Why Can't I Stop Thinking About Food? Food Noise After 40

Nikkiey: Women in perimenopause, women in menopause, will often report that they have a dramatic increase in food noise. Again, that connects directly to the fluctuating and declining estrogen that affects both appetite regulation and dopamine sensitivity. If your food noise gets significantly louder at specific times of the month or has worsened as you've gotten older, this is worth looking into.

You're not eating enough. It's the most common driver of food noise, and one that most women don't see as the root cause because it seems counterintuitive. If I'm thinking about food constantly, surely it's not that I need to eat more, right? But it often is.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. What's up, my friends? Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show with your host, Nikkiey Stott. On these episodes, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

Today's episode came directly from one of you, a follower on Instagram. I put up a Q&A box: if you were to pick my next podcast topic, what would it be? And this one came from you guys: how to gain control around food when your brain just will not stop thinking about it. Honestly, when I got this idea, I was like, this definitely needs a whole episode of its own, because food noise is something so many women experience, and almost nobody names it out loud.

It's definitely becoming more of a hot topic, or hot phrase, in the fitness space now, especially with the GLP-1s, Ozempic, and quieting the food noise, et cetera. It's like, oh, this is actually what's happening. Or it's just putting light on narratives that have been going on in people's minds that they probably didn't know were happening until someone labeled it and put it out there. So I want to dive into this with you guys.

It's something that is happening. It's something that does happen. It makes food louder in your head than it needs to be. Today I want to break it all down and give you some real tools on how to, one, acknowledge it. Yes, it's been there. And of course now, with the light of social media and these new drugs on it, it's being called out louder. Now people are identifying that they have this problem, and we could spiral on those things. I could even spiral on those things. But here we are, and I'm going to help you work through it.

Okay, so let me start by defining what we're actually talking about, because food noise isn't just thinking about food sometimes. That's a normal thing, and that's what it should be, in my opinion. We talk about food. But for a lot of people, especially now with this being top of mind, it can be more constant. It can be intrusive. It can be relentless. It can be this nonstop mental chatter about food that goes beyond normal hunger signals.

It's thinking about what you're going to eat next while you are still eating. It's this type of negotiation that starts the moment you finish a meal: Was that too much? Should I have eaten something else? What should I have later? It starts to occupy your mental bandwidth when you're trying to focus on something else entirely. And for women dealing with significant food noise, it's genuinely exhausting.

It's like having a conversation running in the background of your brain all day long, one that you didn't choose to have and one that's hard to turn off. And here's the first thing I want to say clearly: food noise does not mean you have a character flaw, or that you're weak, or that you're obsessed with food, or that you lack self-control. It's your brain.

It's a signal from your body. It's your hormones. It's something specific that's driving it. So I don't want this to become a new way for people to find a reason to blame why they overeat, now that the label of food noise is becoming this thing in the fitness space. It's your body, your brain, your hormones. Simple as that. Okay? And there is something specifically driving it. I'm going to dive into the three main drivers with you, and I hope it opens you up to different solutions, because they each require different things to be looked at.

The first thing I want to dive into is that you're not eating enough. Point blank. This has been going on in our minds for decades, but now it's got this label, and now everybody is thinking about it and turning it into this thing. But you can control it. You're not eating enough. It's the most common driver of food noise, and one that most women don't see as the root cause, because it seems counterintuitive. If I'm thinking about food constantly, surely it's not that I need to eat more, right? But it often is.

And there's science behind why. When you're not eating enough, whether it's overall calories, protein, or both, your body activates a hunger signaling system and increases urgency. The hormones like ghrelin that drive your hunger, and the other things that drive carbohydrate cravings specifically, ramp up when the body senses a calorie deficit. They do not stay quietly, politely in the background of your brain. They get louder and louder, and more intrusive. They get more insistent that you follow through on them.

