Quieting Food Noise (Without Ozempic) - Part 1

Even when connecting to your body feels impossible, triggering, or scary

This three-part series is for anyone interested in quieting food noise naturally. Part 1 (today) offers an entry into this conversation; Parts 2 and 3 (coming in November) offer practical steps for changing your default patterns and finding relief.

These days, it’s near impossible to avoid the buzzy, polarizing conversations happening online about Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs. This is a broad topic; the issues on medical, individual, and societal levels are numerous and nuanced. But, in following these conversations (usually in online comment sections), what intrigues me the most isn’t rapid weight loss or side effects or questionable marketing or “who is, who isn’t” on Ozempic. It’s food noise.

In this context, I interpret “food noise” to mean incessant thoughts about and fixation on food and eating (usually accompanied by a desire to stop thinking and obsessing about food all the time).

In comment sections where people are sharing and comparing personal experiences of taking or considering Ozempic (or similar drugs), not a small number mention reduction in food noise as a key reason and benefit.

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As a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine since 2012, I’ve worked with many, many clients struggling with food noise and unsupportive eating patterns. I’m also in long-term recovery from eating disorders myself. Drawing from professional and personal experience, let me just say: 

I deeply understand the desire to stop obsessing about food, feel at ease in your body, and channel all that focus and energy into the rest of your life already. 

And, to be honest, I do hold some strong opinions and beliefs about GLP-1 drugs, eating, and health—including from my perspective as a Chinese Medicine doctor with additional training in ancestral, functional nutrition.

But I’d rather sit down with you in my capacity as a long-time (more than two decades) practicing Buddhist and yogi, and as a person who’s sober from alcohol and in full recovery from eating disorders. 

From this place, rather than a medical or scientific one, I want to tell you: There’s tremendous value in learning to quiet food noise without external intervention. There are gifts and benefits that we simply cannot achieve by choosing to turn off food noise and food-related addictions like a light switch.

And look: Our bodies are different. Our conditions and circumstances are different. We have different priorities and assessments of “what’s worth it” when it comes to tradeoffs and consequences.

You know best what you need. But, when I say that, I mean the truest, most present, most internally aware and connected part of you knows. Everything that follows is, most of all, addressing and rooting for that part of you. And that part of you is vital no matter what you choose to do with or put into your body.¹ 

In talking with that part of you, I want to broaden the conversation and expand the options. Because it is possible to quiet food noise naturally—even when connecting to your body feels painful, scary, or triggering. And if you’re interested in exploring that (or quieting other unhelpful thoughts and cravings), this three-part series is for you.

Part 1 (today) offers an entry into this conversation (which I invite you to join in the comments). Also look for a related Community Pop-Up on Wednesday, where we can continue the discussion and you’ll have an opportunity to connect with others.

Then, in November, Parts 2 and 3 will outline specific steps and guidance for quieting food noise naturally. Heads up that Part 3 (in which I’ll share personal details about how I eat and move each day) will be paywalled. You can upgrade your subscription here for full access (now’s a great time, because the cost of paid annual subscriptions will go up on November 1st):

Image of me by Rachel Shrum

Your deepest self knows what you need.

Look, I know how frustrating it can be to read words on the internet telling us we need to connect with our bodies. And I know how difficult, painful, scary, and flat-out impossible it can feel to actually connect with our bodies!

As humans, all kinds of things can come in, hurt us, and make our bodies feel unsafe or like an enemy or stranger. Trauma, abuse, heartbreak, and loss. Fear, grief, injury, and pain. Ridicule, judgment, and the messaging that surrounds us. Any of these might lead us to numb, distract, check out, or seek ways to not feel and not connect with our body.

Seeking relief, seeking to protect ourselves, we might then do things (knowingly or unknowingly) that make everything worse. By “make everything worse,” I mean further distancing ourselves from ourselves. I mean doing things that bring momentary relief but ultimately hurt us and feel like a painful cycle on repeat. I mean anything that extinguishes our brightness and makes our life smaller, shutting down connection and fuller expression.

As a sober person who’s also in recovery from eating disorders, I’ve done all these things. I’ve been seduced by the promise of silencing, controlling, and solving my mind and myself. But if that control requires dulling our sensitivity and spirit, if it comes at the expense of feeling fully alive, awake, and in touch with our bodies, I’ve learned to question it. 

Whether you’re using Ozempic or anorexia or binge eating or alcohol or scrolling or shopping or a million other things, I don’t believe that we can selectively numb or selectively and exclusively turn off food noise. Numbing cravings also numbs pleasure, numbing worry also numbs awareness, numbing sadness also numbs love and connection and empathy.

Sometimes, the tradeoffs may feel worth it. Sometimes, they may be worth it and might even equal survival. But let’s go in with eyes open. Let’s be really clear and really honest what we’re choosing and why—especially when we’re choosing to numb, silence, or cut off access to any parts of ourselves and any internal messages.

