When I was a kid, I wanted to rush through every meal so that I could get back outside and play before it got dark. My mom, citing some obscure warning about choking, would often tell me to slow down. But I would have nothing to do with it.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons that I became so large? There’s a lot of new research out there that suggests people who eat fast also eat more because they don’t allow the feelings of fullness generated in their stomach to reach their brains.
As you eat, your stomach secretes a hormone called leptin that travels to your brain to tell you that you’re full. Some research suggests that this may take 20 minutes. If you don’t allow this to happen, chances are you will overeat.
I’ve been trying to eat slower lately, but since I’ve been on a caloric restriction program, it’s a little bit difficult because I’ve been a bit hungry. Nevertheless, here are some things that you may want to try to help you slow down your eating:
- Concentrate on your food–These days with deadlines looming, kids to shuttle around, and workouts to get through, it’s really easy to eat mindlessly. But eating should be like any other activity that’s important to you. It deserves your full attention. Some people recommend to meditate on your food. Consider it’s origins, textures, aromas. Feel it nourish your body and prepare it for the duties that you require of it. Being in touch with the food you eat can help you slow down and feel more satisfied after eating. Give it a shot.
- Small portions–Everyone who is trying to lose weight knows about eating smaller portions to decrease their daily calorie counts. But if you’re trying to slow down the eating process, try going even smaller. Don’t force yourself to eat less, but do force yourself to get up from the table to get more food. The mere act of standing up and walking to the kitchen to serve yourself some more food will slow you down. It may even give your brain a chance to tell you to stop eating before you normally would.
- Drink water in between bites–We all know that filling our stomachs with things that don’t have any calories will help us to feel full. Many of us on diets drink extra water or eat extra fiber to in order to trick our stomachs. But drinking water can also help us to slow down. Take a bite, chew it up, swallow it down and THEN take a drink of water. Do that after each and every bite and you’ll definitely take longer to eat.
- Eat foods that require work–It’s real easy to stuff your face with chips, crackers, and cookies. They require almost no effort to eat, plus they taste awesome. But there are some foods that require some effort to eat which makes you eat slower. Pistachios, sunflower seed, artichokes, citrus fruits, and pomegranates are just a few foods that make you work to eat them, thus slowing you down.
- Use small utensils–It’s kind of funny, but it works. Try eating a bowl of oatmeal with a baby spoon and then eat the same amount with a regular spoon. I bet you the baby spoon took you twice as long to eat with. I wouldn’t recommend doing this at a fancy restaurant, but there’s no reason you couldn’t do it at home. Want to take it a step further? Eat your food with chopsticks.
There are lots of other methods out there to help you slow down while eating. Whichever method(s) you choose to employ, keep in mind the main goal of eating slow: giving your brain some time to realize that you’ve eaten enough food.
I have to work hard to eat slowly, but I think it’s worth working on. Do you eat slowly? Was it something you had to train yourself to do or does it come naturally for you? What’s your favorite tip to help people eat more slowly?
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
You can also eat hot (temperature) foods whenever possible. It’s no fun to shovel piping hot food into your mouth! Hot (spicy) foods will likely have the same effect, at least by reminding you to drink water and by forcing you to stop eating to wipe your nose now and then.
Something that keeps me aware of what I’m eating is to only eat when I’m sitting down. This prevents drive-bys at the M&M jar.
Focusing on what you eat is a great point. Making eating the only thing you do – no reading, no TV – prevents mindless eating and overeating. Honestly, I get so bored just eating that I eat less so I can go do something more interesting.
I don’t use the baby spoon, but I do eat my cereal from a baby bowl.
It cuts my portion size and frankly I feel the same afterwards whether I
had a soup bowl of cereal or a baby bowl of cereal!
This is one of those areas I’ve definitely got to work on. With 2 young kids at home, mealtime sometimes feels like battle time. We’re trying to keep the 2 year old at the table and eating, the baby is crying because she needs to eat, and we’re usually just trying to rush through eating the meal so we can get on to the next thing.
There are plenty of benefits to eating slower, as you’ve outlined above, I just need to figure out a way to do it with everything else that’s going on.
.-= Brandon´s last blog ..Weekly weigh-in #7 =-.
My tip, chew every bite 20 times. Doesn’t have to be 20, but more than once or twice. You’re less likely to choke and it will take you a lot longer to eat your meal. Also, you’ll have to spend time actually tasting it and enjoying the texture.
I have a hard time eating slowly but I don’t worry about it if I’m only eating a set amount of food. When it comes to desserts I like to eat them out of a small ramekin with baby spoons and baby forks. I love those things and an ice cream sundae spilling out of a ramkin looks like a lot of food even though it isn’t, and takes lonfer to eat with a small spoon.
I also use smaller salad plates and smaller bowls for (most) meals so visually the food looks more substantial and it works for me. I LOVE cereal but tend to go overboard, so I use a medium size bowl and fill the bottom with a cut up banana or other fruit and then pour the cereal on top instead of putting fruit on top of cereal – this way it looks like a giant bowl of cereal but its actually half fruit
This is one area of my life I’ve had no success with. I shovel my food in like I haven’t seen food in several years.
