Ep #383: How to Stop Speed Eating

Welcome to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians podcast. I'm your host, master certified life and weight loss coach, Katrina Ubell, M.D. This is the podcast where busy doctors like you come to learn how to lose weight for the last time by harnessing the power of your mind. If you're looking to overcome your stress, eating and exhaustion and move into freedom around food, you're in the right place. Well. Hello there, my friend. How are you today? Welcome to today's episode. I'm so glad you're here with me today. I can't believe it. 383 episodes. And this is a topic I have not discussed on here before. I was kind of like, oh my gosh, I don't think I've ever talked about this.

This is a subject that came up recently on one of our coaching calls in the weight loss for doctors only coaching group. One of my very lovely members brought this topic to coaching, and we talked about it, and I have been thinking about it ever since. So thank you for the inspiration. This person knows who she is and I thought, you know what, I think this is something that would be good to bring to the podcast because I think everybody could benefit from this. And so what I want to talk about is eating more slowly, like how to stop speed eating. It's an issue that a lot of people struggle with, for sure, and it's one of those things.

[00:01:33] I actually talked about this pretty recently on one of my weekly emails. If you're not on my email list, you want to make sure you get on there soon. But also in one of the episodes, just talking about these rules, these kind of like fake rules around losing weight, keeping it off, you know, what you have to be doing. I think one of the things I brought up earlier was that you should sit down when you're eating, that you shouldn't eat when you stand. And I think all these rules come from a place of good heartedness, you know, good intentions. But ultimately it's like. You know, I eat standing up and it's fine. Like not every meal by any stretch.

But often I am eating my breakfast while I'm standing up. That's just how I do it, you know? And it's fine. It's not a problem for me. But, you know, the point is well taken. Yeah. If you're standing up and eating all the time, do you feel like you actually had the actual meal where you focused on the food? So you know what I'm saying? It's like we can take things too far, the pendulum can swing too far, and we want to be careful about that. I want to say the same goes for speed dating. You know, we're like, oh, the reason I just can't lose weight is because I just eat too fast.

[00:02:49] And if I could just figure out how to eat slower then it, you know, I'd be able to get, you know, the results I want. I disagree with that, I really do. I think that if you eat really fast then yeah, it's something that you have to take into consideration. When I talk about the hunger scale and stopping eating when you're at a plus four on that scale, if you eat really fast, if your food is down the hatch within 3 to 5 minutes, no plus four, you cannot be a plus four when you stop eating, it's going to be way too much, so you have to experiment with that. Maybe a plus two is right for you because 30 minutes later, an hour later, you actually are at a plus four.

You know, maybe it's even a plus one. Maybe you have to actually stop eating when you still feel hungry because you know it's going to take time for your stomach and your brain to catch up. These are things that you can figure out for yourself, and they become like little tools, little skills that you can leverage. Because guess what? Especially when you're a doctor, sometimes you have to eat a meal fast. It's just like how it is. This comes down to like one of the main reasons why I decided to leave medicine and actually do this work, and particularly serve doctors, because so much of that conventional wisdom and what people talk about and the people who are helping others to lose weight, they give you these rules.

[00:04:04] And I was just sitting there going, yeah, but like sometimes when you're a doctor, you can't do that. So then what was so frustrating to me and so I still maintain do not use those rules against yourself. If you are a fast eater, don't make that mean anything more than it means, which is that you eat food pretty quickly. Now, is it something that you can work on? Is it something that you can adjust? Absolutely. If you want to, if it serves you, if it works with your lifestyle.

And I want to say that I know that for sure, because I am a recovered speed eater, I really, really, truly can say that for many, many, many years I have eaten, you know, at a reasonable speed. I will say I'm not a slow eater, but I definitely don't tear through food the way I did for the majority of many decades of my life. So I know that you can change this. I know the benefits that come from when you change it, but I also want to just start off by saying, you know what, there are times where you just need to check the box, get the food down and move on, and that's okay too. You can still totally have success, still get the results you want when that is the case.

[00:05:19] Okay, but what we could maybe work on is maybe not having that always be the case, or most of the time being the case, right? So I wanted to tell you that one of the biggest reasons to slow down in your eating is because when you eat fast, it actually massively reduces your enjoyment of the food, which is really interesting for people who tell themselves they really love food. Like if we like food so much, why are we wolfing it down? Like someone's about to take it away from us, right? Like you actually cannot register the sensations that make eating enjoyable.

