Bites & Body Love (v)

How to Quiet The Food Noise (and Body Image Noise)

• Jamie Magdic

Share episode

Ever feel like thoughts about food and your body take up way too much mental space? You're not alone. As a dietitian and body image specialist, I've been helping clients silence this exhausting mental chatter for a decade.

Food noise—that constant mental loop analyzing what you've eaten, what you should eat, how it impacts your body, and whether you're "good" or "bad" because of it—isn't just annoying. It's stealing your peace, your relationships, your presence, and your joy. When your brain is constantly occupied with food math, rules, and shame spirals, you're physically present but mentally elsewhere.

In this transformative episode, I break down what food noise really is, where it comes from, and its profound impact on your life. Diet culture, trauma, family messaging, restriction—these all plant weeds in our mental gardens that grow into overwhelming thought patterns. The irony? The more you try to control food through restriction and rules, the louder the noise becomes.

But here's the life-changing truth: you can completely silence food noise. Not just reduce it by 75%—eliminate it entirely. Through awareness, ditching restriction, addressing root beliefs, and doing the necessary body image work alongside food healing, you can return to a clean slate where food is just food. Where you eat, enjoy, and move on without the mental gymnastics.

My own journey from 24/7 food thoughts to complete food freedom proves this transformation is possible. Now I eat, trust my body, and focus my energy on what truly matters in life. This freedom isn't achieved overnight, but it's absolutely attainable with specialized support and commitment to the process.

Ready to reclaim all the mental energy currently devoted to food and body obsessions? This episode is your first step toward silencing the noise for good. Your brain—and your life—deserve that peace.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Bites and Body Love. I'm Jamie, a dietitian and body image specialist. Join me to liberate yourself from diets and body shame, embracing true freedom and confidence with food and body. Take your place at the table on this transformative journey towards a life of freedom and confidence. Silencing the food noise let's talk about it.

Speaker 1:

I feel like food noise is such a buzz word right now, such a buzz phrase, and yet I've been talking about food noise with my clients for about a decade and it's very, very common and it's very important to address because it really impacts your life. So let's get into it. Let's talk about what food noise is, what that can entail, how we start getting rid of the food noise and completely silencing it, what you can do today, right after you listen to this episode, and how we can start to change it and why we want to start changing it. When I say food noise in this episode, you can also think about this, as we're going to lump body image noise in with it. Okay, because if you have food noise going on in your head, I'm sure you have body image noise as well. So we're going to lump that all into one food and body image noise, but I'm going to refer to it most likely as food noise, because that is the buzzword going around. So if you feel like thoughts around food take up way too much space in your brain, you are so not alone. This is so common. If you struggle with disordered eating or body image distress, then you most likely also struggle with food noise. So food noise, defined simply, is that constant mental chatter about what you should eat, what you already ate, how much of it, when, whether it was good enough, what you should eat later, how it's going to impact your body, what your body, how your body, is going to change. It's exhausting and it's constant, right, it's usually is taken up pretty much a huge chunk of your day. So, simply, it's just that mental chatter that is spiraling, analyzing, checking, fear-based, anxious, talking about food and body image.

Speaker 1:

So what food noise can look like? Let's chat about that, just in case you are listening and you're unsure if it's something that you struggle with, although I'm sure if you, you you know, just hear the phrase food noise, you're thinking. If you have it, you're thinking, wow, okay, I just put a name to what's happening. I just didn't know. Maybe it was as big of a problem as it is, or I didn't think, I just thought it was normal. It's not normal. It's common, but it's not normal. It's common but it's not normal and you don't deserve. You can't have a life free of food and body image, noise, and that's what we can do when we get to full recovery and what we can have. So it's not normal but it is very common.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about what exactly that looks like in real life. That may be obsessive planning of your meals, tracking every single bite, calorie counting, knowing exactly how much you're consuming and what you're consuming. It may look like thinking about what your next snack might be or your next meal while you're still eating. It could be, while you're eating, constantly obsessing over that. So, by saying things like can I eat this much? Should I be done? Am I full yet? Am I still hungry? But like, obsess, like anxiously with those questions you know, worried about eating past fullness, shaming yourself, telling yourself, okay, I'm going to be eating this now, but I can't eat this later. If I eat this now, it could be shaming yourself while you're allowing yourself to have something that you feel is like off limits or, quote unquote, bad right. So if you're eating a cupcake and usually don't allow that. You might be saying something like, okay, this is the last cupcake I'm going to have in a long time and I'm not going to have another one until it's someone's birthday and you know what. Have you right? You're analyzing and planning and shaming, shaming yourself, while you're allowing yourself to have it, okay. Or maybe you're planning your next exercise, or maybe you are thinking about how it's going to impact your body when you're eating, or how you're going to make amends later because of what you ate, okay. So that's all different examples of food noise.

