If you’re curious about what it looks like to stop pursuing weight loss, click here for some fabulous freebies that will help guide you in your journey!

Click here to leave me a review on iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!

Find FREE food voice resources here.

Thank you for supporting Find Your Food Voice!

Julie: Hey there, welcome to episode 364 of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. I am your host, Julie Duffy Dillon. I’m a registered dietician and I am so glad you are here. So you’re experiencing food noise. Are GLP -1s the answer? In part one of the food noise series, I mentioned Paul. I write about him in my book and he started working with me to give intuitive eating a try. He wondered if GLP -1s were his answer to his out -of -control eating experiences and constant food noise. He had read how people noticed their food noise dimmed as they ramped up their dosage. Paul asked his doctor if he would be a candidate for it, and she quickly handed him a script because she thought he could lose some weight. And before filling the prescription that he would have to pay out of pocket for, Gene, his partner, encouraged him to meet with me to discuss.

Julie: While I have my own opinions on GLP -1s for weight loss and food noise, this was not my decision. So we made a pro and con list. Let’s discuss food noise treatment with medications. All right, first, GLP -1s. I took a deep dive into GLP -1s in a previous podcast episode that I’ll tag below. The intriguing and even seductive side of these medications have been how people feel so free around food. It sounds magical. And while I’m not here to debate whether or not to take them, I do hope you have informed consent on the risks. The risks are definitely minimized, as seductive as these risks are.

Julie: As seductive as these medications are, I encourage you to read pieces on GLP -1s from Reagan Chastain’s Substack.Before you get seduced by GLP -1s, I encourage you to read pieces from Regan Chastain’s sub stack on GLP -1s. Subscribe to her if you can because she does extensive research and amazing writing on medications and other topics on weight science. She can literally help you make your own pro and con list just by reading her sub stack. Something that I wanna convey to you is I’ve seen medications that promise an end to food noise before. There was Vyvanse not too long ago, and of course, FenPhen. Part of FenPhen, Phentramine, is still around, but the FenPhen combo is no longer. In the short term, they all helped many people not feel the burden with their food thoughts. Vyvanse, especially if someone had ADHD, helped a few folks for a very long time, maybe even you.

Julie: But for most people I talked to, it was only temporary and they didn’t tolerate it for very long. The fen-phen craze felt eerily similar to the GLP ones and it was tragic. If you weren’t around during the times of fen -phen, content warning, if you Google it, it had fatal consequences. Vyvanse and fen-tramine are amphetamines, controlled substances for a reason. They are habit -forming and have consequences. Did they fix food noise? No, they pushed a button temporarily and when the medications were taken away, the food noise resumed. Most people I know reported even louder food noise and more guilt after stopping them. Food became even a bigger burden. The same thing is happening to the folks I talked to once they come off GLP -1s. Here’s what I want you to know. I will never judge you for using a medication. even to temporarily dim the food noise. You choose your steps forward and I hope you have full informed consent. These are real risks to taking things like GLP -1s and we can learn from our past medication, miracles as warning signs. Consider before you start these medications, what will your future self who no longer can be on these medications want for you? Will they wish you did anything differently?

Julie: More likely than not, going off these medications will just turn the dial back up like hearing Beastie Boys’ Sabotage for the first time, or even more likely, make it louder than before. Ironically, Sabotage is a song that I randomly chose, and I predict many people will feel that way after stopping these GLP ones. I don’t and won’t even say I told you so. You are doing the best you can with the tools you’re offering.

Julie: I don’t ever say I told you so and I won’t here either. You are doing the very best you can with the tools being offered. I don’t want you to be angry yourself. I want you instead to be angry at the diet industry that made the noise in the first place. I don’t want you to be angry at yourself. No, I would rather you turn that anger toward the diet industry. The industry that is a big cause to your food noise and just making it worse. What if your food noise isn’t a you problem? What if it’s an alarm letting you and I know there is a much bigger issue? In the end, Paul decided to wait on the GLP -1s. The risks were too high for him, it was too expensive, and he wanted to try a few things first. He wanted to practice that self -compassion now without making the food noise worse off in the future. In part three, I will share some non -diet strategy on how to meet the needs.

Julie: In part three, I will share some non -diet strategy on how to meet these unmet needs that the food noise is alerting you to. Follow along for more.Thank you for joining me on this special episode on food noise. Part three will be dropping very soon.