Did weight loss experts read our minds or something?
Because it's as if they knew that we couldn't bear the thought of hearing another person tell us that in order to avoid packing on pounds during calorie bomb season (the official name for the time period that starts in two weeks and lasts through New Years) we should just have the will power to not stuff our faces with pumpkin pie, gravy, holiday cookies, and festive cocktails. Researchers at the University of Rhode Island seemed to sense that. Because they just released the findings of two studies that claim you can shed Lbs. by tweaking how you eat, not how much you eat.
The nutrition professor and grad students who headed up the studies learned that there's a "close association between eating rate and body mass index" and that the faster one chows down, the higher their BMI tends to be. Therefore, they concluded that slowing down the pace at which you shovel pumpkin pie into your mouth could mean less damage to your waistline.
"It takes time for your body to process fullness signals," explained Professor Kathleen Melanson, as quoted on Eurekalert.org. "So slower eating may allow time for fullness to register in the brain before you've eaten too much."
And here's another tip: People tend to eat whole grains (brown rice, whole wheat pasta, etc.) more slowly than refined grains (white bread, white pasta, white anything pretty much). So, in addition to all of the other health benefits of going whole-grain, it's the better choice when you're super hungry and in the mood to eat a lot.
The researchers also confirmed something we've always assumed—that men eat waaay faster than women. Guys take down about 80 calories per minute while we do 52 calories worth of damage in the same amount of time.
Do you consider yourself a fast or a slow eater? Would you try eating more slowly to test out this weight loss trick?