Speaker 1:

It could be guilt, this constant like guilt that you have around body image and after you're eating something off plan or if you don't exercise, I should add exercise noise in there. It's like disordered eating, body image, shame noise. So guilt after eating or skipping a meal plan or skipping, I'm sorry, an exercise or eating something off plan. So all that guilt, it's the anxiety and the anxious thoughts over eating, over eating something that was unplanned, eating something. When you go out to eat, eating something off of your safe foods list, it can be asking yourself should I eat this? Did I eat too much? What if I get hungry later and it's just on a loop, right, the food noise is on a loop, it's not. It's normal to have a little bit of food noise, right? That's our inner dialogue that we have with everything else, like what feels good to eat right now? When am I going to eat next? Should I eat something now so I'm not too hungry later? Those are, you know, normal, but they're not on a loop.

Speaker 1:

Other examples might be comparing in your mind what you're eating compared to what others are eating, comparing your body to other people's bodies, exercise to other people's exercise, and then, of course, body image noise. So that might be those like body image checking thoughts, whether that is. You know, how's my stomach feel right now? How do my arms feel? Do they feel like they got bigger? Did they change? I need to go hop on the scale. Okay, if I gained this amount of weight today, I need to make sure I lose that tomorrow. I got to get the scale down to this. I have to hide my body. Can people tell that? You know I feel bloated today. All of those thoughts around body image that are also in a loop and they go hand in hand. They really go together.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about the impact of food noise. I think this is a really important to talk about before we talk about getting rid of food noise, because a lot of people downplay how awful and impactful food noise might be and you may say, oh no, it's awful. I do agree it's awful, but sometimes you can you can name that it's awful but really downplay the impact. So I want you, as you're listening today, to really ask yourself and be honest with yourself about how it is impacting you. Okay, I want you to, I really want you to be honest about how it impacts your daily life, your larger goals, how it has impacted you in the future, how it's impacting you today and how it may impact you in the future, and how this may not line up with your values and your goals in life. So, the hidden impact of food noise this is not an exhaustive list, just as in the examples I just gave, is not an exhaustive list, but I think you're going to relate to a lot of these.

Speaker 1:

So the hidden impact of food noise. The first one mental exhaustion, decision fatigue and brain fog. When you are constantly obsessing over something, you don't have a lot of brain space left right, you only have so much brain space. Let's think of it as a pie chart and you all know I use this pie chart example a lot. But it's very true and it's a really good way to think about how much energy and space we have to give. But when we think about, when we think about energy, food and body image all of the time, it's going to leave little space for everything else and it's going to make you exhausted. It's going to make you, it's going to make it hard to be able to be present in other areas of your life. It's going to be hard to be able to think clearly because we've used all, we're exhausted and used up all our space for the noise that's in our brains about food and body image. Next impact it has interfering with relationships, presence, joy and confidence. Those all deserve its own category. I'm not sure why I put them all together. We'll break them apart a little bit.

