To lose pounds, spend more time at the dining table. It’s now thought that the reason we over-eat relates to the speed with which we eat. Tests in America found that those who ate quickly consumed more than those who ate slowly. If we don’t stop until we’re full up, we’ll eat more when we devour our food than when we pace ourselves.
Test it out today to prove it by eating your evening meal very fast. Keep going until you’re satisfied. On another occasion, take your time over exactly the same meal, really working every mouthful until it’s completely chewed up. There’s a very good chance that your first dinner will be bigger than your second. Additionally you won’t feel so hungry a couple of hours on following the slower meal where you ate less food.
The reason we overfill ourselves when eating at a pace is we don’t wait for the digestive process. When the food does then reach the stomach, we get a horrible swollen bloat.
But there is another reason to keep food in the mouth for longer. Well chewed food assists dieters with weight loss, as the whole digestive process is then optimised.
How much we eat can be strongly influenced by how we actually eat. The best way to dine is sitting at the table and concentrating on our food. Then we can eat more graciously, and put our cutlery down when we’ve had enough.
Conversation tends to flow more around the dining table, which could also be a reason for slower eating. Either way, dining at the table beats TV dinners on the sofa hands down where digestion is concerned.
It’s also the case that we eat faster if we’ve allowed ourselves to get too hungry. Aim to prevent this by planning meals in advance, and eat smaller meals more frequently. Sweets and chocolate give instant gratification, but the effect doesn’t last. But five or six mini-meals aren’t always possible when we’re at work. That’s when we need to take pieces of fruit, packets of seeds or nuts or perhaps some oatcakes to have throughout the day.
So the essence of this article is that we’re seeing a strong correlation between the time food remains in the mouth, and how sated we feel following consumption. Savouring food and masticating well might just be the easiest way to cut our daily calorific intake.
(C) Scott Edwards. Look at WeightLossDietWar.com for logical information on losing weight healthy and rapid fat loss.