Slow Down, You Eat Too Fast

Article by healthybalance.com staff
Posted on February 26, 2010

Is your life a rush? A rush to get to school or work in the morning? A rush to down your lunch before it’s time to get back to work? Rush hour traffic on the way home, where you rush through dinner in order to get to evening activities on time?

Apart from raising stress levels, blood pressure and irritability, rushing through the days of your life has another bad effect: weight gain.

Recent studies have shown that when people rush through their meals and eat their food quickly, they end up consuming more calories. As you know, you essentially gain weight when you consume more calories than you burn off in daily activities.

You see, eating is one of those human experiences that is meant to be pleasurable. As such, when you eat, your body releases hormones that give you that pleasurably satisfied feeling of being full.
When you eat too quickly, those hormones do not have give you that feeling of satisfaction—and so you crave more food. And, eat more food.

You’ve got to make that mouthful last.

In a recent study conducted by University of Rhode Island, people reported greater satiety and ate about ten percent fewer calories when they ate slowly than when they wolfed down their food.

Another study at Athens University Medical School in Greece and Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College in the UK pinpointed the cause. When researchers served participants equal quantities of ice cream, more of the specific “satisfaction” hormones were released when they ate their ice cream in 30 minutes than when they ate it in five minutes.

A third study, done at the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Japan, reported that people who eat their food in a rush are three times as likely to be overweight.

Tips for eating less by eating more slowly

1. Set you alarm 15 minutes earlier. Give yourself time for a relaxed breakfast. Did you know people who eat breakfast are less prone to being overweight than those who skip it?
2. Pack a lunch and eat in the break room. Spending less time en route to a restaurant—or in the lunch line—will give you more time to take lunch slow. While you’re at it, pack raw fresh fruits and veggies and your sandwich on 100% whole wheat bread or pita.
3. Slow cook a slow supper. When you know evening plans are going to put the squeeze on the dinner hour, prepare ingredients for a slow cooker meal the day before and get it cooking before you leave the house for the day.
4. Never eat on the run. Stop whatever you are doing so you can appreciate your meal. If you can’t stop, wait until you can.
5. Chew the fat. No matter what your day is like, indulge in a little Zen eating. Before dinner, take a few deep breaths to relax. Sit down when you eat. And, in that moment that you take a bite of food, be present to the taste and texture on your tongue. Chewing your food slowly and thoroughly means less fat in the long run.