Simple Shifts to Help You Feel More in Control of Your Eating (Goodbye Food Noise!)

Are you constantly thinking about food — from the moment you wake up to when you go to bed? That endless mental chatter, known as food noise, can make it hard to focus on anything else. Pair that with intense food cravings and it can feel like you’re always battling your own appetite. The good news? You can quiet food noise, reduce cravings, and feel in control of your eating again — without restrictive diets or exhausting willpower battles.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• What food noise is, and the real reasons it happens
• The connection between cravings, hunger cues, and blood sugar
• Simple, realistic shifts that make cravings less intense
• Mindset changes that make peace with food feel natural

If you’re ready to stop obsessing over food, manage cravings with ease, and feel calm and confident around eating, this episode will show you exactly where to start.

💛 Resources & Links:

• Join the Healthy Habits RESET Challenge → RESET
• Learn more about Seismic Shift → Seismic Shift

💌 Connect With Laura:

1. Website: Health Coach for Teachers & Busy, Working Women
2. Instagram: LAURA B. | Teacher turned Health Coach | Podcaster🎙️ (@laura.b.healthy) • Instagram photos and videos
3. TikTok: Laura B. | Health Coach (@laura.b.healthy) | TikTok

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey, hey ladies and welcome back to another episode of the Isn't She Powerful podcast. I'm excited to have you here with me today because we're going to be talking about some simple shifts. I'm talking like the most doable things, like little itty bitty habits that you can start incorporating into your day to day, into your normal everyday routines so that you can start feeling more in control with food. I talk to women all the time who are feeling like they just can't get rid of the chatter in their head when it comes to food. I'm talking about when you're sitting there and you're debating, what's my next meal gonna be? What am I gonna have for dinner? What should I have for breakfast tomorrow? It's like, I'm literally sitting there eating one meal, And I'm thinking about what my next meal is going to be. Why am I like that? These are the questions that women come to me asking me all the time. When you're sitting there telling yourself, I shouldn't be hungry right now. I just ate. Or you're thinking about, you know, should I give in? Should I eat this food? Should I just give in and eat the cookie that's calling my name? Or should I be good and not give in to that cookie and not eat that food that's just, it feels like it's just talking to me. I remember there were so many times when I was teaching, and this is truly why I feel like I'm so good at helping women who have food noise and helping women get rid of the cravings and the binge eating cycles and things like that. Because when I was teaching, it was like there was constantly just junk food all around me, right? There was candy, there were sugary things, there were salty foods, there was just like food around me all the time and it felt like it was talking to me. It felt like I would be sitting in my classroom and I could just hear that candy basket calling out to me, eat some of me, eat some candy, eat some candy. I'd walk down the hall, not even thinking about going into the PTO room. But as soon as I started to get close to it, it's like it starts calling out to me. Like it had a voice and its voice was going into my ears. Like almost like in Harry Potter, whenever he's like hearing the voices in the walls or whatever with the snake thing. I'm not a big Harry Potter person, but my husband is. I've watched the movies a bunch of times. but I still don't remember all the details. Regardless though, it's like that feeling where it's like I'm hearing this voice calling out to me and I healed that part of me. I no longer have that feeling of constantly thinking about food or constantly feeling like it's a mental battle between what I should and shouldn't be eating. And that's what I want to talk about today. I want to get rid of that need for you that's constantly calling out to you because it's not like you're weak or like you're not disciplined enough, you're not strong enough, you don't have enough willpower. That's what we think. We think if I could just be stronger, if I could just have more willpower, if I could just be this type of person, then this would go away from me. But it's not about that. There are real reasons, physical and mental reasons, things that are going on around you and inside of you that are causing you to have this loop in your head at all times, constantly thinking about food. And in this episode, I'm going to be teaching you how to get rid of that food noise and finally get in control with food. As a reminder, on August 12th through 14th, I will be hosting a free three-day challenge. It's called the Healthy Habits Reset Challenge. Day one of this challenge is going to be focused on helping you understand what habits truly do make the biggest difference for you and your health and in your happiness overall. We're gonna be talking about what those habits are and seeing yourself as somebody who actually does those things consistently. Day two is setting up the routines and the habits around those things so that you actually start doing them. And then day three is the mindset shifts, the most important piece of it so that you actually do these things long-term and not just for a couple of days. So that challenge is completely free, August 12th through 14th. If you are not able to attend any of these sessions, sessions live. Everything is recorded and uploaded so that you can go back and rewatch it at a time that works for you, but you do have to be registered in order to get access to the replays. So head on down to the show notes and click the link for the Healthy Habits Reset Challenge or simply go to BeHealthyHabits.com slash reset to join us. Again, that is BeHealthyHabits.com slash reset. Welcome to the Isn't She Powerful podcast. I'm your host, Laura B., health coach, educator, and founder of the Be Healthy Lifestyle. I'm here to bring you all of the health education and motivation so that you can sign off each week feeling equipped and empowered to tackle all of your health goals. Come along with me as I teach you the basics of healthy living so that you can have everyone in your life saying, Isn't she powerful?

