Curbing Food Obsession: Why Can’t I Stop Thinking About Food?

You wake up thinking about food, you go to bed thinking about food, you walk up and down supermarket aisles looking at food, maybe every time you pass a bakery or a pizza place you now find yourself with a new craving. Thoughts of food are taking up far more space in your brain than you want them to but you just can’t seem to make it stop. Does any of this sound familiar? 

It can be frightening, embarrassing and downright annoying, especially if you’re trying to lose weight!

Here’s the thing, it’s actually quite common! If you have been cutting out food groups or not eating enough, the sense of food deprivation can lead to food preoccupation. It’s not just you!

One study which followed a group of 37 healthy young men through a period of calorie restriction and extreme weight loss witnessed the participants develop increased food preoccupation over a 5 month period. The study found that the men started to adopt new behaviours. They would play with their food, cutting it up into tiny pieces so it would take longer to eat. They became increasingly aware of what their peers were eating. Some started to become fixated with cooking shows and even began collecting recipes. One participant noticed when he would watch a movie, he began paying more attention to any food that appeared in a scene rather than the plot of the movie itself.

So what does this have to do with you? Well, if you’ve been yo-yo dieting, cutting calories or skipping meals on and off for years then this has likely contributed to the increased fixation around food. Before jumping into the next diet or cutting out your next breakfast to make up for the big meal you had last night, consider this, ‘Might it be time to try something new?’. The constant attempts to control your weight could be the very thing keeping you stuck in the cycle of overeating, restriction and food guilt.

The study found that it took some of the men more than a year after the initial period of restriction, to regain normal behaviour around food.

If you feel like food is always on your mind, you’re not alone - and you don’t have to stay stuck in that cycle. Inside the Nourish to Thrive™ program, you’ll learn practical tools like the Pair to Thrive™ method to calm food thoughts and rebuild trust with your body. You can explore it today with the free trial. 

Study Referenced:

‘They Starved So That Others Be Better Fed: Remembering Ancel Keys and the Minnesota Experiment' (The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 135, Issue 6, June 2005, Pages 1347–1352, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/135.6.1347