I’ve been on tirzepatide for a few mos now, and I’ve noticed something interesting - my appetite has decreased significantly, but the ‘food noise’ in my head is still present. I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this. ✌️ It’s as if my body is saying ‘I’m not hungry’, but my mind is still fixated on food. I’ve been trying to figure out why this is happening, and I’m starting to think it’s not just about the physical effects of the drug, but also about the emotional and psychological aspects of eating. Has anyone else noticed this discrepancy b/w physical hunger and mental preoccupation with food?
Totally get what you mean by ‘food noise’ still being present even when your body isn’t physically hungry. fwiw, for a lot of us with insulin resistance, that CNS signaling can actually precede the appetite drop, not just follow it as a psychological thing… 🤔 it’s not always a reaction to eating less; sometimes the brain’s drive is what shifts first before the stomach catches up. for PCOS patients especially, that temporal sequence often runs opposite to what most people assume.
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that discrepancy you’re describing, between physical satiety and the ‘food noise’ still running, is something I hear a lot. it makes sense because tirzepatide works on specific hunger signals and some parts of the reward pathway, but it doesn’t automatically address the emotional or learned components of wanting food. what my T calls ‘the loud brain’ got quieter on tirzepatide but the grief underneath it did not.
i’ve been sitting with your question abt the “discrepancy b/w physical hunger and mental preoccupation with food,” and it’s so real. “my mind is still fixated on food” even when my body isn’t asking for anything feels incredibly specific.
what my T calls ‘the loud brain’ definitely got quieter for me on tirzepatide, but it didn’t completely re-wire things. the mechanism matters here: if the drug’s effect on reward is genuinely central, and not just secondary to eating less, the quieting shouldn’t be selective for only food-seeking behavior.
it touches the broader circuitry too, not just the psychological piece.
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that ‘mind is still fixated on food’ piece you mentioned is exactly where the behavioral component sits. a lot of that ‘food noise’ has probably been running for years before the prescription was even written, and tirzepatide mostly changes the physical hunger signal underneath it. it’s not necessarily a new drug effect, more like unmasking the pattern that was already there. 👍
that ‘body says no, mind says yes’ feeling is super common, especially with PCOS and insulin resistance. where I’d gently push back is on the idea that it’s purely psychological or emotional, rather than a different facet of the drug’s mechanism.
fwiw, a lot of what gets clustered as ‘food noise’ might actually be CNS effects that precede the physical appetite drop. the GLP-1s act on the brain too, not just the gut, and for IR patients, that sequence often runs the opposite way from what people assume.
After 7 mos on tirz, what you’re describing as “food noise” still present despite appetite suppression is a common experience. GLP-1s work on both metabolic and neurological pathways, so that mental preoccupation isn’t just about physical hunger, it’s about the dopamine response too.
is that ‘food noise’ riding a different clock than your physical hunger? 👍