UNKNOWN: 4:54

Isn't she powerful?

SPEAKER_00: 5:02

So let's dig into why does this food noise happen in the first place? Like why is it that you even feel out of control with food anyway? Because if you think back to like your childhood or long, long years ago, it's not like all of your thoughts used to be about food. There was something that probably initially triggered that and then from there it just turned into a spiral. Maybe it was a body image something. Something that, you know, if you think back to middle school, a comment was made about your body or somebody made a comment about one of your friend's bodies and then that got you thinking about your own body and so there became this like negative image associated with your body and so you started to treat use food as a way to cope with what you were feeling about your body right I'm gonna eat less food so that I feel better in my body or maybe That same situation happened, but you hear your parents talking about their bodies, and so you catch up on their habits, and they're constantly dieting, they're constantly doing this, that, and the other to make themselves feel better about the body that they live in, and so you realize, oh, well, I look like them, so I probably need to do those same things, right? There's something that triggered it, or in your lifetime at some point that has led you to this place. And from there, it has snowballed and it has turned into this all consuming, constantly feeling out of control with food, constantly feeling like food is the only thing on your mind all the time. So what are the things that are happening around you or that you are doing and causing to be a thing that's going on inside of your body day to day that is causing this food noise to just be so consistent? Number one of these is blood sugar. That is the number one thing. If you are having imbalanced blood sugar and you're going on blood sugar roller coasters all the time, and I have multiple episodes about blood sugar, if you just type in isn't she powerful blood sugar or isn't she powerful cravings into the search bar on wherever you listen to podcasts, you're going to get a list of a few episodes. You can also just go scrolling back because I have so many episodes that are about cravings, blood sugar, and all those things that are related to that. Food noise, I have another episode about food noise specifically that is a really, really great episode and digs into a lot of the reason why you have it and how to get rid of it. But blood sugar, that is the number one thing. When you spike your blood sugar up and some of the things that cause that are one, eating sugar on an empty stomach. So you're eating something like, that doesn't necessarily just have to be candy, cookies, things like that. It can also be you're eating toast for breakfast and that's the only thing that you're having. There's no protein to it. There's no healthy fats to it. So if you're eating carbohydrates or sugar on an empty stomach, your body digests those two things in the exact same way. And so when spike when you eat those things it spikes your blood sugar up really high and then that leads to a quick crash in your blood sugar there's a entire lesson on this inside of my group coaching program seismic shift and I dig into what causes blood sugar imbalances why do those things happen because I want to teach you the why behind it I genuinely believe that that is the key to creating long-term success is if you understand why these things happen or why you need certain habits you're way more likely to stick with them so I have an entire module in seismic shift that talks about blood sugar and how to manage your blood sugar because it's not just for people who have diabetes who are even borderline diabetic or they have family members who have diabetes it has nothing to do with that All of our bodies process carbohydrates and turn them into sugars. All of us need to be aware of our blood sugar, whether you have diabetes or you could potentially have it or whatever. No matter what, everybody needs to know these things. So I have an entire module focused on that. But when we spike up our blood sugar, it drops down really quickly and that drop really scares our body because our body starts to realize, whoa, whoa, whoa, We were just feeling great. Like we had so much energy because when that blood sugar spikes up, it gives you a lot of energy. It also spikes up your dopamine. So it makes your body feel really good for a few minutes. So it spikes up that dopamine. It spikes up your energy levels. And then those things crash and your body's like, what? We were just feeling so good. What happened? And so it starts to send you signals and it starts to say, hey, eat more of that stuff. Eat more of that sugar. Eat more carbs. and you start to think, hmm, I think there were more cookies in the workroom. I think that we had some soda in the pantry. And you start thinking about all of these things that you could be eating. That is because of that blood sugar spike, okay? So it's not because you're weak. It's not because something's wrong with you. It's not because you had, you know, you just are predetermined by society and by your family genetics to be somebody who struggles with always constantly wanting sugary foods or