Love What You Eat, or, Why I Broke Up With Cottage Cheese

My friends, this statement may seem like common sense. But for those of us who have spent a lifetime trying to find the magic cure to what we never recognized as food noise, we need to hear it.

You HAVE TO actually like the food you eat every single day.

I'm not saying you have to "eat to live" or "live to eat." But no matter how you decide to fight food noise, you can't force yourself to eat food that you just... don't... like. You will feel resentful and restricted. If someone told you that rice cakes would "help" you to lose weight, and you find them tasteless as so many people do, guess what! You don't have to eat them!

I am all for "alternative" foods and trying versions of food that you've never tried before. Over the past nine months, I've watched probably too many TikToks and read too many Facebook group posts about foods I'll apparently love while on a GLP-1. And as evidenced by my post about my new favorite foods, I've become a fan of many. I will eat anything that involves Greek yogurt; I even use it as a cream substitute. I eat gluten-free and whole wheat pasta. I use non-dairy creamer at Starbucks now because it is far fewer calories than regular creamer, and even my favorite protein shakes are non-dairy. My favorite pepperoni is turkey pepperoni, and I have a regular frozen yogurt order. And I love all of it. I'm not forcing myself to eat (or drink) any of it.

That said, I thought that I'd be all in on cottage cheese. Cottage cheese recipes have, well, taken over social media. Pizza crust? Mix flour with cottage cheese. Dip? Throw cottage cheese in a blender. There is even a recipe for cottage cheese-based chocolate mousse. It's a great alternative to so many foods and it is high in protein to boot.

I tried it. I blended it. I cooked it. And I HATED it.

The texture of cottage cheese, for me, is weird. You might not think it's so weird and that's okay! Go enjoy your cottage cheese! But, please, don't force yourself to eat it if you don't like it. Your transition to a healthy lifestyle will NEVER be successful on a long-term basis if you force yourself to eat foods that you... don't. like. Always try. Don't force.

Cottage cheese wasn't the first food that I tried to make myself eat; a few months ago, I was on a kick of ordering "Skinny Pasta," which is essentially slimy pasta made of konjac (a root vegetable, I had to look it up too). The "pasta" came in a bag and needed to be microwaved for one minute. And it was nine calories per BAG -- what could go wrong?

I think I ate the "pasta" for two months before I realized that the reason I was never finishing my meal when it included the "pasta" wasn't appetite suppression brought to you by Wegovy; it was the fact that the "pasta" was slimy, flavorless, and, like cottage cheese, had a weird consistency. The "risotto" was the only variety that I would actually purchase again, because "rice" is easier to flavor.

No matter the point that you're at in your fight against food noise, please make sure that you find the joy of food once again. Binge eating fueled by food noise is not enjoyable, and neither is eating food that upsets your stomach or just doesn't make you feel good. And I am all in on giving new or alternative foods a chance. But eating food that you think you have to eat but don't actually like? Also not enjoyable. Fighting food noise, intentional weight loss, or any lifestyle change, does not have to be synonymous with eating becoming drudgery.