Like you're not really tasting it. You're not really getting like the textures, it's not registering with you. And so you have less enjoyment of the food. This often then ends up leading to overeating, because we didn't get the enjoyment out of the food that we wanted to. So then we go and we eat more. I remember so many times I would be, you know, trying to eat my food fast at dinner, helping my kids with different things, and then I'm making lunch and eating practically another, like half meal in lunch bits, like, you know, a few things for them, a few things for me. And then I'd sit down and totally eat more snacks and sweets and whatever. You know, it's way too much food for me.

[00:06:38] But I was still just looking for that pleasure, so it makes sense. We want to get pleasure out of our food. It is a normal way that humans get natural pleasure, and so it can really benefit us to allow ourselves to experience that pleasure. But so I want to dial back and go back to the program member that I was working with who brought this to a coaching call. And what she was saying was that she really had gotten to the point where she felt like she was being super inefficient and wasting time if she wasn't eating quickly, and if she also was not doing something else at the same time, like charting or feeding her baby or, you know, any of the other things, like, I mean, and I get this.

There are times where I'm literally like taking a bite of my breakfast and like, getting undressed to get in the shower, you know, like kind of doing things at the same time. This is why I'm saying sometimes we have to do that. That's just how that goes. But when it's something that you're often doing and then you're noticing that you're overeating because of it, then it's of course, something that we maybe want to address and spend a little bit more time on. So for anybody who really resonates with what she had said, which is, you know, if I'm eating, it's a waste of time if I'm not also charting or, you know, going through the mail or whatever it may be, doing something else.

[00:07:57] I want to just remind you. And if I probably I think most people know this, but if you don't just let you know that there is a ton of research in the psychological literature that shows that multitasking is really just not a thing. So when we tell ourselves, like, well, I'm eating and I'm getting this done, I'm getting it all done and it's going faster. Generally, that's not actually true because we're going from one task to the next task and back and forth, and that actually ends up slowing us down. Now you might say, well, but no, like I took that time and I got, you know, 3 or 4 charts done while I was eating, but it probably still took way longer.

There's more chances for mistakes, for overlooking things. The quality of your work tends to go down if you're also trying to do other things at the same time. So we have to be careful about the stories we tell ourselves like that essentially bolster the thing that we don't want to be doing that, you know, it's like our argument for the thing that we actually want to stop doing. It's really unlikely that it's true that you're so much more efficient by doing that. And I think by being open to shifting that belief and changing the way you think about it, you can find other ways where you can be more efficient, where you really are actually just focusing on getting the charts done, and you get them done so much more quickly because all of your attention is there and you know, your accuracy goes up, your chances of, you know, having it done in a way that is an appropriate level of quality definitely is better.

[00:09:28] Okay. So that is definitely one reason that we overeat or and why we eat fast. Not really overeating, but eating fast. Eating fast often leads to overeating, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're overeating. So I wanted to touch on several other reasons why we eat fast. And I think it's important that we understand this because some of these things may resonate with you and some of them may not.

And when you understand some of the reasons behind why you eat quickly, you can work to address those things. Rather than just telling yourself you need to slow down, you know, whatever it's like, right? If that was so simple, we would just do that. But often it requires more than that. So for a lot of people, eating quickly is habit because of many, many years of doing it. It's just like how we eat now. It's not something that we are making ourselves do, it's just when we eat.

[00:10:21] This is how we eat. So why that is can be multifactorial. Some of the reasons why can be just family culture. This was the reason for me. I mean, my parents have often talked about how they just eat so quickly, which actually might even stem from the next thing that I'm going to bring up. But, you know, it's just like when everybody in your family eats quickly, then it's just becomes normal to eat at that pace, to keep up with everyone else. And if that's just what your family of origin was like, then that's just how you eat.

You may not even remember any time of eating more slowly, or it could be that you ate more slowly, and then you were constantly prodded to eat faster. It was taking too long. You were the last one at the table, and it's like you got to eat faster. You got to eat faster. Another reason is if you experience some food scarcity as a child, and this can come from truly there was not food there at times, like you had to miss meals because no food was available. Or sometimes it can be, you know, if there's a limited amount of food that's available and everyone's sharing it, then you better eat fast, or everyone else is going to eat all the food and you won't get enough. That definitely has been something for people for a long, long time.

[00:11:35] So then you learn to eat faster so that you can make sure that you get your needs met. So it's important to look at things like this with some compassion and some empathy for yourself, right? Like the reason you do anything, like you have good reasons for doing it, you know, and if you had some food scarcity or you went without meals. When you were younger, you know, you experienced childhood hunger, childhood poverty that resulted in hunger. It would make sense that you have a strong desire to make sure you get your needs met. And when food is available, you want to get it down the hatch quickly before something happens.