always constantly wanting to eat. It's not those things. It's that you ate something on an empty stomach and your body is doing what your body is designed to do. It is designed to keep your blood sugar levels stable. So when they drop, it sends you signals to get them back up again. That is simply all that is happening is your body is functioning as it's designed to function. So how do you make that not happen? In this case, we need to get rid of those blood sugar spikes in the beginning. You need to be focused on eating well-balanced meals and focused on having habits that keep your blood sugar stable so that you don't ever even spike it in the first place. And again, that's a lot of what I teach inside of my group coaching program, but I also have episodes on the podcast that go into some detail about that as well. Another big thing is that you are under eating. You're not eating enough. Listen to me. If you are constantly not eating enough food, of course you're going to be thinking about food all the time. Think Think about a literal baby, right? Like you had a baby, it's a couple months old. And if you constantly didn't give it enough food, it would always be crying, wanting more food. Think about a toddler who's constantly saying, more, more, I want more, more, more. It's not because they're just being a greedy little kid, they're hungry. And your body is the exact same now as it was then. If you don't give it enough food, then you are always going to be thinking about food because your body is always going to be hungry. And the things that your body needs is always going to prioritize the fact that it needs food, water, shelter, connection. Those basic needs are what your body is going to prioritize, okay? So if you're not giving it enough food, then it is going to make sure that you are always thinking about giving it more food because it's hungry. So you have to eat enough food. And this comes from years of dieting. That's the biggest reason that I see so many women chronically under eating is because they have spent so many years dieting on this diet, that diet, cutting their calories, intermittent fasting, counting their points, cutting out food groups that now you don't know how to eat regularly. You don't know what a well-balanced meal is. When I say, hey, eat a well-balanced meal, you don't know what that means. When I say, hey, make sure that you're eating enough food, you don't know what that means. That's the problem because we've spent so many years dieting that now we're confused and that's a huge piece of my mission and what I want to help people understand is what does it actually mean to take care of your body what does that actually look like so we have to start paying attention if your body is telling you that it needs more food You have to start listening. You have to give it more food. And that may feel uncomfortable at first. That may feel like, you know what, it may really scare you because you've been on diets for so long. But you have to give it enough food if you ever want to get to the place of not thinking about food all the time. The only way that's gonna stop happening for some of us is to eat more food, because you're actually gonna feel full for the first time. And one of the things that really make a big difference is having breakfast. If you skip breakfast, you've gotta stop doing that. That's the first meal of the day. You really do have to get out of bed, get yourself started for the day, and have that breakfast within the first hour or so of waking up, because I'm telling you, that makes a huge, huge difference, not only in your energy levels, only in your mood, not only in your weight loss, but it also makes a huge difference in the amount of control that you have around food for the rest of the day. So if you are skipping breakfast or you're having a sugary breakfast, then it is time to make some tweaks to that area of food for you. Another thing is food rules and restrictions. That's another huge reason why this food noise is happening because you keep telling your brain, nope, can't have it. Nope, can't have it. Nope, can't have it. And to go back to the example that I keep using with children. If you're constantly telling a kid, no, you can't have that. No, you can't have that. What do they want? That's the only thing they want. Your kid comes up to you, mom, can I play on your phone? No, this is mom's phone. But mom, I really want to play on the phone. Nope, this is my phone. And they keep asking, can I play on your phone? Nope. Can I play on your phone? Nope. And you keep taking it away from them. Or sometimes you give it to them, but other times you snatch it away. then they're going to want to use that phone even more. And so you have to stop putting so many foods off limits. That, again, is one of those things that feels so uncomfortable because of years of dieting, because you have conditioned yourself to believe that some foods are bad for you and some foods are good for you. And if you eat bad foods, then you are a bad person, so those foods need to be off limits. Because of that mindset, you have food noise, okay? until you can get over the fact that some foods are not bad and some foods are not good food is just food and all of these foods have a place in our diet and all of these