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“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor Frankl
For years, I thought something was wrong with me.
No matter what I was doing—sitting in a meeting, walking the dog, or watching TV—my brain was busy debating food.
Should I eat? Shouldn’t I? I could just have one more bite, couldn’t I? What should I eat next? I’ve blown it today, haven’t I? I’ve failed again. Shall I just eat whatever I want and start again tomorrow?
The chatter was constant. It left me exhausted, ashamed, and convinced that I was weak.
I told myself it was a lack of willpower. If I just tried harder, surely I could silence it. But the harder I fought, the louder it became.
The Night Everything Changed
One night, after a long and stressful day, I stood in the kitchen with the fridge door open.
I wasn’t hungry. My stomach was full from dinner, but my mind was shouting at me to grab something, anything.
The noise in my head felt unbearable. It was as if I couldn’t relax until I gave in.
In that moment, for the first time, I paused. I asked myself a simple question: What am I really hungry for right now?
The answer wasn’t food. It was comfort. Distraction. Relief from stress I hadn’t dealt with.
It hit me that food wasn’t the real problem. The problem was the mental chatter about food, what many people now call food noise.
What I Discovered About Food Noise
Food noise isn’t hunger. Hunger is physical: your stomach growling, your energy dipping, your body asking for fuel.
Food noise is mental: urgent, repetitive, often specific. It pushes you toward food even when you’re not hungry, convincing you that you need it to cope or to feel better.
Learning this was a turning point. For years I had labeled myself a failure. But food noise wasn’t about failing at all. It was about how the brain works.
Every time I ate in response to boredom, stress, or fatigue, my brain logged it as a “reward.” The next time I felt the same cue, the noise grew louder. The loop repeated itself until it became automatic.
Understanding this gave me something I’d been missing: compassion for myself. I wasn’t broken. I was human. And if my brain could be trained into these loops, maybe it could be retrained out of them too.
How I Began to Quiet the Noise
I didn’t wake up one morning free of food chatter. It quieted slowly, through small practices that I repeated again and again.
Naming it
When the thoughts started, I said to myself, “That’s food noise, not hunger.” It may sound simple, but naming it gave me distance. It reminded me I wasn’t my thoughts.
Pausing before reacting
At first, I felt powerless against the urges. But I began experimenting with a short pause. Just two minutes. During that pause, I’d sip water, stretch, or step outside. Sometimes the craving was still there afterward, but often it had already passed. That pause gave me back a sense of choice.
Refuting the chatter
The hardest part wasn’t the food itself. It was the voice in my head.
It would say, “You’ve already ruined the day; you may as well keep going.” Or, “One more won’t matter.” I believed it every time, and each binge ended with guilt and shame.
I finally found help with a cognitive behavioral tool I’d never heard of before: the refutation.
A refutation is simply answering back to the thought—calmly, clearly, without judgment. It’s like shining a light on a lie.
The first time I tried it, I wrote my food noise down on paper: “You’ve ruined today, so you may as well give up.” Then I wrote my response underneath: “One moment doesn’t ruin a whole day. If I stop now, I’ll feel better tonight. If I keep going, I’ll feel worse.”
It felt strange at first, almost like arguing with myself. But slowly, those written words became a voice I could access in real time.
Now, when the chatter starts, I can hear both sides: the urge and the refutation. And with practice, the refutation has grown stronger.
Some of the ones I use often are:
Food noise says: “One bite won’t hurt.”
Refutation: “One bite keeps the loop alive. Every time I resist, I weaken it.”
Food noise says: “You can just start again tomorrow.”
Refutation: “If I wait until tomorrow, I make waiting a habit. The best time to start is now.”
Food noise says: “You’ve earned this.”
Refutation: “I’ve earned peace of mind, not more noise.”
At first, I had to write them down. Over time, they became automatic.
Self-kindness
For years, slipping up meant spiraling into guilt and shame. Now, when I give in, I remind myself, “This is hard, and I’m learning.” That kindness keeps me moving forward instead of sinking deeper.
Each of these practices was like a mental rep in the gym. The more I repeated them, the stronger I became.
What Quiet Feels Like
The first time I realized I had gone an entire morning without obsessing about food, I almost cried.
The silence in my head felt like a gift.
Quiet doesn’t mean I never think about food. It means food has stopped being the background soundtrack of my life.
I can work without constant distraction.
I can sit with my family without guilt.
I can enjoy a meal without a running commentary in my mind.
Most importantly, I’ve started to trust myself again.
The Bigger Lesson
What I learned from food noise applies far beyond eating.
Our minds are noisy places, full of chatter about success, relationships, fears, and the future.
If we treat every thought as urgent and true, we end up exhausted. But if we learn to pause, to name the chatter, and to choose differently, we create space for peace.
The greatest gift wasn’t just a quieter relationship with food. It was discovering that not every thought in my head deserves a reaction.
That lesson has changed more than my eating. It has changed how I live.
About Johanna Handley
Johanna Handley is an overeating recovery coach and Head of Coaching at The Last Food Fight. She co-created Food Noise Shield, a free tool that helps people quiet cravings and rebuild self-trust.
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