Taking just a few more minutes at each meal can have a profound effect on your health and wellbeing.

It Is So Easy - We Just Don’t Think About It!

It really is so easy! After each mouthful, put your knife and fork down until you have chewed your food at least 10 times and swallowed it.

IS THIS ENOUGH REASON FOR YOU TO EAT SLOWLY?

Lose weight

There is increasing evidence from studies that if you eat slowly you will consume fewer calories and reduce the risk of overeating. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to register we are full. If you eat quickly, you will have “guzzed” your way through an enormous amount before that signal gets heard! In France, they eat really slowly – amazingly more calories and more fat than in the USA – but there is a much lower rate of heart disease and obesity! Studies indicate that up to 10 kg can be lost in a year by simply eating more slowly!

Appetite Reduction

This is kind of like the first point. Your brain takes 20 minutes to register that you are getting full – and our bodies are designed to send the signal to GRADUALLY diminish the appetite as we eat. The slower we eat, the more that signal can take effect.

Portion Control

Eating quickly simply allows you to eat a huge amount before you realise what you have done and before you get the signal that you are full. You are more likely to go back for seconds! If you eat slowly, what first appeared to be a small portion will actually leave you feeling quite satisfied. We need far less at each meal than we think we do. We need to eat “little and often”.

Enjoy your food

If you shovel your food in, your taste buds don’t have the time to register what you are actually eating. So if you are eating sinful foods, you end up eating much more to get the “feel good” effect. Slow it down and you are able to savour all of the wonderful variety in texture, taste and smell. Amazingly, the more you allow yourself to enjoy your food, the less you will eat! Research has proven that people who actually eat “fast food” slowly do not like the taste – but if they keep eating quickly, they eat at least twice as much of the junk food. Hardly a surprise really!

Improved digestion

Digestion starts in the mouth – the more you do there, the less you need to do elsewhere. In the mouth, saliva starts to break food down into smaller chemical constituents. By the time it reaches the gut, the food is partially processed. So, your body can then start to absorb the nutrients that it needs much quicker – in turn it feels satisfied much more quickly. If you eat too quickly, everything hits your gut like a brick! This is the cause of many digestive problems and it also slows down your metabolism.

Increased Absorption

I have already mentioned it before. The more your food is broken down by the time it reaches your intestines, the easier it is for your body to extract and absorb the essential amino acids, minerals and vitamins.

Heartburn & Acid reflux

Eating too quickly can cause heart burn and acid reflux

Reduced stress

When we go and sit in a sauna or a Jacuzzi, we intend to relax. Eating is a habit (or necessity) that actually puts the body under enormous stress – especially when we rush it. If we can start to put eating in the same place as relaxing, it helps to reduce stress. Again, there is so much research to confirm that if you distract the mind from eating (watching TV, sitting at the computer, etc, etc) we interfere with the normal signals and this increases stress. If you plan to eat, do nothing but eat!

Reduced Risk of Obesity

Research shows that there is a direct correlation between rate of eating and obesity – for all of the reasons included in this article!

Reduced risk of Heart Disease and Diabetes

Research shows that eating quickly is directly associated with insulin resistance. If you are eating lots of carbs (and especially the wrong type) and eat them really quickly, your blood sugar will “sky rocket”. There is also an association between quick eating and heart disease and diabetes.

Lower Blood Pressure and Lower Cholesterol

Once again, research shows that there is a link between fast eating and conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol

The Fast Food Syndrome

Experiments show that when people eat fast food slowly, they actually don’t like it and start to choose things that are better quality

HEALTHY, SLOW EATING!