This is your body doing exactly what it's designed to do, you guys. It's meant to advocate loudly for the fuel it needs. It's like, hey, you're not eating enough and I'm hungry, so I'm going to signal these hormones to get louder so that you feed the body what it wants. The food noise you experience when you are under-eating is not a lack of self-control. It is your body's alarm system going off.

And the form this takes is very specific. You're not just genuinely hungry. At this point, you're preoccupied with food. You're thinking about it constantly. You may find yourself mentally planning meals and snacks far in advance: I need to think about what I'm going to eat at 5 p.m., and it's only 9 a.m. And you feel out of control around food, especially in the evening, because by that point you've often created a significant deficit throughout the day and your body is frantically trying to address it.

How many of you go all day having maybe one or two meals, and by the end of the day, because you've been so busy, you feel so hungry you could eat a cow, right? This is what's going on scientifically in your body. And this is why protein is key. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient. It suppresses ghrelin, your hunger hormone, more effectively than carbohydrates or fat do. So it's going to keep you feeling fuller longer, reduce the frequency and intensity of hunger signals, and widen the gap before you feel like you need your next meal.

I can't express this enough. You've heard me talk in previous episodes about why protein is so important for so many different reasons. Women who consistently under-eat protein almost always come back saying they have higher levels of food noise than women who hit their protein targets daily and consistently.

You could both be eating 2,000 calories a day. Person A has a protein target of their body weight, they're hitting it, and their food noise is lower. Person B is just counting calories, so the majority of their calories come from fats and carbs and their protein is really low. That person is going to report higher food noise than person A, who is hitting their target consistently.

So if your food noise, and again, this dates back decades, is loudest in the afternoons and evenings, I would audit your morning and midday eating first. You are almost certainly not front-loading enough protein and calories in the earlier part of your day, so your body is compensating loudly later. That is what's happening. That is the quote-unquote food noise that now has a name in the fitness space, but it's been going on for decades. For those of you who don't eat throughout the day, or eat very minimally and are very hungry at the end of the day, that's just your body internally saying, yo, feed me.

This is one of the most powerful and most underutilized fixes for food noise: more protein and consistent meals. This is why, in the episodes I've done around GLP-1s and Ozempic, I've said, guys, this is the solution. You don't have to go on these medications to eliminate food noise. Just eat more food, more protein, consistent meals. Eating enough is the fix. I know it sounds too simple, but it works, and that's all you need to do.

The second driver of food noise is more psychological, and it's one that the fitness and diet industry has actively created in millions of women: the restriction mindset. It makes food louder by making it forbidden. There's research behind this, and honestly, in my opinion, it's so freaking fascinating.

Studies on dietary restraint consistently show that the more rigidity there is around certain foods, labeling them as bad or not allowed or off limits, the more mentally preoccupied you become with those foods. The harder you try not to think about something, the more your brain is going to think about it. I've used this comparison before: it's like me telling you not to think about a pink elephant. What are you thinking about right now? A pink elephant.

So tell yourself you cannot have the cookie. Guess what? Now you're thinking about the cookie and how much you want it. And then the fitness industry says you're not motivated enough, you don't have enough willpower, blah, blah, blah, you lack self-discipline. Yeah, bro, it's just how the human brain processes something it sees as bad or wrong or off limits. You're going to want it.

Women who have been in diet culture for a long time, who have spent years categorizing foods as good or bad, clean or dirty, allowed or not allowed, often have the loudest food noise. Because every restricted food you've come up against becomes a forbidden object, and forbidden objects are magnetic. You want it. You can't stop thinking about it.

The fix here is counterintuitive, but it's supported by decades of research: reducing the rigidity around restriction reduces the mental preoccupation with food. Not eliminating structure. Please do not. It has nothing to do with bad foods. It has everything to do with the habits and the concept around those foods. You're not eliminating the structure, because the structure is how you make progress. But you're shifting from a rules-based relationship with food to a value-based one.

