Maybe the goal is not to become so disciplined that you stop hearing yourself.

Maybe the goal is to become connected enough to yourself that when something gets louder, you can understand what it is trying to tell you.

Sometimes that may be Food Noise.

Sometimes you may just need to eat.

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