Your eating speed might be making you FAT

We all know our weight loss goals are clearly affected by what’s on our plates. But did you know, how quickly you finish your food also has a great impact on your weight? Yes, you read that right. The speed at which you eat your food does affect your weight.
The study
Japanese researchers followed 1,083 adults for five years. The group of people was split into three categories based on how quickly they ate – slow, normal and fast. These people were also made to answer a questionnaire at the beginning of the study where they shared about their diet, exercise routine and medical history. None of the volunteers had any metabolic syndrome including abdominal obesity, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure or high blood sugar.

Results
After five years when the participants reported back, 84 of them were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome and their eating speed was a major predictor according to the results in the journal Circulation.

The fast eaters were 89 per cent more likely to have metabolic syndrome than normal and slow eaters. Only 2.3 per cent of slow eaters were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome while 11.6 per cent of fast eaters were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome.

Weight gain
Not just this, people who ate fast also gained weight, had larger waistlines and higher blood sugar levels as compared to slow eaters. The researchers say when you eat food too fast, you do not give your body a chance to signal when you are full and want to stop, which also makes fast eaters, overeaters.

Eating fast causes bigger glucose fluctuation, which can even lead to insulin resistance.

Another study conducted on women from New Zealand found that fast eaters have higher body mass index. Yet another Chinese study found that obese men, when told to chew their food 40 times instead of 15 times, ate less than what they did.

Chewing your food more causes your body to burn more calories, up to 1,000 extra every month. Do you need more reasons to eat slow?