Speaker 1:

But I want you to ask yourself how does food and body image noise impact my relationships? Truly write it out the nuanced ways it impacts how you interact with your children, your partner, your friends, people on the daily, dating, your family. How does it impact your ability to be present with them, to say yes to spontaneous events around food, which are often Also events around body image. When you are asked to wear a bathing suit, or you want to wear a bathing suit to the beach, when you want to be present with your kids, when you're playing with them, but you keep thinking about the way your belly is sitting, or that you are shaming yourself for something you just ate, that's taking you out of the moment. How is it impacting your presence in all areas of your life Maybe your career, maybe the goals you have for traveling, maybe the way you just want to feel in your body and in your life? How is it impacting your ability to thrive? How is it impacting your peace, your joy, your confidence in yourself?

Speaker 1:

It's like I need to take a breath after that, because it's just thinking about how it has impacted me, how it impacts clients, how it has impacted clients, and it's a huge impact that we really downplay, that we don't need. You do not deserve this, okay. So the next impact that it can have it can really mimic and cause and fuel anxiety, depression, lack of energy can really mimic and fuel those things, and those go hand in hand with the first two impacts that I named. It really steals your peace and distracts you from actually living. So it keeps you really stuck. An impact of food noise and body image noise so it keeps you really stuck. An impact of food noise and body image noise is it keeps you really stuck. I was very stuck in my, my ways, my mindset, my ability, my ways of being able to view my future, my possibilities, what I was able to move about my life. It really impacted my ability to actually live and took away a lot of my life in a lot of different ways. And once I was able to recover and get to full recovery which means no more food noise which we'll get to in a second then I was able to man, start relationships that I was so excited about friendships, romantic relationships, able to be present with my stepdaughter, be present in my life, be present, advance my career man, the daily, the hobbies, traveling without anxiety. And it opened up a ton of doors In addition to that just doors I didn't know that were available, ways I could feel I didn't know that were available freedom. Another impact it has is it really impacts your feelings of morality and self-worth. So it makes food and body image feel like a moral issue. It makes food feel like a moral issue instead of just a human need. Yeah, the impacts go on and on and on, and I want you to ask yourself I hope you ask yourself, as I brought you up, each one how does it truly impact me? And get detailed, the more detailed the better, because we really want to be honest with the little and big impacts it has on our life and how that all adds up. Okay, and then take a moment here too, to ask yourself how else does it impact me? How else does it impact me? How does it impact my relationship with the mirror? How does it impact my relationship with travel? How does it impact my relationship with exercise and movement? How does it impact my relationship with how I see my future and my mindset? So, where does food noise come from? Where does it come from? Food noise was not something you were born with. Food noise is not something you were born with. You were born with a clean, fresh slate right. Food was just food, body image was just body image, and I'm sure you all can pinpoint a time when that shifted and some of you, unfortunately, have started happening when you were really young. So it might be hard to recall a time when it wasn't there, but I want you to recall, if you can, and know, that we are born with a garden and what happens as we interact with the world around us and the people around us is that things are planted in our garden that we didn't plant ourselves. We were too young but things were planted in our garden and we allow, even as we did get older. We allow certain things to be planted in our garden because it's confusing, and so what happens is then the food noise is created, the body image noise is created. How is it created? What comes? What are those plants coming into our garden, right? Who is able? Who starts to plant these flowers, or I should say weeds, into our garden? And we need to replant the flowers, but who planted those weeds? Who planted those weeds? That we didn't ask for is going to be. Diet culture is one, and that starts conditioning us from a young age, right? What were, what were some of your earliest memories of diet culture that you experienced? I mean it is in your books. Fat shaming, food shaming is in in childhood books, in childhood movies, tv shows. It's all over the place. I feel like it's getting a little bit better, but it is all over the place. It's in magazines it's. It is diet culture that impacted your family and your friends that you were. You were a victim to Diet culture. Maybe you were a victim to yourself if you were put on a diet at a young age, right? The next thing where it comes from is it can come from messages from media, influencers, family, friends, so the people in our life that