A rules-based relationship sounds like: I can't have that, it's a rule of the diet I'm on. I can't have carbs. It's not in my plan. I've already had too many carbs today, so I can't have that cookie. Instead, it should switch to a value-based relationship that sounds like: I want to hit my protein. I want to feel energized. Does this fit into that? Is this actually what I want right now?

The way I look at it is, I know that if I eat a whole bag of Sour Patch Kids, I'm going to feel like absolute dog poop afterwards, because of how my body has adapted to sugar intake. It's different from where I was 10 years ago. Ten years ago, you'd find me eating a whole bag of Smarties, no problem. Now I don't want to eat that, because I know how I'm going to feel afterwards. So I'm not looking at ice cream or Sour Patch Kids or a cookie as bad. I'm just like, no, I'd rather not have that because it's not going to make me feel good. That's different from saying that's not part of my plan, I can't have that.

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When food is a choice made from values rather than a restriction enforced by rules, that forbidden object dynamic dissolves. You can have the thing. You choose not to, or you choose to have it intentionally. Either way, the noise quiets, because the thing is not off limits anymore.

So it starts here. It starts with you saying, okay, no, I just don't want that because it's not going to make me feel good. Same with alcohol. It's all a choice. You have the choice, rather than saying this is bad, this is off limits, I can't have this, this isn't part of my plan. You get what I'm saying?

This is one of the core principles of doing this sustainably. This is why I love macro tracking. It's not a list of rules, guys. It is a framework that gives you information to make choices, and choices quiet food noise in a way that rules never can. This is why I stand 10 toes deep, and I will die on the hill of macronutrients. This is why I created a whole product, the Macro Method, to teach women not another diet, but a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. If you want to learn more, go to warriorbabe.com and check out the Macro Method. It's $27. I'm going to link it below this video for you. It's a no-brainer.

Now, the third driver is hormones and blood sugar. This one is more physiological, and I feel like women haven't connected it to their experience around food. There's a lot of nuanced research when it comes to women, especially in perimenopause and menopause, and metabolic health. Blood sugar dysregulation and hormonal imbalances are two of the most significant and most under-recognized drivers of food noise.

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Especially the food noise that comes in more intense ways, rather than a steady, quiet background hum. I think everyone has a steady background hum. But with these two factors, it comes in more intense waves.

Here's what blood sugar dysregulation looks like in terms of food noise. You eat a meal that's high in refined carbohydrates and low in protein and fat, and your blood sugar spikes quickly. During that spike, your body releases a surge of insulin to manage it. Your blood sugar then drops, sometimes below where it started, and something called reactive hypoglycemia happens. That drop triggers a powerful, urgent craving signal. It's not gentle hunger. It's urgent, specific, I-want-sweet-food targeted noise.

The cycle looks like this: spike, crash, craving. Spike, crash, craving. How many of you feel like I'm speaking to you right now? This can run all day in women who eat in a low-protein, high-refined-carb pattern. And that food noise can make you feel completely out of control, because it's being driven by your biochemistry, not your choice. I mean, it's your choice to have the low protein and the high refined carbs. But the feeling of being out of control is because you're constantly spiking and crashing your blood sugar, and your body is asking for more because it needs to find stabilization.

So what do you think the fix is going to be? I could say this until I'm blue in the face, and it's another hill I will die on. The fix is building every meal around protein and fiber first. They both slow down glucose absorption. They blunt the spike and prevent the crash. A meal built around protein like chicken, eggs, fish or yogurt before the carbohydrate produces a significantly flatter blood sugar curve and dramatically fewer feelings of being out of control. This will help lessen the food noise. I know the majority of women experience this. This is what's happening in the background of your body internally, and the fix is protein.

The hormonal piece is equally significant. Estrogen and progesterone both influence your appetite regulation and the dopamine signaling around food. So, my friends who still have periods monthly: women in the luteal phase of their cycle, the two weeks before your period, experience a natural drop in serotonin that the brain often tries to compensate for by driving carbohydrate cravings.