My wife says I inhale it.
I’ll try smaller utensils. I never thought of that!
.-= AndrewE´s last blog ..One Hundred Push-ups in a Row =-.
I think I may eat tooo slow!
My wife says that i take forever while eating. I think I just got tired of having that bloated feeling right after meals that I stopped cramming it in.
For example. I just got finished eating my bowl of Raisin Bran. I had been eating it for a little bit and my wife decided to go and get a bowl of cereal too. She went and made it, ate it, and already had the dish in the sink before I was even finish with the same size bowl.
good post.
.-= Seth´s last blog ..2/20 & a New Layout!! =-.
I eat pretty quickly too. What works for me, at least when we’re eating together, is watching how far along my girlfriend is with her portion. She eats much slower (probably at a regular pace) so I try to pace myself with her. Sometimes this ends up with funny situations where I have 3 bites on my plate for 10 minutes before she catches up to me, but generally it works.
I’ll try the other suggestions though for when I’m not with her. The hard part is work, where I generally eat in front of my computer. Maybe I’ll try switching it off and concentrating more on what I’m eating. I love to cook and put care into what I’m cooking, I really should pay more attention while I’m eating!
…or just pour hot sauce all over your food. You’ll eat more slowly and drink more water. Seriously, great post with some great tips…
Paul McKenna has a great book out (and CD… and for anyone well-versed in the Internet, you can find it for free) called “I Can Make You Thin”, and he offers some simple, common-sense tips. I recommend it. Here are his suggestions:
1. When you’re hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
3. Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful (he writes about how people tend to obsess over food until they are actually eating it, and then they shove it in as fast as they can).
4. When you think you are full, stop eating (in other words, resign from the clean-plate club).
5. Move your body.
He also offers some hypnotherapy techniques which I also recommend. The “tapping technique” really works.
All I can say is that this program has worked for me over the past nine months. I’ve dropped fifteen pounds and haven’t felt deprived. This does NOT mean that I’m eating Big Macs every day (trust me, when you eat a Big Mac SLOWLY, you realize it just doesn’t taste good AT ALL; so you tend not to want them anymore – and that goes for pizza, ice cream, etc. Vegetables, ironically, DO taste better when eaten slowly.). It’s amazing when you get to the point where you realize HOW LITTLE you can eat and feel completely sated, and once you get to that point, you really can’t go back. I used to eat an entire medium Domino’s pizza in one sitting; now, a slice (two slices makes me nauseous). A small cup of Ben & Jerry’s satisfies me instead of a whole pint. So yes, eating slowly – CONSCIOUSLY – does indeed work.
I don’t have any good evidence, but I suspect that the signal that tells you you are full works faster for for some people than others. I have always thought that it takes me longer to feel full so I tend to overeat. I am trying the same thing as Mike, chewing my food at least 20 times, slowly and actually counting 1…2…3… in my head, to slow myself down. This post is serendipitous (if that’s the right word) because I have been thinking about how to change my eating habits, and decided to try to eat slower a couple of days ago and tonight’s dinner was the first time I actually tried counting how may times I chewed. Seemed to help, time will tell…
Oh I just hate the “to eat slower, use chopsticks!” suggestion, as I’ve been using chopsticks since I was 4. And if you’ve ever seen a Japanese business man devour a bowl of noodles, you’d agree that chopsticks are not a impediment to eating fast. Yeah I know, most people in this country are not used to chopsticks, I get it. It’s just one of my pet peeves! GREAT article tho!
.-= Amy´s last blog ..2 Miles in 23 Minutes =-.
Amy–I almost left that chopsticks tip out just for that reason. And I almost added something like, “unless you’ve spent a lot of time in various Asian countries.” In the end, I obviously didn’t make the change because I probably got caught up in other changes and let that one slip my mind. Thanks for the comment. Sorry if I offended you.
I agree with Chris’s observation that the full signal works differently in different people. Even when I’m hungry, once I start eating I feel full way too soon. I have the opposite problem to many of you: I actually have to force myself to finish my food, or else I will be hungry soon again.
. I just want to say, I’m very impressed with all of you who manage to change their habits. It’s taken me years to eat healthier, and finally I just accepted that not every meal has to taste great. Sometimes it’s just food, it’s good for me, and I focus on something else while I’m eating it.
Yes, I know, you all hate me now
I think someone else mentioned chewing your food. It really is good if you chew each bite 15 or 20 times, or more. This not only slows down your eating but does wonders for your energy levels and digestion, a lot of your energy is used up digesting your food, so chewing frees a lot of this up to be used on more fun endeavours
.-= Jack´s last blog ..Wall Mounted Pull Up Bar =-.
I have been doing this drinking a little in between bites. Its amazing one egg with one piece of wheat toast and I’m not hungry until noon. As I normally eat like my dad mimicked him I guess (used to be in the army so he learned to eat fast). One egg and toast was a mere morsel. Eating slower has cut my portions down to half if not less of what I normally eat. This method is great because I don’t like milk (taste, smell, texture etc), but drinking milk between bites helps me not only slow down but get the nutrition I need from it.