And maybe it's taken away. Of course, logically, you would understand that that's not going to happen, but inside you, that more primitive part of your brain doesn't really know that it hasn't really gotten the message. And that could be something to work on, right? To help that part of your brain understand? Actually. We're good. I've got us. I will take care of me. I will always make sure that I'm properly nourished. Okay, so that's something to really work on. Not get mad at yourself about or get frustrated about. Okay? Another reason why we eat fast is we're busy. I mean, we just straight up are right. We got a lot to do and we're going from here to there. I mean, often I'm just gonna totally admit it.

[00:12:53] When I'm eating breakfast and I'm walking around and I'm standing and I'm eating whatever, I'm like, putting away the clean dishes from last night. I'm emptying the dishwasher. I'm putting the breakfast dishes in, you know, like doing this, doing that. Sometimes that's just what we've got. I got a certain amount of time to get it done and off I go. I'm doing it. So sometimes we're just busy. I think that we have to be careful about telling ourselves, well, I just live such a busy life, like I have to eat fast.

But just recognizing that we have a lot of things, we're trying to get them all done in a certain amount of time. And also if I decided, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore. Eating while I'm standing and emptying the dishwasher isn't good for me. Then I can empty the dishwasher another time, or I can get up a little earlier and I can do it like it's not that big of a deal if it's creating a problem. I don't believe for me that that is creating a problem, which is why I just don't think it's a big deal. Okay, the next reason we eat fast is emotions, right? We feel stress. We are feeling anxiety. We're feeling pressure. You know, all the reasons, all those emotional reasons that we eat. We're like trying to change our emotional state.

[00:13:55] We've got some sort of emotion we don't like feeling, and we're trying to numb it out. We're trying to distract ourselves from it. We're trying to feel differently. And food can help with that, right? So it changes what we feel like inside. And so if we get it down faster, then maybe we can change that emotional state faster. So just mentioning that right emotional stuff, another reason why it's so important to learn how to process your emotions, how to support yourself emotionally so you can truly separate your emotions and caring for them from eating, nourishing your body and occasional pleasure like extra pleasure. Right?

You should get pleasure out of your food because your food should taste good. Okay, another reason why we eat fast. Many of us who have been on restrictive eating plans in the past. I mean, I know I have been on many in my life, right? When you've dieted a lot. It's very common that when it comes time to eating like you've been extremely hungry, you've felt deprived, you felt like you aren't getting your needs met. So you need to just get that food down fast. This also happens if you do too much fasting. Sometimes you know people are hanging on through their fasting window and then when it becomes the eating window, then it's just like, oh my gosh, get the food in as fast as possible because suddenly, you know, you're permitted to eat.

[00:15:14] These are problems that can come from that diet mentality, from too much fasting. I've talked about that in the past on this podcast. Won't belabor it here. But you know, we can understand that if we've gone on restrictive diets in the past that may have really contributed to why we eat quickly. And then finally just being aware of your body's signals, what I call the hunger scale, or really just understanding your hunger and satiety cues. Your body comes preprogramed with that information to let you know when you need food and when you've had enough. And you know, if we just are unaware of that, completely disconnected from it.

We don't know if we're hungry or we're just eating mindlessly. It's just like putting it in our bodies, you know, we can end up eating really quickly because of that as well. So I wanted to just talk very briefly about some medical issues that can be associated with fast eating. I thought this was actually pretty interesting. This is all per the Cleveland Clinic. You know, a lot of it makes sense, but some of it was kind of interesting. So poor digestion, just like not chewing enough, you know, you can get poor nutrient absorption. You really just are kind of like gobbling it down. It's not really great for our bodies. So that can lead to indigestion and heartburn leading to gas, bloating, abdominal pain, things like that.

[00:16:28] I'm kind of like IBS type symptoms. Interestingly, some studies have shown that eating quickly can be associated with an increased risk of metabolic syndrome. Very, very interesting. And then I think this is not totally surprising, but there are studies that show that fast eating is related with unwanted weight gain. And, you know, there's just several different ones and, you know, talking to different people that show that. So it's kind of not surprising, right? When you eat really fast, you can end up eating too much. That would result when it's, you know, more food than your body needs, than your body will save it in the form of fat.

