People using the new weight-loss injections often describe the same thing. For the first time in years, the noise stops. The constant chatter about food. What to eat, when, how much, whether you should. Suddenly it's quiet.
One of my closest friends has been on Mounjaro for 16 months. He was morbidly obese, and he's lost 5 stone. Asking him the right questions, and hearing his answers, has opened my eyes.
When I heard that, I recognised it straight away. Not the quiet. The noise.
At my heaviest, food was on my mind from the moment I woke up. Planning it. Wanting it. Fighting it. Giving in, and then the shame. The cravings and the preoccupation were off the scale. I didn't have a name for it then. Food noise is a good one.
Loud. Constant. From the moment you wake up. Slide to turn it down.
I didn't have an injection. I'm not against them. If medication helps someone get their health back, that's a decision for them and their GP, and I'm glad it exists. But I did have to find other ways to turn the volume down. And I think what I learned matters for anyone on these medications, especially if they come off them one day.
Quiet isn't the same as healed
The medication can quiet the noise. It can't tell you why the noise was there.
For me, the noise was doing a job. It filled the space where low self-esteem, old hurts and loneliness would otherwise have been. When the food noise got quieter, those feelings didn't disappear. They got louder. And they went looking for something else. For me, that was training, and periods of restriction.
If the injection is doing the quieting, that's a precious window.
It's a chance to look at what's underneath while the noise isn't drowning it out.
What turned the volume down for me
- Relearning hunger. With nutritionists and psychologists, I learned the difference between hunger in my body and hunger in my head. I had to learn what the signals feel like, from the beginning.
- Feeling the feeling first. Noticing the urge, then asking what I was actually feeling. Bored, hurt, tired, lonely. Then sitting with it before doing anything.
- Letting thoughts pass. Meditation taught me that a thought about food is just a thought. It can pass like traffic. I don't have to follow it.
- Grounding and breath. When the noise got loud, my nervous system was usually wound up too. Calming the body quieted the head.
- Writing it down, or saying it out loud. Journaling and voice notes showed me patterns I couldn't see in the moment. Certain times, certain people, certain feelings.
- Trusting my gut. Learning to listen to that second brain, rather than the noise in the first.
The noise was always quiet while I was training or competing. Fitness and the outdoors always gave me that. I didn't always get my food right after an interval session on the bike or a run. But learning about food as fuel matters when you're training in a structured way, especially when the goal is to be strong, fit and healthy. In your 30s and 40s it matters even more, because you're more prone to injury.
None of this is a plan for anyone else. It's what worked for me, with the right people around me.
If you're coming off the medication
The noise may come back. That doesn't mean you've failed. It means the thing underneath is still asking for attention.
Please don't go through that alone. Talk to your GP or prescriber before you stop, and look for support that works on the head as well as the body. And if it helps to tell someone who's been there, the contact form at the bottom of this page is open. You don't have to say who you are.