Eating Slowly

[Stinkyfish97]

How can I prepare meals so that they take longer to consume? I realize we live in fast paced world but eating fast leads to overeating and weight gain. Not good. Does anyone have any suggestions in how to prepare meals so that they take longer to eat. Any mealtime suggestions to make a meal time last longer. Conversations? Play a game? How to eat and/or prepare? Really anything even ritual. What do you guys do so that your plate of food is not gone in 5 minutes and 10 minutes later you still feel hungry? 

My suggestions:

Spoiler

My suggestions are for breakfast: I buy nuts in shells. It takes longer to eat a handful of pistachios if you have to crack open the nuts to get the pistachio. This really helps me during breakfast/lunch hours. A handful of pistachios can take less than 1 minute to eat if they are already de-shelled but it takes nearly 5x as long when not shelled at all. Same goes for fruits. I never peal or cut up my fruits before work. I eat them last in my meal as well. For breakfast I usually do a hardboiled egg and fruit, or nut and fruit. The hard-boiled egg or nuts might take me 1 minute to eat, nuts usually longer than eggs, then it takes a good 3 minutes to peel/cut up an orange or an apple and then another good 3-5 minutes to eat the orange/apple. My total for the meal I have increased by 3 minutes simply by not peeling the orange. That is pretty close to 10 minutes and if I add in sipping water, tea or coffee I could easily stretch this into 15-20 minutes for breakfast, especially if I am doing a nut in a shell such as pistachios.

Supposedly it can take 20-30 minutes for our brains to tell us we are full. Finding ways to take 20 minutes to eat an egg and an orange can be challenging. Many of us just give up or are too efficient with our eating practices. What do I mean by effecient. I mean that we pre-process our foods, peal or cut them up or buy pre-pealed or cut up foods and this makes us more effecient but it also makes our meals last only a couple of minutes at most. While it may be because of practical reasons, like who is bringing in pineapple to cut up at their desk, many of us do it just out of convinience ie apple slices or already peeled oranges. We pay the price for effeciency in that we never really feel quite full. If you scarff down your meal in 5 minutes, its pretty easy to still feel hungry and then reach for a snack right after you just ate. That is why I dislike shakes and smoothies so much as a meal replacement. I realize they can be packed with nutrients but I never really feel quite full after having one. While some people can take 15 or 20 minutes to drink a smoothie and feel full because of this. I am not one of these people. I am lucky if  a smoothie lasts 5 minutes. 

I hope my suggestions get you thinking about how you eat a meal. I look forward to hearing some of your suggestions. Remember it does not have to be how you prepare a meal. It can be something like me and my co-workers go out for lunch and have a converstation over tapas. Maybe your ritual is you play a game while eating lunch with coworkers. Like we play hold-em as we eat. I dunno I look forward to suggestions. 

[pyronik]

I play with my food, have fun with it.  But then I tend not to eat when I'm in a rush.  So if I'm eating citrus fruit, (like a satsuma), peel it so you get all the peel off in one go - like peeling an apple when you get a single spiral of peel.  & after I've peeled the satsuma, I then remove as much of the white stuff as I can.  & then I desack each segment just as I'm about to eat it.  I can take 10 - 20 mins to eat a piece of fruit.

With meat I tend to cut off (or tear off) all the fat.  Again, that can really slow my consumption rate.  How about eating with a teaspoon (or a mustard spoon!  They're tiny) so each mouthful is smaller.  Or chopsticks (until you get proficient anyway) & leave the plate / bowl on the table so each mouthful has further to travel.

Mindful eating.  Concentrate on the flavours, the textures, how visually appealing the food is.

I read somewhere about chewing each mouthful 34 (or maybe 54) times, I tried once.  Not only was the counting a real drag but the mouthful lost all its flavour before I finished chewing & I didn't enjoy that food at all.

Hope you find some useful suggestions here 🙂

[modelmalina]

For me having a glass of water before each meal helped. It helps to make you feel fuller. Also when I had a dog, I would feed her first. After our walk I would prepare my meal. And not feel as hungry as when I started out. Having conversations with family or friends work too.

And trying to remember to savor the flavor. After a long day at work, or school or whatever. That seems to work for me most of the time. Good and bad days. Hope this helps.

[marfar]

Thank you ! Each experience helps! My advice when we walk briskly on foot is to drink warm water with lemon juice and eat a fruit. This will be the spark that awakens the liver to burn fat! In return we can drink water slowly but do not eat anything for an hour and a half! This further helps the liver to burn the body fat!