For, you know, another day. And that's how that weight gain happens. But, um, the interesting to just see like actual data showing like, oh yeah, it is actually associated with that. So when we are thinking about how we end up, sometimes some of us have like that weight creep that just sort of creeps on, you know, a few pounds here, a few pounds there. And like every year we're a little bit heavier. Definitely. This can be something that's associated with that. So then what are you supposed to do? Because a lot of people do ask me, like, how long should a meal take? And I think that's that's kind of a tricky question in this, because like I said, it's like I don't want it to be like, oh, but if I didn't take that long, then I'm doing it wrong and I can't have the results that I want because that's just not true.

[00:17:42] But I do think that it can be helpful to know, like, what am I kind of aiming for? So, you know, I mean, what I found from a lot of different experts online is people are saying aiming for about 20 to 30 minutes for a meal. I personally think that that's like a pretty slowly paced meal, I think. I think it's a great goal. I think for some people it's going to be easier to accomplish than others. I'm just even thinking about like the end of the day meal, the more dinner type meal. I mean, just looking at my own personal situation with a lot going on with different kids and different activities, you know, we don't always very often have that much time.

But, you know, we can aim for it and we can just slow down and, you know, maybe we can get it into ten minutes or 15, which is definitely better than 3 to 5. So but just giving you that idea, like having it take a little bit longer, you want to chew more thoroughly. You know, you really shouldn't have like big chunks of food going down your throat. If you've been eating quickly for a long time, then you might really be just super used to that and feel like it's just really common.

[00:18:50] I think where this really can come into play is during our medical training where, you know, we're just like, there's an emergency and this going on and that going on, okay, I have to eat something like, let me just get it down as fast as I can or like, it's almost like we're in like a speed eating competition or something like, let me just get it down like in two bites or something, and it's just way too much. So so that's something that we have to build awareness around. And that's really ultimately what it comes down to.

For all of this, with slowing down or eating is having to build awareness around eating, meaning you have to consciously pay attention when you're eating so that you are doing less of the behaviors and activities that you don't want to be doing and practicing doing the things you do want to be doing. Okay, I could see from a time standpoint, you might want to set like a little bit of a timer, just like practice. Like, what would it be like to eat a meal that slowly, like just to get a sense of it, you know, just experimenting with it and seeing like, okay, what is this actually like? You might be like, oh my gosh, 20 minutes was amazing. I actually loved that.

[00:19:51] And that wasn't really that difficult. You know, if you're eating a meal with someone else, it's a really nice opportunity to connect with other people, have some conversations, take a break from the eating to talk and share and things like that. Okay? The next thing is drink some water while eating. You know, I'm a big water drinker, just in general. I always have been my whole entire life. So of course I'm like, right, doesn't everyone do that? But no, in fact they don't. And so if you're someone who doesn't drink a lot while eating, you definitely would want to work on getting some of that water in.

That also slows you down and also helps to just kind of hydrate your food and, and fill your belly up a little bit more and then practicing what people call mindful eating. I'll tell you, I don't love that term mindful eating. Like I hear that and it sounds like really not very fun to me. And I've always felt that way. I'm not sure what my problem is with that term. If you love it, amazing. Go. You like, keep at it. But if you're like me and you're like, oh, mindful eating, oh my gosh, what's that? All it really means is just like, pay attention to what you're actually doing. Like be here now. Be present with what you're doing. Think about it. Like if you're doing a procedure, are you also like thinking about 25 different other things in your mind, like hopefully not.

[00:21:05] Hopefully you're focused on, you know, the case that you're doing or the procedure that you're doing so that you are actually doing it correctly. Kind of similar idea here. Okay. So you're not like also watching like TikTok videos while you're operating. Hopefully not. Right. You know, so like let's put the phone away, turn the TV off. Let's not have screens. I think having a little music in the background is totally fine if you don't want to sit in silence, but sometimes it can actually be helpful for some people to just that is your moment of like quiet and stillness. And you could just be there with the food and yourself and enjoy it.

And I've talked again, I have so many times about like, you really need to eat food that tastes good to you, so if it tastes good to you, it should be an enjoyable experience, right? You want to engage with the food. That means taste it. Notice what it feels like in your mouth. What are the textures? Is it crunchy? Is it creamy like? Is it smooth? Is it rough like what are you actually tasting? And allow those sensations to be registered by your brain? Okay, that's really what it means. And then like I said, having a conversation I think is really helpful too, because if we're going to multitask anything, I think our brains really are actually wired to eat in community or with other people.

[00:22:24] And of course, it's, you know, if you do. Have other people that you live with. It's a great way to connect with them, you know, especially when people have busy lives and are coming and going and stuff. It's a great a great family tradition. There's I mean, pediatrician me is of course, going to tell you that there's lots of research on how family meal is actually a really, really positive thing for children. So I know it's challenging to do that at times, but it's still something good to think about.

