The Benefits of Eating Your Food More Slowly
Learning to eat your food more slowly will help to improve your digestion and lower your blood sugars.
But there are other benefits too!
- Weight loss by helping you to consume fewer calories. It takes some twenty minutes for your stomach to develop a feeling of fullness. Slower eating gives you time to realize you are full sooner.
- Enjoyment because you really cannot enjoy your food if you eat it in a rush. Slow down to experience the taste of your food.
- Reducing stress because eating, when done slowly, is an effective mindfulness exercise, encouraging you to be in the moment instead of worrying about your next activity. Eating more slowly than you usually do will allow you to feel less stressed while avoiding the faster pace of life. Less fast food is one of the benefits. Less fast food could mean less weight gain.
- Training in self-discipline because food is a primal need, making self-discipline more difficult. Learning to eat slowly is a great exercise for self-discipline, training yourself to live a healthier life if you eat slowly.
- Selecting healthier foods. For example, natural foods such as fruits and vegetables are particularly vibrant when you take your time to eat them.
- Being sociable by making eating a social event more often. Mealtimes are a great opportunity to come together with relatives and friends, helping us all to connect. This connection is much more possible when we eat our food slowly.
- Better hydration means a win/win situation all round. When you eat your food slowly, your water consumption will increase helping your kidneys to work more efficiently and the muscles in your body to feel energized.
Top tips on how to eat your food more slowly
So, how do you force yourself not to give in to the tendency to gobble your food?
1. One of the things to help you is making slowing down purposeful. Set a minimum number of bites to chew and count to ten in-between each bite. Eating slowly has definite benefits, and it comes with determined, deliberate practice. Take your time and notice an overall difference in your health.
2. We are all guilty of encouraging our children to eat up their food quickly. If we can turn this around and instead influence them to take their time to savor their food, we will all benefit.
3. Try to minimize those distractions around you. You can eat in a quiet spot where there is no pressure so you pay attention to your food, taste it and then better appreciate it.
4. Change to high-fiber foods because these take longer to break down in the stomach, making you feel fuller for longer while encouraging you to eat less. High fiber foods are also easier to eat if you take it slowly.
5. Learn to put down your utensils between bites as this will help you to take your time.
SOURCES:
Steps for Improving Your Eating Habits | Healthy Weight and Growth | CDC
Written by Jane Chitty
Jane writes for Healing Natural Oils, a producer and retailer of high-quality, all-natural treatments for a variety of conditions as well as a range of beauty products. Apart from writing about those various conditions, she also covers general health, environmental and other subjects of interest. She has lived in Kenya as well as Cape Town, South Africa and spent time in San Diego, USA. She now lives in Somerset, England with regular visits from her far-flung children and grandchildren. She is a keen gardener and enjoys growing fresh fruit and vegetables with her husband on their joint allotment. As a result, there is something available to use in the kitchen virtually all year round. Her regular posts can be found on our blog.