When the Food Noise Finally Stops: Relearning How to Eat (and Live) in the Quiet
There’s a strange kind of peace that follows years of chaos.
When I started my GLP-1 medication, I hoped I would be less hungry. What I didn’t expect was silence - not just from my stomach, but from the part of my brain that had spent decades negotiating with it.
Before this, I treated dieting like a hobby. I’d sign up for multiple diet plans in a single week… Weight Watchers on Monday, SlimFast by Thursday, something with ‘metabolic’ in the name by Sunday. Each new start hit like a dopamine rush. This one would be the fix. This one would make sense of my body. It never did.
I wasn’t just feeding hunger; I was chasing the high of hope. Psychologists call it intermittent reinforcement. This is the same mechanism that makes slot machines addictive.[^1] Every once in a while, a diet ‘worked’ briefly, and that tiny win was enough to keep me spending hundreds (if not thousands) a year trying to recreate it.
Then Mounjaro entered the chat and the compulsion vanished.
No dramatic declaration, no willpower overhaul. I just… stopped. The thought of another plan or points system suddenly felt irrelevant, like my brain had finally called time on a 20 year argument.
It’s not just the hunger that goes quiet; it’s the endless battle for control.
The stress test: when cravings make a comeback
Here’s the thing: silence isn’t permanent. It’s peace with a few cracks.
Most days, my brain and appetite get along fine now. But throw in a work deadline, a bit of family chaos, or the kind of week where sleep is more theory than practice, and I can still hear the faint rustle of a chocolate wrapper somewhere in my psyche.
During stress, the old engrained habits flicker back to life. Cortisol climbs, ghrelin joins in, and suddenly the kitchen looks like self-care. It’s not a failure of willpower; it’s physiology doing what it was built to do. Find safety fast.[^2]
What’s changed is the after. I can spot the pattern in real time. When I calm down and eat something proper, the same chocolate that once felt essential suddenly tastes… off. Like I can taste the emotion that came with it.
So the answer isn’t another ‘must-not-snack’ rule - it’s information. Cravings flag a system under pressure: too many tasks, too little rest, or not enough fuel at the right times.
Our responses to these kinds of cravings should be realistic, not heroic. Step outside for a breather. Add a snack with protein instead of cutting one. Go to bed half an hour earlier instead of aiming for a 6 a.m. run. Small, practical moves that calm the body before it starts shouting again.
Building from where you are currently
One of the biggest traps in any health reset is overcorrecting.
You realise things have slipped, panic a little, and suddenly your plan looks like a military operation. Ten thousand steps a day. Gym five times a week. Meal prep that could cater a small wedding.
And then, within a fortnight, exhaustion wins.
The problem isn’t lack of discipline. It’s poor pacing. Behavioural research consistently shows that when goals outstrip capacity, the brain files them under impossible and motivation collapses.[^4] Real progress starts where you actually are, not where you wish you were.
If you’re averaging 2,000 steps, add 500 extra steps a day for a week.
If cooking feels like climbing Everest, buy balanced ready meals until the habit of sitting down to eat sticks.
If water is a struggle, start by drinking a glass before your morning coffee.
The point isn’t minimalism - it’s momentum. Each small win trains the brain to expect success, and success is self-reinforcing.[^5]
Starting smaller doesn’t limit progress… it protects it.
Rebuilding routine: consistency over compliance
After years of chasing diets that promised control, there’s something almost radical about building a routine that doesn’t depend on willpower.
The aim isn’t to be perfect; it’s to be predictable.
Consistency beats intensity every time. Research from behaviour-change studies shows that repetition using low effort is what cements long-term habits - not bursts of motivation.[^6] Compliance burns out; routines last.
That means structuring the basics so they happen automatically. Meals spaced evenly through the day. Water where you’ll see it. Movement scheduled like a meeting. When the foundations run smoothly, health starts to feel less like a performance and more like maintenance.
The irony is that this steadiness looks boring from the outside. But boredom is often the first sign of regulation. When life stops swinging between restriction and excess, you finally have the bandwidth to live it.
When quiet becomes the goal
When the food noise fades, you start to hear everything else… your actual hunger, your real limits, the parts of life that used to get drowned out by diet chatter.
That silence can feel unsettling at first. But it’s not emptiness; it’s space.
Space to build habits that last, to respond to stress without sabotage, to treat health as something steady rather than something to be chased.
GLP-1 medication might have quieted the cravings, but our behaviour keeps the calm.
And maybe that’s the real work - learning that you don’t need another plan, another ‘fresh start’, or another promise of control. You just need to keep showing up where you are and build forward from there.
References
Schultz, W. (2016). Dopamine reward prediction error coding. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 18(1), 23–32.
Torres, S. J., & Nowson, C. A. (2007). Relationship between stress, eating behavior, and obesity. Nutrition, 23(11–12), 887–894.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.
Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H., Potts, H. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009.
Further Reading
NHS: Understanding stress and eating behaviour.
NICE Guidance (2023): Obesity: identification, assessment and management (CG189).
Behavioural Insights Team: EAST Framework for behaviour change.
World Health Organization (2024): Obesity and Overweight: Key Facts.