are in our closest circle and even our expanded circle, people at school. These messages and weeds get planted and then we water them. Where else does food noise come from? Trauma, experiences tied to control, worth or body image All of these create an environment for food noise and body image noise to possibly thrive in your garden, because food is something that I mean. It's already talked poorly about, right and told we need to manage and manipulate it and we can't trust it. If we can grab control of that right, it's something we can focus on, it's something we can maybe put our worth into when we're struggling's a way to be able to cope with our tough emotions, and many times we were not given the tools to take care of ourselves and understand how to process emotions, how to take care of ourselves, how to deal with really hard things happening to us Sometimes. You know, the people who are supposed to teach us those tools were the ones who were causing that trauma, and so it is a very resilient way to cope when we do not have other tools. Food noises food noise and body image noises is a resilient way to cope. Right, it could be potentially much better than other things. Right, because otherwise we would just yeah, we wouldn't be able. It's a way of surviving, it's a way of surviving. It's a way of surviving, and so it comes in, gives us something to control, gives us something to ruminate on, gives us something to measure based off of. And it's a way of coping. And it's actually a really resilient way of finding a way to cope. When we don't have a way to cope, where else does it come from? It comes from chronic restriction, even if it's mental and not physical. So if you're not physically not allowing yourself sugar, but you are shaming yourself the whole way through, even binging on it, but shaming yourself, this is all chronic restrictions and it's chronic messaging that you are giving yourself as well. So, chronic restriction, chronic malnutrition, chronic allowing your chronic restriction around, yeah, really anything. Exercise, body image when you're restricting your body, types of foods, rules around food, all of that. Actually, you know people think that that helps with their trust around food and being able to quiet food noise. It actually makes it way harder, quiet food noise. It actually makes it way harder. The more you try and control and restrict and manipulate food in your body, the louder food noise is going to be, and I want you to reflect on that. Think about when you are dieting, when you are trying to lose weight, when you're constantly hopping on scale, when you're trying to manipulate and manage your body. What happens? That chronic restriction, the constant shaming, the chronic control what happens? Does food noise and body image noise go down or does it go up or does it shift? What happens? Because even if it's shifting forms, if it's still there and taking up a lot of your time and energy, it's still food noise. We shouldn't have that chatter in our brain constantly. We should be thinking about food only when we're planning for it, when we're eating it, when we get hungry right, when we're excited about it. Shouldn't take up much brain space. Same with body image and exercise and where else it comes from is, of course. I mean it's all tied and go as under this category of unhealed, disordered eating and body distrust and body shame when you're in full recovery. It's a place where I believe in full recovery, you have full, unwavering trust with all foods and body and you and your body being on the same team. You'll hear me say this time and time again. So if you still have food noise constantly in your brain and you feel like you've gone far in your recovery, I want to challenge you that maybe you haven't gone far enough and you deserve to see what's in full recovery. Because if you're still, if you're able to decrease your behaviors and maybe eat more, restrict less, feel less anxiety around it, but you're still having constant food and body image noise, that means the trust isn't there. You might have been able to change your behaviors a bit, which is amazing. Don't want to downplay that. But what if you can fully trust food in your body where you can absolutely let go of control of those thoughts? Because the only reason those thoughts are there is because we feel we need to think about them so we can analyze, spiral and stay quote unquote in control. So, again, not an exhaustive list, but those are some of the places that and the most typical and common places where that food noise comes from and why it can occur and why it's developed. So the truth about this is you're not alone. I said it before, I say it on all my podcasts, but you're really not alone in this. It's very, very normal for I'm sorry, not normal common. It's very common for people to struggle with food and body image noise. Me in the past and most of the clients that I work with if not known all of them that I have worked with and work with, have lived with food and body image noise for years without realizing how much it has taken from them, without downplaying it, without knowing how to get rid of it. They've really struggled, everyone I've worked with. So you are not alone and that also matters. It is very hopeful because all many, many of the folks that I have seen to full recovery or who have stuck with the process, and including