3 Science-Backed Reasons To Eat Slower and 3 Ways To Do It

Eating slowly is the key to weight loss

Have you ever calculated how fast you eat? I did.d.

I can finish my meal within 5 minutes, while everyone at the table is halfway through their meals. It is not helpful in family gatherings where I finish my food so fast that I sit there and look at other people eating.

Since young, I had always been a fast eater. I put a spoonful of food into my mouth, chew it 2 to 3 times, and swallow it. I know it’s unhealthy and I am working hard to break this habit.

Many of us rush through our day. Some of us might not have time to have a proper meal. When we do have the time to eat, we finish it within minutes to continue our work. This leads to an unhealthy lifestyle and causing stress. If we can add an extra five minutes to eat, it would be beneficial to our body.

Here are three science-backed reasons why you should eat slow:

Help You Lose Weight

Eating fast can cause weight gain.

Research had found that fast eaters are more likely to be obese compared to slow eaters. A study on 4000 subjects who said they ate fast gained weight since age 20.

Hormones control your appetite and hunger. When you eat, your body suppresses ghrelin (hunger hormone). These hormones will signal your brain to tell them you have eaten, reduces your appetite, and help you stop eating.

When you are eating too fast, the signals couldn’t reach the brain fast enough. Even after you had eaten a full meal, you still feel hungry because ghrelin is not suppressed. The leptin (fullness hormone) is not being released. That is why you will feel hungry even after you finished your meal. When you feel hungry, you will overeat, which causes weight gain.

The key to weight loss is to eat slowly and allow yourself to feel full. Eating slower leads to increased fullness rating and lower hunger ratings.

Better Digestion

The digestion process starts with chewing. Digestive enzymes from our saliva break down the foods. After chewing our foods, the foods move down our gastrointestinal tract, where more enzymes will further break down the foods.

Foods are easier to digest if we chew them to make them into smaller portions. When you eat slowly, you are chewing your food more.

It takes about 20 minutes for our stomach to signal our brain. If we are eating too fast, we already finish our meal before the signal reaches our brain. That’s why if you eat too fast, you will feel hungry more quickly.

When you have better digestion, you feel full, which prevents you from overeating or snacking.

Less Stress

Foods are meant to be enjoyed. What’s the point of eating when you are squeezing everything into your mouth?

Many of us are guilty of eating fast. We have so many things to do in our life and eating is the least important one. That’s why we neglect the importance of eating slowly, and it had impacted our health.

We should use our eating time to relax. Let yourself free of the stress from work. Stress affects eating in two ways — causes stress-eating, which will make us gain weight, or reduced food intake causes us to lose weight; either way is unhealthy. Eating slow has multiple benefits. If you are a fast eater like me, try these tips and tricks that I used to eat slower:

Chew More

The obvious thing you can do is to chew your food more. The experts said that we should chew our food 32 times before swallowing it.

This bad habit is hard to break. Every time I eat, I will remind myself to chew the foods more. But after a few minutes of eating, I would forget about it and switch back to my old habit. I am still working on it.

Proper digestions start in your mouth. Remind yourself to chew your food thoroughly for better digestion and increased absorption of nutrients.

Remove Distractions

How often you eat and multitask? I guess many of you who are reading this are guilty of doing so. You eat while your hands are holding the phone, scrolling on social media. When you are eating, focus on eating and not being distracted by other things.

I was like many of you. Whenever I am eating alone, I will eat while scrolling on social media or reading the latest news. I became distracted by the things I am reading and just mindlessly put foods into my mouth. Without realising it, I finish my food within minutes.

When I am out eating with friends and family, I eat slower. I don’t want to be sitting down looking at other people eating after 5 minutes. When you are with your friends and family, you enjoy the companions of each other; unconsciously, you will eat slower.

Listen To Your Body

If you are hungry, go and eat. Don’t wait until you are too hungry and you end up eating too fast. When you are hungry, your body will send you signals. Your stomach will growl, you will feel lightheaded and feeling a lack of energy to do things.

I used to be like that. Sometimes I am too occupied with work, and I end up missing my meals. By the time I want to eat, I am too hungry and finish the meal fast. Often I feel bloated because of all the fast eating. There’s one time where I have bad gastritis after eating too fast.

Ever since that tragedy, I was more mindful of my eating, eat slowly, and not miss my meals.

Takeaway Message

Eating fast is not a healthy habit. Many of us are occupied by the number of work that we need to do every day, and often we neglect the importance of slow eating.

The ‘fast’ culture is unhealthy, and we need to stop it. Put aside at least 20 minutes for eating every day no matter how busy you are. It can significantly improve your health.