How did you teach yourself to slow down your eating?

astengo1 wrote: »

Eat with your opposite hand

This is actually how I discovered I was ambidextrous. A college buddy broke his arm, had to do everything lefty for several weeks. In a show of solidarity, several of us all agreed to also go lefty, at least when around our injured brother. Got several sour looks when I proved just as proficient with my left hand as my right, which surprised me until I thought about how my mother's a righty, my dad's a lefty. My handwriting with my left hand looks like an elementary school kid's, but I attribute that more to lack of practice than lack of ability.

I'm a really slow eater by nature. My fiance on the other hand is a speedy eater. Some differences I've noticed -
he stands while he eats / I always sit at the table and don't walk around while I eat
he'll eat out of containers or boxes / I put my food on a plate, or at least a napkin/papertowel
he eats with his hands if needed / I don't like touching food with my fingers (unless it's chips or crackers or something) so I usually have a utensil or two
he doesn't drink with meals / I literally require at least two drinks to have with meals and I take regular breaks to take sips
he'll mix a bunch of stuff together on a fork / I'm iffy on mixed food so I tend to break things apart and taste all components separately
he eats and talks (gross!)/ I make it a point to chew, swallow, then talk. So if we're having a conversation and I'm talking a lot, I usually end up with a cold plate of food.

Some of the above are results of having an eating disorder(working on that!) but some of them are just preferences from childhood. I've never been a really fast eater but I'm also working on picking up the pace and meeting my fiance somewhere in the middle.

Maybe set a timer goal for yourself and see if you can make the meal last for the timer. Start slow, adding a couple minutes at a time. You got this!

My partner eats super fast and I notice that she’ll take another bite while she still has food in her mouth whereas I chew and swallow before taking another. We eat about the same amount but she finishes way faster.

Chew each bite 20 times. Not only will you taste it more, it WILL digest easier instead of big chunks that don't. Not to go on TMI, but my stools showed less chunky pieces when I did this.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I use to be a slow/thoughtful eater. Then I became a teacher and quickly turned into a 'stuff-it-in-as-fast-as-you-can' eater. I was lucky to have a minute some days to even go to the bathroom...let alone eat something lol!
Perhaps you could use chop sticks? However, if you are proficient in using them, it might not help you out lol!

You can also try to eat for the length of a specific podcast or something where the episodes are a consistent length to try to extend how long you eat or a TV show if you aren't eating with another person.