myself, have been able to completely get rid of food and body image noise by doing the work that's necessary to get there, so you can absolutely get rid of it. So it's common and it doesn't have to be your struggle anymore. Okay, so now let's get into the fun stuff how to quiet that food noise. How can we quiet that food noise. Number one by listening to this podcast, right, you are building awareness. Continue to start awareness. The number the first thing I want to talk about is starting with awareness Listening to this podcast to start reflecting on your own individual experience to this podcast. To start reflecting on your own individual experience. Notice how food thoughts pop up in different situations and body image thoughts show up in certain situations and don't just go with it. Ask yourself where is this coming from? Do I want this? How does it impact my life? Why do I have these beliefs? Where did these beliefs come from? What would I rather this look like? Start with awareness. The more you can tap into how you're feeling, what you're thinking, where they came from, with curiosity and compassion. I'm going to say that again, the more awareness you build, without judgment, but with curiosity and compassion, the more you're going to learn about yourself and learn about how to recover from having constant food and body image noise, because it's a great way of gathering information about yourself and getting to know yourself. Number two you need to ditch the restriction diet, disordered eating mindset, but we're going to call it. Ditch the restriction mindset Restriction from certain foods, restriction calories, restriction of exercise, restriction of your life and the things you want to do. Restriction around exercise. We need to ditch the restriction mindset. Your brain can't let go of food and body image when it thinks it's in a famine. I'm going to say that again If you do not ditch the restriction and work to ditch the restriction, your brain isn't going to let go of food because it's in a place where it feels it is unable to get the restriction. Your brain isn't going to let go of food because it's in a place where it feels it is unable to get the food. It doesn't have enough food, it can't have all foods and if it feels restricted, it is going to keep those thoughts in your mind. It doesn't matter if you're allowing yourself a cupcake every day. If you don't have trust around that cupcake, your brain is going to want two cupcakes and three cupcakes and never be able to get rid of that. We need true trust and no restriction, and I know when I'm saying that you're thinking, oh my gosh, that sounds scary or how do I get there? Go listen to my other podcasts. Eme is absolutely a way I 100, 200% believe you can get to a place where you're not restricting. It just is multi-layered and it includes body image work and oftentimes support and specialized support. Very important there, specialized support. But you can absolutely get away from restrictive mindset. I know it feels very impossible because restriction shifts and we might get rid of some restriction but we feel like we can't get rid of all restriction right and it's very uncomfortable and oftentimes our body reacts to that. We start feeling out of control. We might feel like we start overeating or our weight gets out of control. That is normal. That is it rebalancing itself. That's why support is really really, really helpful. So you're not stopping the process because you're scared. It's scary, it's uncomfortable and your body doesn't want to overeat or feel uncomfortable. It wants to get to a place where it's eating in a joyful, respectful way. And when you build that trust which means you need to stop restricting it and start trusting it and do all the work around that you can absolutely get to a place of full recovery. And again, if you don't start trusting food and body image, you're not going to quiet that food noise. You got to build trust. You got to go through the process of trust and all the intricacies of that. Next thing unpack the root beliefs. So why are you really trying to control or soothe with food and body manipulation. We need to get to the core beliefs, planted in your garden and watered over time for years, of why you are really trying to control and soothe with food. Where does it come from? How is it tied to your worth? How is it tied to your safety? How is it, how is, what are the unconscious root beliefs around why you feel you need to control food and why you feel you need to control body? Next one do the body image work, not just the food work. It is labeled and often you know how it's talked and spoken about. Is food noise. However, you're not going to get rid of the food noise if you don't. You don't also work to get rid of the negative body image noise. Don't also work to get rid of the negative body image noise and the body image noise, the constant thought of body image, whatever it might be negative, neutral. We need to get rid of all that noise. So, do the body image work. If you do not also do the body image work, along with the food work, you are going to remain stuck in pseudo recovery, and I see this all the time, and that's why in my program there's so much focus on body image, work as well as food, because you will backslide and not get to full recovery where you truly feel free and can let these things behind and think