For me personally, outsourcing the quieting of the mind and cravings to a drug has unsettling implications. The body is the ultimate compensator and will stop doing something—like regulating our thoughts, cravings, impulse control, and food noise—if we let a drug take over that job. In the process, our innate capacity and willingness to grow that capacity will atrophy. Speaking frankly, I fear this will be a struggle for folks who go on Ozempic, then go off it. More generally, I see this as part of the wider trend of externally induced and facilitated disconnect from our bodies, which is difficult to counteract and unlearn in our chronically online, cut-off-from-nature culture.

I’m not casting judgment here. You are the number one caretaker of your body. But I do think this disconnect and its consequences are one reason (among many) to consider other options before Ozempic. Good news is, some of those options come bearing gifts—which I’ll touch on below and will expand on in the coming parts of this series.

Become a refuge to yourself.

No matter what form of disconnection or numbing you’re using or contemplating, just know that there are other options—including options that are less about pushing away, and more about pulling towards.

In other words, there are powerful benefits to quieting food noise (or other addictive fixations, cravings, and patterns) through internally guided, fully present, deeply connected approaches. It truly is possible to learn to “be a refuge to yourself,” as the Buddha put it. (And I say that as someone who, for a long while, never would’ve believed it.)

We each have an opportunity to repattern ourselves and to shift default patterns that aren’t helpful or supportive. We each have an opportunity to find inner calm, stillness, silence, and rest—including from food noise. And to cultivate a different, more supportive kind of hunger for things that nourish us, things that don’t require mental negotiations and justifications and acrobatics and painful consequences.

First, take a moment to envision the destination: 

Your mind becomes stiller and less agitated but also clearer and more alive—it’s a completely different sort of quieting than the dulling and deadening that happens with numbing out or turning off. In the process, you become more connected to your body’s innate intelligence and inner knowing. You also gain a skill, practice, and way of perceiving and responding that will apply to every area of your life and which no one can take away from you.²

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So, how to get there? The steps that worked for me can be roughly grouped into Yin practices and Yang practices: 

• The Yin practices are things we do internally to get to know ourselves and our patterns more intimately (which is a first step to shifting them). 

• The Yang practices are things we do externally to take care of our physical, material body. 

In Chinese Medicine, Yin-Yang are inseparable, absolutely interdependent, and comprise a whole—same as body and mind. Kindred perspectives are found in Buddhism, yoga, and many other holistic modalities (including modern-day neuroscience and functional medicine). In other words: to change our relationship with either our mind or body, we need to address and care for both mind and body. 

I find this especially true when we’re talking about food and eating—the means by which we literally constitute ourselves. A major problem I see in today’s healing and self-help space is that folks tend to focus primarily on external actions (e.g., whether we should go on a drug, what we should eat, how we should exercise) OR focus primarily on internal practices (e.g., meditation, mindset, self-talk, reflective exercises like journaling). For integrated, lasting change in body and mind, we absolutely need both.

Speaking of which…

In Part 2 of this series (coming in November), I’ll offer a starting place for more internal Yin practices. Then, in Part 3, I’ll dive deeper into more external Yang practices—sharing how I personally eat and take care of my physical body, as well as guiding principles that you can make your own (that one will be behind the paywall).

If you want practical, immediately helpful steps for quieting food noise naturally, make sure you’re subscribed and keep an eye out for Parts 2 and 3:

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’d especially love to hear from those who struggle or have struggled in the past with painful patterns related to food and eating. (As always in this space, you’re invited to share your personal experience; no unsolicited advice or spreading of hate and division, please.) 

I know it can be extremely vulnerable to share about our bodies, our relationship to food, and our health and wellness choices. Please rest assured that anyone who offers you unasked for advice or opinions on your body, your health, and your choices will be removed from the comment section.

• If you experience food noise, what does that experience look and feel like for you? How do you experience it not just in your mind, but in your body?

• If you don’t experience food noise, but struggle with other obsessive thoughts and cravings, what does that experience look and feel like for you? Has anything helped to shift it?

Thank you, from my heart to yours,
Dana

P.S. If a little extra support in breaking unhelpful patterns sounds good to you, or if you’ve been curious about The Sobriety Series, My Soulful Life, and other immediately helpful, no-bullsh*t insights on addiction, sobriety, and being human, this is the best time to upgrade your subscription.

The cost of paid annual subscriptions to Sober Soulful will increase on November 1st. To lock in the current price of $30/year and receive full access to everything I just mentioned, you can upgrade your subscription here:

1. I’m a fierce advocate for bodily autonomy and medical privacy among adults. Nothing that follows is me saying you or anyone else should or should not go on Ozempic or other pharmaceuticals.

2. I credit senior Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal for helping me reach this place (not all of the time, but way more of it). Gil has been my primary teacher in these realms for more than twenty years, and I listen to his talks and practice with his teachings daily.