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Julie: Hey there, welcome to episode 364 of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. I am your host, Julie Duffy Dillon, a registered dietitian, and I am so glad you’re here. So you experienced food noise. Are there any non -diet tools to help you move forward? So like I talked about in part two of the food noise series, Paul and I made a pro and con chart, and he ultimately decided to wait on starting GLP -1s. He wanted to first give a different plan a try and also reserve the right to change his mind. He told me he felt like such a loser because he couldn’t manage his food, such a basic part of self care. Paul didn’t want to experience these exhausting binges anymore. And if you two are not up for extreme binges, we have a plan. I told Paul we can continue to work through his complicated history of food and helping move toward things like intuitive eating using a concept I call guard rails. The diet industry and the diets they tell us to do promote food noise. Guardrails help your body practice having more space in your thoughts, not on food. Paul wasn’t a loser. His out of control behaviors were predictable. If you too relate to the term food noise or food addiction or have felt out of control with your eating, I bet you experienced something that I mentioned in part one of the food noise series. It’s called food preoccupation. 

Julie: So what can you do? Well, first big picture. You need to eat enough and you need permission to eat enough. And it’s probably way more than you think. If you have food noise and think you’re eating enough and permission to eat enough, no, you still need more time to repair and heal. Honestly, we have been conditioned and trained to eat a lot less than we think we need.

Julie: Diet culture has really fucked with our sense of how much food we are supposed to be eating. That’s because we think we should always, always be eating less. That is not the case. If you want to have less food noise, you need to have permission to eat enough and consistently eat enough probably for years in order for it to start to dim. Zooming in on how to actually make this happen, like what can you do? Let’s talk about specific guardrails. Guardrail number one, eat at least one meal a day sitting down that is the appropriate temperature. It’s summer right now when I’m recording this, so I’m not gonna have a hot meal, but there are plenty of cold meals that can be very filling. So pick a meal that you enjoy at least once a day where you sit down and you eat. This is a way to make sure you’re actually eating enough and you’re taking care of yourself. Number two, at each meal, choose three to four different food groups. And at each snack, at least two different food groups. This is not a time to just be picking one type of food and hoping that it fills you up till you can wait a little bit longer. That is just gonna make your food noise louder and louder. All right, and number three, which is my favorite, set it up check -in times. I call them chips. Every two to three hours to pause and do a mini mindful check -in. ask yourself what you need. Are you hot or cold? Do you need to pee? Any feelings? Are you physically hungry or emotionally hungry? Then if you’re hungry, emotionally or physically, give yourself permission to eat. Practice giving yourself permission to eat. With constant food noise, you need more practice on permission for unconditional eating. Will all this make you eat more? Maybe.

Julie: But that is probably the point. Food noise is there for a reason and more than a season. If you’re looking for ways to eat less, then get used to the food noise. It’s going to be there. It’s the alarm from your body letting you know that that is not what your body wants or needs. If you want less food noise, ask the noise what it needs to feel fed. So there you have it. That is my series on food noise. 

Julie: I hope it helped you to move forward. I hope there was a nugget or two that you can carry with you as you are mending your complicated history of food. Did you get what you needed out of the series? Do you want more on food noise or do you have new topics that you would like for me to unpack in these mini episodes? Let us know below or shoot us an email at info at juliedillonrd.com.

Julie: I would love it if you could leave us a five star review. It’s super easy. You could also subscribe and doing those things really helps us independent podcasters to be seen and found. So thank you in advance. And I look forward to catching up with you next time on the Find Your Food Voice podcast. Bye for now.