foods need to be portion controlled we need to know how much of these foods to eat when to eat them we need to have some boundaries with our food but we don't need to have restriction with our food so stop with all of the restriction and the food noise and the all or nothing thinking it's that's the idea that like one slip up is going to to mess everything up and so when you do slip up it turns into this huge spiral and this huge obsession with oh my gosh i messed up i guess i might as well just give it all up i go all in i'm gonna eat everything in the pantry now and i'll start over again tomorrow or i'll start over again next week and that is the all or nothing cycle that you keep getting yourself into that's another huge reason is because you have little pieces of your mindset that need some work that need some shifting so that you can finally feel in control with food now the last section of the reason why this happened I kind of wrote this down into physical triggers mental triggers and now habitual triggers a habitual trigger would be eating in a reactive way instead of with a rhythm so what I mean by that is is you don't have a certain time of day that you eat you don't have a set schedule you don't have any of those things instead you're eating based on how you feel based on your emotions if you're feeling great you're gonna eat XYZ. If you're feeling bad, you're going to eat XYZ. If you're feeling neutral, you might not even eat anything at all because you allow your emotions to contribute to the way that you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, what you eat. And so that is a really big thing here is the emotional eating patterns. And I talk a lot about that in the cravings episodes that I have mentioned before. But also, again, in week four of seismic shift, we dig into what is specifically causing your cravings. Is it your emotional eating? Is it that you have some of these physical triggers like specifically for you what is causing this? And that's always a very eye opening conversation. The other habitual thing that goes on is that we associate certain times and places with eating. And so we end up eating out of habit, not out of hunger. So for example, I had a client once who, growing up, every time she did something good, her mom would give her potato chips. And so once she got older, if something good happened, she had a good day at work, something good happened in her life, then she would turn to potato chips. And she realized through working with me, she was like, oh, I never even really connected those dots. I just knew that I craved potato chips sometimes. And now I understand why. And so that eye-opening piece of it, understanding the why behind your cravings, that's the first step. If you don't know what's causing them, you can't get rid of them. And so you have to understand as I'm talking through this, which of these kind of feels like it might be me, right? I used to do this a lot whenever I was teaching. At the end of the school day, everything would get quiet and I would just start snacking. And so eventually I began to associate 3 p.m. with snack time. And even if I wasn't hungry, I was going to eat a snack around 3 p.m. Even if I was still full from lunch, even if something was going on, and even if I was busy, no matter what the situation, I was going to eat a snack around that time because I had conditioned myself to believe that that was the time that we needed a snack. And so maybe the reason why you're having this food noise is habitual. So now the question becomes, okay, Laura, so what are these simple shifts? I now understand where my food noise came from. How do I now get rid of it? Okay, so maybe you're like, okay, yeah, I was having sugar on an empty stomach. Okay, yeah, I do have those food rules with food and I do label a lot of foods off limits or maybe you do just snack at a certain time or you associate certain emotions with certain foods or with the need to eat. You now know those things. So let's talk about some simple shifts. I have five things for you. And I recommend that you choose just one of these to get started with. And I'm telling you that these are really easy, really simple things that you can start incorporating into your day-to-day that will make a big difference for you. So the first one is create a predictable eating rhythm. So that goes with what I was talking about with the habitual cravings, okay? So eating a well-balanced meal or snack every about four hours can prevent these blood sugar dips and blood sugar spikes that I was talking about before. It keeps you from getting to the point of being overly hungry, but it also gives you the nourishment that you need and it's not letting you just pick up a snack here and there and you're just ending up snacking the entire day. So have a well-balanced meal or snack about every four hours. That's the amount of time that it should take your body to digest if you are having well-balanced meals. Now if you're realizing but Laura I'm actually like my tummy is really growling within like two hours of me eating that's a sign that you're not eating enough protein and fiber and that you're just simply not eating enough food in general so make sure that your meals are not snacks that you are actually having a full meal when