How to Stop Food Guilt and Quiet Food Noise
Do you find yourself constantly thinking about food? Are you plagued by an incessant inner dialogue about what you should or shouldn't eat? If so, you're not alone. Many of my clients struggle with what I call food noise—that relentless mental chatter about food choices, calorie counts, and self-judgment around eating.
In this blog, we’ll explore where this comes from, why it’s not all your fault, and some hopeful strategies to turn the volume dial way down.
-In this article-
Understanding food noise
The root of the problem
When you eat according to plan, things seem quieter
Truly breaking free from food noise
Embrace Intuitive Eating
Do you find yourself constantly thinking about food? Are you plagued by an incessant inner dialogue about what you should or shouldn't eat? If so, you're not alone. Many of my clients struggle with what I call food noise—that relentless mental chatter about food choices, calorie counts, and self-judgment around eating.
Understanding Food Noise
Food noise is more than just occasional thoughts about your next meal. It's a persistent internal monologue of food-related thoughts that can dominate your day. We might call this part of you the food police or the inner critic who is dedicated to judging your eating behaviors.
In Intuitive Eating, understanding your conscious or unconscious food rules and challenging the food police are key to less food noise.
You might experience:
Constant judgments about what you're about to eat, just ate, or will eat soon
Obsessive or intrusive thoughts about what you "should" or "shouldn't" be eating
Feelings of anger, shame, or guilt associated with your food choices
Exhaustion from the mental energy spent on food-related thoughts
This mental preoccupation with food isn't just annoying—it can be emotionally draining and perpetuate a cycle of shame, guilt, and compulsive eating.
The Root of the Problem
Where does this food noise come from? In my experience, both personal and professional, it often stems from:
Diet and Wellness Culture
We’re bombarded with messages about “good” and “bad” foods, ideal body types, and the latest diet trends. This creates a mindset where we’re constantly policing our food choices and feeling guilt over what we eat.
We’re groomed from a very young age to be a part of body shame, diet culture, and wellness culture. The culture we live in, like the air we breathe, conditions us, especially women, to think in very specific ways about eating, food, and our bodies. Beliefs like — we should be small and thin, our appearance matters more than our accomplishments, and our value is tied to our beauty and desirability — are drilled into us because it is so profitable for the diet/weight loss and wellness industries to sell us things to help us achieve these impossible ideals.
Internalized Beliefs
Many of us, especially women, have internalized beliefs that our worth is tied to our appearance or that we need to achieve impossible beauty standards. These beliefs fuel food noise and keep us stuck in cycles of shame and dissatisfaction. And yet while you may struggle with your body image, it is possible to feel confident in your body, no matter how you think you look.
Emotional Coping
Food thoughts and being overly controlling with food can be a way of avoiding other emotions or stressors in our lives. When we're overwhelmed, turning our focus to food can feel like a distraction, even though it often deepens our emotional struggles. It’s the pain we’re familiar with versus the pain and uncertainty of what we don’t know. If you need some guidance on how to feel your emotions to heal them, here are some tools to stop ignoring negative emotions when they feel overwhelming.
Scarcity Mindset
Even when we’re not actively dieting, restrictive thinking about what we’re “allowed” to eat creates an environment of “food scarcity.” This mindset drives cravings and obsessive thinking about food, making it hard to listen to our true hunger cues. Challenging our food rules helps to turn down the volume of food thoughts and make space for dropping into the body’s physical sensations like hunger, tense muscles, headache, or conversely pleasant fullness and contentment.
When you eat according to plan, things seem quieter
Often I hear clients trying to quiet food noise and limit the negative emotions that come up for them when they make "poor" food choices by trying to eat "perfectly." For example, you might restrict your eating by only purchasing a "safe" list of foods you allow yourself to buy from the store to control your eating.
However, removing the trigger doesn't remove the underlying cause. If you're check engine light in your car comes on, you don't just have the mechanic turn off the light. You require them to look under the hood to fix what caused the light to turn on.
The same applies here. Intrusive thoughts about food, feeling guilty after eating, and a habit of constantly judging yourself and others around food are the signs that something is off.
