So you’re thinking about losing weight? You’ve decided on a day when to get started, with a vague idea of reducing portion size.
The problem is, you now feel more anxious about taking this big step – reducing the amount of food you put on your plate.
You actually feel more anxious about portion size than you do about dying from a heart attack or developing diabetes.
Perhaps the first thing to do is stop and ask yourself: how much food do I need to feel full and satisfied?
Chances are you have no idea.
How to get started
What you need is akin to a Jedi mind trick.
The first step, load up your plate as normal. Take off a potato or sausage if you can cope, but otherwise start the meal as normal.
Except for a couple of things:
- Don’t eat on the couch in front of the TV (or other screen device). Distractions take away from enjoyment of your food, and they make you eat faster. That’s a problem.
- You need to give yourself at least 20 minutes to work through your plate of food.
Twenty minutes might seem a long time, but it’s important to take your time.
How to slow down?
Spend a bit more time chewing each bite. Digestion begins with the enzymes in your saliva.
So keep the food in your mouth a little longer than you normally do when competing in the Hunger Games with your family.
With the food in your mouth longer, your taste buds get a decent work out and you’ll enjoy the food more.
Bottomline bonus
And, because you’re not gulping and swallowing as much air as you usually do when shoveling food, you won’t fart as much. Or end up as bloated.
In other words, this sly tactic is already making you more attractive.
You can help yourself slow down your eating by putting down the knife and fork between bites, at least some of the time.
Getting to 20 minutes is the important thing.
Why?
There’s a lot of signalling going on between your stomach, brain and hormones when you eat.
The sensation of “feeling full” isn’t caused simply by having a stomach load of food. That’s simply part of a complex process.
In the stomach, there are stretch receptors that are triggered when you’re filling up with food and water.
These stretch receptors send a message to the brain via the vagus nerve which connects the gut and the brainstem, which controls autonomic functions.
This sets off a conversation between a number of hormones. One of these is cholecystokinin (CCK), which the gut releases releases during a meal.
Another hormone, leptin, talks to the brain about how much food the body needs, based on what’s already been stored as fat.
In other words, leptin carries out a kind of inventory. It’s thought that leptin amplifies the CCK signals, to enhance the feeling of fullness. It’s also thought that that leptin communicates with dopamine in the brain to produce a feeling of pleasure.
Meanwhile, the hormone called ghrelin, which controls hunger, is suppressed, allowing the feeling of fullness to come to the fore.
This process takes about 20 minutes.
The benefit of slowing down
If you slow down your eating, you’re giving your brain the time it needs to receive these signals, and for the hormones to deliver the feeling of fullness and pleasure.
If you eat quickly, you end up with an empty plate, a sense that you’re still hungry – and you’re likely to wander back to the kitchen for a plate of seconds.
Which is probably how you got fat in the first place.
Where’s the evidence?
There are a lot of studies demonstrating the benefits of eating slowly.
In a 2018 study, Japanese researchers investigated the eating and lifestyle habits of about 60,000 people with diabetes over a six-year period.
Alcohol use, sleep patterns and how late in the evening food was consumed increased or lessened the odds of becoming obese.
How quickly or slowly one ate had a significant impact.
Those who ate at a ‘normal speed’ were 29 per cent less likely to be obese than quick eaters.
Those who ate slowly had a 42 per cent lower risk of obesity.
Even more encouraging, to you, the person beginning their ‘weight loss journey’, the participants who went from eating quickly to eating slowly during the study period were found to lose weight, with a drop in their BMI and waist circumference.
See here for links to studies that found:
- People who eat quickly tend to be heavier and gain more weight over time, compared with slower eaters.
- Eating slowly increases the levels of gut hormones responsible for feeling full, which may help reduce calorie intake.
- Chewing food thoroughly slows down your eating pace and reduces the number of calories you take in, which can lead to weight loss.
Eating slowly isn’t the one big answer to weight loss. But it’s a good and easy place to start.
