Why You Can't Stop Thinking About Food (And How to Change That)
Do you find yourself constantly preoccupied with thoughts of food? Are you mentally tallying calories, obsessing over your next meal, or feeling guilty about what you've just eaten? If so, you're not alone. Many people struggle with this all-consuming focus on food, desperately seeking a way to break free from its mental chokehold. If you've ever struggled with your weight or worried that your body is bigger than you think it should be, it's likely that you have an ongoing love-hate relationship with food.
Part of why this tension with foods exists is because you desire to feel physically leaner AND mentally liberated from the tyranny of food-related thoughts. Despite our best efforts to "eat right" or follow the latest diet trend, food continues to dominate our thoughts, leaving us frustrated and wondering why we can't just have a normal relationship with eating.
In this blog, we’ll explore how we got here and point the way to greater freedom from worrying about food constantly.
-In this article-
The healthy lifestyle trap
The real reason you can’t stop thinking about food
Breaking the cycle: 5 myths about food obsession
Intuitive Eating to quiet food noise
The healthy lifestyle trap
As a health coach, I've not only guided others through this struggle but have also lived it myself. During my time working for a popular weight loss app, I became the "model user," adhering strictly to a low-calorie diet and constant food tracking. I held to my food rules to prevent overeating. I lost weight, bought smaller clothes, and felt proud of my discipline. I even counseled others on how to achieve similar results.
But there was a dark side to this "success," which included developing eating habits that denied my physical hunger. I ignored hunger cues, judging them as signs that my dieting was "working." I monitored every morsel that passed my lips. I stopped snacking and only ate meals. and exercised religiously to keep my step count high. In short, I was trapped in a self-imposed cycle of semi-starvation, all while believing I was making "sustainable lifestyle changes."
While we gave lip service to “mindful eating,” what we really meant was to be mindful that you’re not eating too much. Practicing mindful eating has no judgment, agenda, or outcome attached to it.
It wasn't until years later, when I began to gain weight despite my continued efforts, that I realized something was fundamentally wrong with this approach.
The real reason you can’t stop thinking about food
Through my own experience, research, and working with others on these issues, I've come to understand a crucial truth: obsessing over food is often a product of biological hunger. When we restrict our food intake, our bodies perceive it as a threat of starvation. In response, our brains become hyper-focused on finding and consuming food—it's a survival mechanism, not a lack of willpower. Food cravings and obsessive thoughts about food become louder, which has recently been coined food noise.
This revelation was driven home when I learned about the Minnesota Starvation Study. In this 1940s experiment, healthy men were put on a restricted diet similar to many modern weight loss plans. The results were striking: the participants became obsessed with food, constantly talking and dreaming about it, craving milkshakes, and planning elaborate meals they couldn’t cook or eat. Their experience with increased thoughts about food and cravings mirrored what many of us go through when dieting.
The more willpower you have, the harder you will fall when you inevitably give in to the body’s push to eat. I call this cycle the romance and the fall.
Breaking the cycle: 5 myths about food obsession
To break free from food obsession, we need to challenge some common misconceptions:
Myth: It's about willpower and self-discipline.
Reality: It's about biology. Your body is fighting against perceived starvation.
Conventional health advice focuses on nutrition for better health, but what it needs to include is how incredibly unhelpful it is to try to work against our bodies. Our physiology will always win, protecting us from starvation every time, and driving us to eat, and it has nothing to do with your willpower.
I have found that practicing gentle nutrition, the 10th and final principle of Intuitive Eating supports me in working in harmony with my body instead of trying to force and fight my body.
Myth: Certain foods are addictive and should be avoided.
Reality: Restriction often leads to obsession and eventual overconsumption.
I contend that eating the “wrong” foods like hyper-processed foods, sugar or junk food isn’t what’s getting in the way of your being unable to stop thinking about food, but it’s the actual restriction of the amount of food you allow yourself, it’s the outdated food rules you’re adhering to, it’s the food police in your mind constantly telling you what you can and can’t eat.