Inevitably because we are messy imperfectly human beings and the pursuit of perfection to avoid pain is impossible to keep up forever, negative feelings and guilt around eating behaviors will come right back the moment you go "off plan." This is why the most common phrase I've heard over the years of coaching people around their health is that they would like to "get back on track" and that they've "fallen off the wagon."
We think adhering more rigidly to someone's food rules will save us from our hunger, appetite, feelings, habits, and negative emotions like guilt, and shame. It won't.
Truly breaking free from food noise
Overcoming food noise isn’t about finding the perfect diet or exerting more willpower. Instead, it’s about reconnecting with your body, honoring your physical hunger, and dismantling harmful thought patterns. Here are some steps to help you begin this journey:
Listen to Your Body
Our bodies have innate wisdom about what we need. We live in an overly intellectual society that honors the cognitive and logic, science, and reason over the wisdom of the body’s consciousness. It’s no wonder we turn to experts outside of us to tell us what to eat and think. Our visceral, felt experience within the moment is what everyone is talking about when they talk about presence and mindfulness. It can be easy to override.
And yet, our bodies are ancient and designed by nature to give us in-the-moment access to knowing exactly what we need through our sensations, emotions that guide us, and even intuition. The body is a rich treasure trove of in-the-moment truth for each individual that has nothing to do with strict food plans or deprivation.
Practice tuning into your physical sensations of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. This interoceptive awareness can guide your eating more effectively than any external food rules, making it a cornerstone of intuitive eating.
Build Emotional Capacity
This takes the first step of remembering how to inhabit and listen to your body a step further. Self-awareness, emotional regulation, and self-compassion are skills that we can learn to practice. It’s important to uncover the deeper underlying causes of any emotional or binge eating to give oneself the choice in how to deal with conditioned patterns of behavior as an adult now.
Many of us use food thoughts—or food itself—to avoid uncomfortable emotions. Learning to sit with and process your feelings can reduce the need for this distraction and diminish food noise.
Going even further, doing the internal work of overcoming childhood trauma, mother hunger, or the father wound or patterns of behavior that no longer serve you is often the origin of struggles with food, which can be associated with love, nourishment, and safety.
Each person is individual, and this is also where it can be so helpful to work with a professional who can guide you through this to specifically integrate parts of yourself you have abandoned and resolve long-standing patterns of emotional eating, binge eating, or other disordered eating patterns.
Practice Self-Expression
Instead of turning difficult emotions inward (which can fuel food obsession), find healthy ways to express yourself, and get things out through talking, journaling, etc.
While we have been conditioned to look and act a certain way to please others, a woman who betrays herself repeatedly to do so will have a breakdown in some way. Bottling up or denying your emotions will either have you turn to emotional or binge eating to cope as a release valve, to numb the discomfort, or to soothe yourself, or your body will eventually say NO in no uncertain terms.
Self-expression might involve setting boundaries, pursuing creative outlets, journaling (LINK), or speaking up for your needs. Expression can release the emotional weight that often fuels obsessive food thoughts.
Challenge the Food Police
Notice when you’re categorizing foods as “good” or “bad.” These moral labels often fuel anxiety and guilt. Instead, try to view food more neutrally, seeing it as nourishment rather than a measure of your worth. This shift supports a more mindful eating approach.
Seek Support
Working with a professional who specializes in disordered eating or food anxiety can provide personalized strategies and support. Whether you’re struggling with cravings, shame, or an overwhelming sense of food noise, having someone in your corner can make all the difference.
Embrace Intuitive Eating
Remember, the goal isn’t to never think about food—it's a normal and necessary part of life! The aim is to reduce the obsessive quality of these thoughts and approach eating with more ease, pleasure, self-compassion, and joy. Embracing Intuitive Eating practices can help you reconnect with your body’s needs, honor your hunger, and let go of the guilt that keeps you stuck.
Overcoming food noise is a journey, and it takes time. Be patient with yourself as you unlearn old patterns and beliefs. With practice, you can create a more peaceful relationship with food, freeing up mental energy for the things that truly matter in your life.
Jayne Anne Ammar