you have your meal now the other thing to do to get into this predictable rhythm with food I just kind of mentioned it is making sure that you're not grazing all day you're not just picking at food here and there you're not just having a bite of this a handful of this a little bit of this a little bit of that throughout the day and also that you're not skipping meals and just like like I said grazing throughout the day make sure that you are having these three to four well balanced meals every four hours so that you can feel really good and really in control with food the second thing is it balance your blood sugar with every single meal what does that mean that means pair of protein with something that has fiber and something that has fats. Protein, fiber, and fat at every single meal. And if you have those things at all of your meals, your blood sugar will be happy and you will not get into the place of having these dips in your blood sugar. So some easy examples, let's say that it's breakfast. Greek yogurt, that would have protein and healthy fats in it. Berries, that would be your fiber. Chia seeds, that also has protein and healthy fats in it. So combining those three things is going to give your body what it needs to keep your blood sugar stable. And it may still have a little bit of that sweetness to it if you are a huge sweet tooth person. It might still have a little bit of that sweetness to it so that you get rid of that sweet tooth while also keeping your blood sugar stable and if you are going to have something a dessert type food you're going to have some chocolate chips you're going to have a cookie or brownie or a piece of cake or whatever that is for you if you are going to have those things then have them after a well-balanced meal and not before not on an empty stomach number three this one is so important and so hard for so many people that grip that you have on those food rules the ones where you tell yourself this food's bad this food's good this is off limits i can have any as much of this food as i want those food rules are keeping you stuck so you have to get rid of these food noise and of these food rules and i'm not saying that it has to be completely all at once you just stop living by these rules because that that's impossible they're still there they're still a part of you there's still a huge piece of your mindset right now so over time loosen your grip on them before eventually letting go right now the way that it is is the more that you forbid the more that you push this food away and say it's bad for me it's bad for me it's bad for me the louder that the noise is gonna get the more that you tell yourself you can't have something the more you want it okay so stop telling yourself you can't have it just say I'm gonna have some balance I have so many clients specifically one that I worked with during seismic shift a couple of rounds ago she had these incredible food rules like she was always telling herself I can't have this I can't have that I can't have this I can't have that and eventually she said I'm just going to give myself permission to eat these foods and that doesn't mean I'm going to eat them every day all day but if I want to eat these foods then I have permission to eat these foods she gave herself permission and she started to not only see that the scale went down because she was no longer binge eating on those foods or any other foods she also started to see that she was no longer controlled by those thoughts of food so if you start to just loosen your grip on these food noise on these I'm sorry on the food rules you're going to watch the food noise start to slowly disappear number four get curious instead of judgmental this is a rule that my clients live by we will never we will never Come at ourselves from a place of judgment, just simply curiosity. When the food noise is loud, whenever something is going on and it feels like that food is screaming at you, telling you, you have to eat this, you have to eat me, you have to eat me, come eat me. When that is happening, just pause and ask yourself, what is causing this? Where is this noise coming from? Did I do something to cause a physical cue within my body, a physical craving? Is something going on mentally? Is this emotional? Is this habitual? What is going on? Did I skip a meal? Did I have too much sugar on an empty stomach? Am I feeling an emotion? What is going on right now? What is causing this for me? And it's not saying, oh my gosh, why are you having this food noise? We said we weren't doing this anymore. It is simply asking yourself why it is happening. The question why needs to become one of your best friends. Start asking yourself why. Because when you bring awareness to the reason why it's happening, It takes away the power from that craving. That craving no longer has control over you when you understand what has caused it. Because now you're able to make the next move one that is well educated. You're able to know what to do next versus just eating the food, eating that sugary food or junk food, whatever it may be, out of just like pure binge, right? You're not just stuffing it in. You're able to make a calculated next move. The fifth simple thing that you can start doing, the fifth simple habit, anchor eating to your life, not