Is Fast Eating Making You Gain Weight?

How does it take you to eat your lunch? Five  minutes, maybe ten? The majority of city girls and guys I know inhale their lunches. Who has time for lunch? You grab the quickest option available … which often turns out not to be the healthiest one!  I often suggest to my clients that they get a “pick your own ingredient salad” for lunch or order a healthy sandwich made fresh (versus the premade fattening sandwiches such as a caesar wrap). They tell me they don’t have the five minutes to wait in line and end up grabbing something not-so-healthy. I have watched nurses at the hospital where I work scarf down sandwiches in the corner in literally 2 minutes. We inhale food in our cars. I’ve even eaten a sandwich in a closet in between clients! What happened to the good old “lunch hour”?

So, the majority of people eat too fast. And the majority of people are overweight …. see the connection?

We have heard in the past that it takes 20 minutes for your brain to signal your stomach that you are getting full. If you eat your meal in less than 20 minutes, it is likely that you will not feel full and will end up overeating. But now, new research actually demonstrates how this works.  It appears that appetite regulating hormones produced in the gut after a meal will signal the brain’s satiety center. For more details, read on:

Eating Quickly Is Associated with Overeating: New Study
Newswise — According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), eating a meal quickly, as compared to slowly, curtails the release of hormones in the gut that induce feelings of being full. The decreased release of these hormones, can often lead to overeating.

“Most of us have heard that eating fast can lead to food overconsumption and obesity, and in fact some observational studies have supported this notion,” said Alexander Kokkinos, MD, PhD, of Laiko General Hospital in Athens Greece and lead author of the study. “Our study provides a possible explanation for the relationship between speed eating and overeating by showing that the rate at which someone eats may impact the release of gut hormones that signal the brain to stop eating.”

In the last few years, research regarding gut hormones, such as peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1), has shown that their release after a meal acts on the brain and induces satiety and meal termination. Until now, concentrations of appetite-regulating hormones have not been examined in the context of different rates of eating.

In this study, subjects consumed the same test meal, 300ml of ice-cream, at different rates. Researchers took blood samples for the measurement of glucose, insulin, plasma lipids and gut hormones before the meal and at 30 minute intervals after the beginning of eating, until the end of the session, 210 minutes later. Researchers found that subjects who took the full 30 minutes to finish the ice cream had higher concentrations of PYY and GLP-1 and also tended to have a higher fullness rating.

Tips to slow done your rate of eating
1. Pay attention to how quickly you eat. Awareness is the first step in making changes.

2. Make slower eating a priority. You need to let those gut hormones signal your brain! Tell yourself the slower you eat, the thinner you can be!

3. Your goal will be to take 30 minutes to eat your meal  (30 minutes may not be possible for many of you – so aim for at least 20!)

4. If your tendency is to finish your sandwich in 5 bites, then select a lunch that will take longer to eat.  Using silverware will likely slow down your rate of eating. For example, a salad or grilled fish with rice and vegetables will take longer to eat than a sandwich.

6. Start your meal with soup or a salad. This will force you to slow your rate of eating down. 

7. If you are with a group of people, try to be the last one to finish eating.

8. Drink sips of water in between eating bites of food. This will also help you to feel fuller.