Worrying about "good" vs. "bad" foods creates unnecessary food anxiety. Unhelpful food thoughts can be likened to limiting beliefs, creating a black-and-white approach to eating that disconnects us from our body's needs. And your body doesn’t require you to overthink your food choices in order to get it “right.”
Myth: Proper eating requires complex rules and outside guidance.
Reality: Our bodies have innate wisdom about what and how much to eat.
You’ve likely over-ridden your body’s signals for a long time to try to eat less or control your eating, but learning to listen to your body again and respond to its internal signs of hunger, and fullness are the surest path to dynamic balance required for balancing all of our body’s needs moment to moment.
Myth: Bad eating habits need to be controlled (like binge eating)
Reality: Bingeing is often a natural response to restriction.
For eating habits that we wish we could change or get rid of, there are often very good reasons for how those behaviors serve us. The genesis of binge eating disorder and other eating disorders is complex, including diet culture adding fuel to the fire. However, when you are denying your hunger, we need to look at why.
Without looking at what’s going on underneath, you’ll be forever locked in a loop of trying to control your eating and feeling like the control you want is out of your reach. A higher approach is building the skill of self-awareness of our conflicting desires, or mindfulness to allow us to be adaptive in our food choices, rather than feeling like we have to control everything.
Myth: Reaching a "healthy" weight justifies any means.
Reality: Pursuing weight loss at the expense of mental health is counterproductive.
Not to mention there’s a whole lot of science out there to support Health at Every Size. And while it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, weight is not a predictor of health.
Intuitive Eating to quiet food noise
So, how do we break free from food obsession? The answer lies in reconnecting with our body's innate wisdom through practices like Intuitive Eating. Mindful eating comes in as a close second, but it neglects the social conditioning we receive as we grow up and internalize about how we should eat and look.
An Intuitive Eating approach involves:
Honoring your hunger by eating enough throughout the day.
When in doubt, erring on the side of more is better than less. This is because the number one cause of binge eating and emotional eating is restricting your eating in some way. No more rebound or compensatory eating.
Letting go of restrictive food rules and the concept of "good" and "bad" foods.
Dieting or virtuously “eating less” or “eating clean” gets in the way of our trusting and building confidence in our body’s internal signals.
There’s a psychological effect that happens after you eat something you’ve previously forbidden yourself to eat, called the “what the hell effect,” which results in you eating MORE because of the feelings of food guilt, shame, and loss of control and hope. Lett
Learning to trust your body's signals of hunger and fullness.
Thinking about food is actually one of the signals for hunger that our body gives us to let us know we need to eat. For example, I get a gnawing feeling in my belly that travels up my throat. When I wait too long, it goes away and I will eventually start to feel mentally spacy and even get a headache.
Addressing emotional needs without using food as the primary coping mechanism.
Emotional eating is a normal coping mechanism. However, when you do this and you hold on to the story that you are a bad person and you feel out of control, it becomes helpful to seek out support to help you shift your thinking and eating.
Remember, constant thoughts about food are often a sign that you're not eating enough or are mentally restricting certain foods. So often we think that by making the effort to eat healthy or make a big effort to stop eating so many “bad” foods, we are doing what will help us to overcome constant worry about food. Ironically, it’s this very restriction that can be the source of your strained relationship with food and your body. By giving yourself unconditional permission to eat and trusting your body, you can begin to heal your relationship with food.
Breaking free from food obsession is a journey, not a destination. It requires patience, self-compassion, and a willingness to challenge deeply ingrained beliefs about food and body image. But the freedom on the other side—both physical and mental—is well worth the effort.
If you're ready to stop letting food control your thoughts and start living a more fulfilling life, it's time to explore a new approach. Your body has the wisdom; you just need to learn how to listen.
Jayne Anne Ammar