Food noise, explained. Other posts to come, intermittently.

As I've been invested in recording my carbohydrates since May 6 so that I will have a better hemoglobin A-1C test result on July 28, I've come to notice something running in the back of my mind, now and then, no matter what I happen to be doing or where I might be.

Monday, June 27, my brain sent me what I will now use to identify this phenomenon. I felt surprised, then happy with the term. Food noise.

Here's my explanation of food noise. I sit at work involved with my daily tasks and performing them spot on. As the day progresses, I have counted my breakfast foods--calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein--on the iPhone app I use, MyPlate, and the water that I've had with breakfast. I've walked with my iPhone on my person or in my shoulder bag so that the health app that came with it counts my steps. Those steps are deducted from the calories I consume from my allowed calorie goal for the day--the app is tuned to calories but thankfully fits in with my goal of not becoming a diabetic, therefore the carb counting. Throughout the day, I enter foods eaten at lunch, dinner, snack (if any), and more water.

I do not for the most part feel unsatisfied at any particular meal or moment. I have found it exciting to watch those steps impact those calories. In this way, the app encourages me to continue my efforts. I have shed pounds. I have increased stamina.

Yet, unbidden at any given moment, in the back of my mind, food such as you see in this photo--duck confit, gnocchi, fava beans from 3 Doors Down Cafe in a photo that I took June 17, 2011--appears. I feel my teeth biting into the meaty duck, the satisfyingly dense gnocchi, the al dente fava beans. I don't taste any of these, I feel them. I keep right on working, undeterred by the food noise which so far has not manifested itself in the form of aggravating craving. I think the fact that I easily keep on with my regular activities made the term food noise pop into my mind because, for me, it is kin to white noise, as in this definition--a steady, unvarying, unobtrusive sound, as an electronically produced drone or the sound of rain, used to mask or obliterate unwanted sounds.

Not that my food noise is obliterating anything unwanted. I have, in fact, found food noise to be a comfort. By the way, it is not always prepared by professionals. Sometimes, it is something that I myself have cooked. More posts to come, if I have the appropriate photo on hand.