to your emotions. Have times of day where you are specifically saying, I'm going to eat it this time of day. I'm going to have breakfast. I'm going to have lunch. I'm going to have a snack. I'm going to have dinner. Not, I'm going to wait until I'm feeling sad or feeling happy or feeling this or that for me to be able to eat. Don't even allow yourself to say, I'm going to wait until there's time for me to eat today. No, give yourself a set schedule, a set routine. Build it into your life. Anchor your life around the food that you're eating, not around, and don't allow your emotions to be the thing that anchors to when you eat. The food noise will get quieter when your body starts to trust that it is going to get the food that it needs to be well nourished. When your brain can trust that you're not just eating for the sake of eating. You're not eating out of emotion. You're not eating at weird times. You are going to eat around the same time every day. You're going to have well-balanced meals. You're going to have color. You're going to have fiber. You're going to have protein. You're going to give your body what it needs. When it trusts that that is going to happen, the food noise will start to go away because that food noise is not a problem. The food noise is yelling out to you, telling you something is wrong. I am not being well taken care of right now. You will wouldn't have this food noise if everything was all hunky dory inside your body right now. But it's not. You're either not eating enough, you're eating imbalanced meals, you're not getting enough sleep, you're too stressed. Something is not going the way that it should be inside your body. And when your body can start to trust that things will go the way that they should go, then that's whenever the food noise starts to go away because it's like, okay, we can back off. She's got this. She's taking care of us for now. But when you're not taking the care of it that's when that food noise is loud because it feels like it needs to scream at you so that you start listening so that you start taking care of yourself so this is a skill this is a skill for you to build to start listening to your body to start understanding the signs and start taking care of your body in this way and over time the more that you practice it the more that you approach this from a place of curiosity and not a place of judgment the more that you are going to get so much better at understanding yourself understanding when something's not right. And this is going to become effortless over time. Taking care of yourself will become so effortless over time. And if you're thinking, this sounds great, but I really need help putting this into practice and making this happen. One, this is why the Healthy Habits Reset Challenge is happening. And that's why I do multiple challenges a year to help you through things that are going on in your life, okay? So get signed up for the Healthy Habits Reset Challenge. It's down in the show notes below. There's not only the time in the in the live calls that you get to come into the chat and ask your questions there's also a group chat that you get to be a part of where you get to put in your your homework you get to ask questions you get to share what's going on and you get live feedback from me actually me okay so go on and get registered for the challenge because that's going to give you some practical steps to start calming this food noise and feeling way more in control with food and also seismic shift my eight-week group coaching program is such a gold mine mind for getting over these parts of your health journey for understanding what you should be eating for understanding when and how to eat it to reach your personal health goals to understand what you should be doing for exercise and how much water you should be drinking how to get rid of your cravings and food noise and finally feel more in control with food your mindset shifts that have to be made in order for you to feel more in control with food that is what this program is all about and it will be opening up very very soon waitlisters do have access at the time of the release of this episode I know many people come back and listen to episodes much later so if you're listening to this live and real in time then you can go on and send me a message right now if you're not on the waitlist and we can chat about getting your name onto the waitlist to give you access to seismic shift otherwise it will be opening in just a few weeks and I would love nothing more than to get to support you through that so with that being said thank you so much for joining me for this episode I hope that you got something out of this and I hope that you take one of those five habits I hope there's something that stuck with you enough for you to take it and for you to be like I'm gonna start doing this daily I'm gonna start applying this I'm gonna pay really close attention to this thing and then I just want to see how far it will take you send me a message over on Instagram let me know what stuck with you I'd love to support you through it And ladies, until next time, remember that you are so powerful. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see you again next week. And always remember, the more you know, the more you grow.