If you are trying to lose weight, eat more slowly experts say

It has been known for a long time, from different cultures thru observation, that eating more slowly helps with weight loss. A large study comparing 60,000 people asked how fast people eat, and other questions about their eating habits. What the researchers found was that compared to people who reported they eat their meals very fast vs moderate speed eaters were 30% more likely to be obese (obesity is defined by AMA as BMI of 30 and overweight as a BMI of 25), and compared to slow eaters they were 42% more likely to be obese!

According to the questionnaires’ in the study, it turns out that slow eaters also have a healthier life style and habits than the normal or fast eaters.

It is presumed that slow eaters fill up faster at meal time vs fast eaters. Satiety signal is not just a stretch receptor in the stomach signaling the brain that we’re full, but that there is also a hormone released, leptin, and it takes a little while for the signal of satiety to be sent to the brain. Therefore we feel full faster when we eat more slowly!

Obesity isn’t the only problem when it comes to eating fast. Oriental medicine has included in its doctrines over the millennia the importance of eating slowly and savoring the five different flavors. They argue that the enjoyment of the meal (which comes when we don’t have to eat fast due to work for example) allows better assimilation and utilization of the nutrients just internalized.

In Oriental medical philosophies, the digestive system is the basis of health and if stomach and spleen are working optimally, the body and mind do good. If the stomach or spleen have some issues and cant do their job right, all sorts of problems can arise. Savoring the five flavors (of a meal) are supportive of the spleen as is mindful eating and it makes sense that slow eaters would be thinner than fast eaters not just in terms of satiety arriving sooner with meals, but in terms of better functioning of the spleen.