Fork Over the Calories

Overweight people usually share common eating habits: eating too fast, eating while watching TV, eating somewhere other than the dining room table, etc.

DH is the king of fast eating. Most of the time, he stands at the kitchen counter to wolf down only a few bites of BestLife breakfast before dashing off to work because he would rather sleep through three snoozes than to get up a few minutes early to eat more slowly. We're going to talk about this over the weekend.

When you eat too fast, you shovel in enormous amounts of calories without realizing it. By then, it's too late for your brain to signal your stomach it's full - a process that usually takes 20 minutes.

One way to slow down your eating is to put down your utensils between bites.

Dr. Philcites the case of Glenn,
a patient who finally felt ready to lose 50 pounds.

"He made only one change at first. A habitually fast eater, Glenn learned to put his utensils down after each bite. From counting his caloric intake at meals, we discovered that he had slashed his calories practically in half just by using this delaying tactic, yet he still felt satisfied even though he was eating much less. Glenn felt neither deprived nor threatened by this change; it was no big sacrifice. Each week, he would drop anywhere from 1 to 2 pounds, without much effort on his part."

I knew that. My mother's been saying it all my life. Duh.