How many of you are like, oh, my appetite for sweets and chocolate and all the things increases around my period? This is why. Again, this is not you being weak or lacking self-control or any of the things you think are wrong with you. It has nothing to do with that. It is hormonal chemistry.

Women in perimenopause and menopause will often report a dramatic increase in food noise. Again, that connects directly to the fluctuating and declining estrogen that affects both appetite regulation and dopamine sensitivity. So if your food noise gets significantly louder at specific times of the month or has worsened as you've gotten older, this is worth looking into. It's not a you problem, but it's worth investigating with the hormone conversation we talked about in the doctor appointment episode I filmed last week. I don't know when it drops, but it's the most recent solo one I've filmed, right? Because again, it's not a willpower issue. It's a hormonal one that has a direct solution. What do your levels look like? Where are you deficient? And how can you make them better? Okay?

So, to bring this all together. You know I'm practical, and I want you to leave with practical advice on understanding why food noise happens and how to quiet it. The GLP-1s are tools. Okay? They're tools for somebody who has a really hard time, who may be extremely overweight, to be able to dive into the food side of it, eat more protein, and have the self-discipline in that aspect. So there's a tool and a resource for it, and that's what I've said in previous episodes on those topics.

But for more of my women who just need to make some tweaks to their nutrition and don't have a lot of weight to lose, maybe 20 pounds, a little more or a little less, it's just about making these little changes. Front-load your protein. Eat more protein. Eat more protein. Eat on a consistent schedule. Don't skip meals. Don't eat at wildly inconsistent times throughout your day. That keeps your body in a state of uncertainty about when fuel is coming, which keeps the hunger and cravings spiking. When you eat more consistently, it trains your body's hunger rhythms to be more predictable and less urgent.

And that noise gets quieter when your body trusts that food is coming. This is why I eat every two to three hours now. I learned that from the bodybuilding world, but it still applies to the lifestyle I live. Every two to three hours, my body is like, cool, I know I'm going to get food soon. Cool, I know I'm going to get food soon. And it builds that trust back up, too. Did I say eat more protein? Eat more protein. No, but seriously, eat more protein.

Another one is to remove the forbidden food category. Give yourself structured permission to eat it. Be intentional. Have it planned. Okay? If you haven't had a cookie in two weeks, allow yourself to have the cookie. You know what I mean? When it's allowed, it loses its power. When it loses its power, it stops being loud. Right?

So think about that. Don't restrict foods, because you're going to think about them harder. Just make a value-based choice around: is this going to make me feel good and energized afterwards? If not, then don't eat it. And if you have a little off day on a Sunday, okay, cool, Monday's a new day. Don't beat yourself up over it.

The other things: I would get my hormones checked. I would identify triggers, right? Is the noise louder in specific environments? Watching TV, scrolling, being bored, being stressed at work? Identifying those things within yourself will help you become more aware, and that will help drive you to the right solutions to fix them. Okay?

All in all, here's what I want you to take away from today. Food noise does not mean you lack willpower. It doesn't mean you're not motivated. It doesn't mean you lack self-discipline and self-control. It's not a character flaw. It's literally your body telling you it has a signal, and the signal has a source. That source is under-eating, a restriction mindset, blood sugar dysregulation, hormones that are imbalanced, or some combination of them all. Understanding that source is what will give you the ability to actually address it, rather than just pushing through it and letting these labels the fitness industry is now putting on things get out of control, right? It'll allow you to work through it.

So, yeah. Front-load your protein. Eat consistently. Eat protein. But seriously, if you've been listening, and I think I said bro earlier in the episode, you know I've gotten to that level of comfort filming these episodes, being more authentic with how I really speak to my friends and my people. Because, man, I care about you guys. But really, just eat more. If you've heard these episodes, you've heard me say this over and over again. Protein is really important. So put this stuff into action, and I hope it helps.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone in your space, in your life, who you know is fighting this battle too, quietly. And to the woman who sent me this topic on Instagram, I hope this message gave you what you were looking for, and I hope it helps you. I just ask that you share it.

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