about all the things in your life other than food and body. You cannot get there if you don't do the body, and the last thing to start doing to get rid of food noise is get support. Get support. Get help from someone who is specialized, who's walked people through this, who know what they're doing. It will get you to recovery a lot faster and help you get to recovery. Work with someone who's strained in this. This isn't about willpower, it's about rewiring. It is about re-educating. It's about doing all the work, no stone unturned, to get to full recovery and getting uncomfortable and doing things differently. Okay, one last thing I want to name and also, of course, side note. If you have any questions about this, let me know. Dm me at jamierd underscore and let me know what questions do you have about food noise? What did I not cover that you liked here? I can always do a part two or a part three or a part four. I'm happy to keep chatting about this. This is so common. I have spoken about this for years in many different contexts and I absolutely believe you can quiet it, a hundred percent quiet it. Okay, I want to leave you with this and that is the to scream from the rooftops or scream out on this mic for this podcast is yes, you can fully get rid of food and body image noise Fully. No more, not just half of them, not just a quarter of them, not 75% of them, but back to a clean slate where you think of food in a respectful, joyful, healthy way. I have I want to share a little bit about my experience and I've worked with tons of clients to help them quiet. Quiet their food noise, but food noise. But I'll speak to myself. No journey, two journeys are the same, right? No one, no journey is the same. But I want to name this because I used to think about food and my body 24 seven, 24 seven. I'd be physically present with people, but mentally stuck in food, math rules, shame spirals constantly. It took up so much of my energy. Now, oh my gosh, food is just food. I trust my body, I trust food, I trust movement. I eat, I move on. I enjoy food out. I move on. I make a meal full of veggies. I move on. I go get ice cream afterwards, I move on. I trust my body, I trust it's on my team and this kind of peace with food and body image is a hundred percent possible. I would not be doing this work It'd be very hard, sad work if I didn't believe it was a hundred percent possible and I do. I believe that for you. Okay, now I want to normalize that this journey is not an overnight journey, but it's absolutely worth it and you absolutely deserve to invest fully in yourself. Think of that. Why is it important to invest, to do this work and get uncomfortable? Because people don't like to get uncomfortable. They don't like to invest in themselves. They don't until they like hit a rock bottom right Potentially, or they've exhausted the dieting option which, even though they've seen their last 20 diets didn't work. They still don't want to invest in doing something different. And that's because it's scary. Okay, but think of what it gives you back when you truly seek full recovery and invest in that. What does it give you back for relationships? What does it give you back for your values? What does it give back in your career? What does it give back in your daily life? What does it allow you to do. It's completely transforming of your life. Yet we invest in these other things that don't give us anything back, and yet it's hard to get uncomfortable and invest in ourselves, in this, this, in this way, and so I want you to sit with that as well. If you are having an opportunity to invest in yourself and invest in full recovery. What's happening when you say it's not the right time, no, I can't, I can't, it's not for me. I'm telling you, it is for you. You can get there with the right tools specialized support, education, mindset. Yes, you can, you can get there. So if you're ready to quiet the food noise and the body image noise and you noise and to finally feel completely free around food and body, I'd love to help you get there. If you'd like to work with me to uncover all those root causes, to change those behaviors, to recreate your relationship with food and body and get back to that garden that was a clean slate and plant a bunch of beautiful flowers in there, I want to help you clear out that food noise and that body image noise for good. If you're interested, dm me at jamierd underscore about how you can work with me and how we can get you to full recovery and I can't wait to get you there If it's not the right time for you yet. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Let me know how else I can support you around this topic and others, and I can't wait to see you next time. You're doing great. This is not an overnight journey. You're doing fabulous. I believe in recovery for you. Okay, until next time, have a great day. Thank you for tuning in to Bites and Body Love. Ready for true food and body freedom? Apply to join my program True Body Image Freedom for Everybody, where we will guide you every step of the way. Dm me at jamierd underscore on Instagram or Facebook for a no pressure conversation so we can learn more about you and your fit for the program. Remember, every step toward loving your body is a victory. Subscribe and leave a review to support our message of body liberation. Stay awesome and see you next time You've got this.