What is food noise?

There has been a lot of chatter lately about food noise.
Maybe you’ve heard that term, or maybe it’s new to you.

If we were on a coaching call right now talking about food noise, you would see me put my hand up by my neck and “talk with my hand” while saying “wah-wah-wah.”
(Think of the way adults sound in the Peanuts cartoon).

In the cartoon, the creators did this on purpose. They wanted to represent a kid’s perspective — because a lot of the time, adult voices are just annoying background noise.

That’s exactly what food noise is.

It’s background noise happening in your brain. And most of the time, you don’t even realize it’s there.

Before we jump in, I want to introduce myself. I’m Marla, a women’s health coach. I help women with weight loss coaching in St. George and all over.

The invisible thing driving your eating

Food noise is one of the main reasons you go back, and go back, and go back for more food.

It’s the reason you plan on eating one cookie and then have four.
It’s the reason you say, “If it’s in the house, I will eat it.”
And it’s one of the biggest reasons women struggle to keep weight off.

What makes this so frustrating is that it doesn’t feel like noise. It feels like hunger. Or cravings. Or lack of discipline.

But often, it’s neither.

It’s mental chatter constantly pulling your attention back to food.

What Women Actually Want

Every single client I have ever worked with has wanted two things:

• To lose weight
• To feel in control around food

To address these, we have to call out the elephant in the room — the one many women don’t even realize exists — food noise itself.

So when women say they want more control, what they’re really saying is that they want relief from the constant thinking, negotiating, and mental tug-of-war around food. They want to quiet the food noise.

When you can quiet the noise, weight loss naturally follows.

Why we’re talking about the brain more than ever

In the last twenty-five years, there has been an explosion of research about the brain that we’ve never had before.

Because of my daughter’s mental illness, I’ve done a deep dive into neurobiology and the psychology of lasting change. What I learned there became pivotal in how I work with women.

Because lasting change isn’t just about food.

It’s about pathways in the brain.

How food noise actually changes

Here’s what I want you to know:

The women I work with reduce their food noise through a process called neuroplasticity.

Simply put, they create new pathways for their brain to use.

Instead of relying on old automatic patterns — the ones that lead straight back to the pantry — they begin building new ones.

During coaching, I target client’s personal stories around food and the resultant food noise that follows for them.  I teach them how to build scaffolding so their success is inevitable, how to use visual boundaries instead of relying on willpower, and how to create new thought processes that support different choices. 

Then something amazing happens.

The food noise starts to diminish.

Not through restriction.
Not through more willpower.
But through practice.

It takes a little repetition and a lot of celebrating wins to strengthen those neural pathways. But the return on that investment is beyond incredible.

Women begin to feel freedom around food, not just control. The start to see the scale drop. They realize where they felt hopeless before, they now feel empowered.

You might recognize food noise If…

You find yourself thinking about food even when you’re not physically hungry.
You finish a meal and immediately start planning what you’ll eat later.
You open the pantry without really deciding to.
You tell yourself you’ll just have one — and then feel confused when you don’t stop there.
You feel mentally tired from constantly negotiating with yourself about food.

Most women assume this means something is wrong with them.

More often, it just means the noise has gotten loud.

What this means for you

There is hope.

Women come to me when they feel like they’ve tried everything. And they have tried a lot of things. But not this.

It’s time for you to know you’re not weak.

You don’t lack willpower or motivation.

You’re simply dealing with patterns your brain learned over time — patterns that can also be changed.

And when it does, food stops feeling like a constant battle.

Pause for a moment

Before you move on, consider this:

When does food feel the loudest for you?
Is it at night? During stress? When you finally sit down after a long day?
Do you feel hunger — or just a pull to food?

You don’t need answers right now. You just need awareness. Because that is where change begins.

If you’d like help understanding your own patterns, you don’t have to figure it out alone. You can reach out with a specific example of what food noise looks like for you, and I’ll help you identify your first step toward creating a new pathway.

Freedom around food isn’t as far away as you think.

If this resonated with you, I’d love to chat more about women’s health coaching. You can learn more and contact me HERE.