Okay, now I'm going to do the part that you're not going to find in other places, which is so what are you going to do when you actually have to eat fast? Right. Everyone's like, just don't do it. And I'm like, yeah, but sometimes you actually have to. So the first thing though is you have to question this idea that you do have to eat fast, right? So when you're like, okay, I got I got to get something down really quick. I want you to question, do I really have to eat fast? Do I though do I really have to eat fast? Or is this just a story I'm telling myself? Is this just a habit that I tell myself like, oh, I need a hurry and I need to get that done? Like, can whoever's waiting on you not wait, just like even a couple more minutes so that you can chew your food? I think they probably can.

[00:23:35] It's kind of like telling yourself, like, well, I don't have time to take a bathroom break during the day. I mean, really though, really though, like, I get it. I totally get it. There are times you're like, I don't want to keep people waiting any longer than they have to, but to meet your own physical needs, you do have time for that. People can wait for that, for you to take care of your body so that you're feeling well and, you know, have proper digestion and you're feeling good in your body and you're eating the right amount of food, like, yeah, you probably do have time.

Okay. So that's the first thing. So maybe, you know, maybe a good chunk less of the times when you think you need to eat fast. Do you actually need to eat fast. So that's good right? Like paring it down even more. But then there are times, right? There's just times. And that's how it is. So here are my suggestions if you can plan for it. You know when you can like do so. Meaning if you can look ahead, you know it's going to be this way or you know, it's not uncommon for you to have a day where it just ends up being like, you just have a couple minutes, just plan for it.

[00:24:42] What I mean by that is don't bring a salad. That's going to take you 20 minutes to chew up for your meal. And also like, even if you're like gobbling down nuts or something, like huge chunks of nuts are not going to really get broken down very well in your stomach. So you might want to think about like, what are some foods that still help me to accomplish my goals? But. Are easier and faster to eat. One thing can be yogurt pretty fast, like you can eat a banana faster than you can eat an orange that you need to peel and the whole thing. Or like a big crunchy apple or something like that.

Maybe, you know, you can bring foods that are like a little bit smoother or more pureed, like like a pureed soup or something. It's still like it should hopefully taste good to you. It has nutrients in it, but you can basically get it down pretty fast, especially if you don't heat it up overly hot. You know, sometimes there's things like that where we can just be like, okay, like that was my meal. Like I got it down, I got something in me, I got it in pretty fast. It's still on plan, right? Because the problem is that a lot of processed food is easy and fast to eat, like a piece of banana bread or pumpkin bread or like something like that, like is pretty fast to get down.

[00:26:01] A lot of those things that are more processed, you can eat them quickly. So we want to make sure that we have things that are a better choice for us available on hand, and they are quick to eat as well. That's you know, I think the main thing, the other thing is when you are like, this is something that I talk about with with the members of my Weight Loss for doctors only program. We really work on whether being able to intermittently fast from time to time is something that can be very helpful.

It definitely can be something that can be really great for doctors who have certain types of, you know, schedules or days like it can be just really nice if you can fast, like through lunch, no problem. Like maybe you ate, you know, breakfast and then you're just like, okay, I'm going to intentionally probably just not eat lunch because I know I'm going to be too busy. And then you plan for a dinner that is a bit more satisfying, you know, nutrient dense and maybe more food than you typically eat. I think in some cases it can be better to eat to a little bit slower meals than three, where you're just like trying to stuff that food down you as fast as you can and then you end up like overeating or whatever it is.

[00:27:16] So intermittent fasting is not for everybody, but it definitely can be nice for doctors if you know something that they're interested in. So that's something that you can learn more about as well. Or in our program. I talk a lot about that. Well, I don't talk a lot about it, but I can help you to do it. I used to talk more about it, but I've really found that for a lot of people who struggle with emotional eating, too much, fasting can really turn into more dietary types of stuff. And it really tends to, for a lot of people, not really end up being something that's sustainable. And there's just other ways that you can accomplish your goals, you know?

And then when you do have time, more time to eat, take it. You know, like I said, eating good food is a huge natural pleasure. Like, let yourself enjoy it. Let your mind rest on it. Let yourself be there with what's happening in your mouth. So sometimes we end up eating quickly because, you know, we kind of want to rush through the diet food that doesn't taste that good or like the quote unquote healthy things that we never really like that much anyway, so we can rush through and then get to dessert. I know I did that for a long time, and that even touches on something else that I work with all my clients on, which is reducing over desire.

[00:28:25] Right? If you don't even really want the main food, but then you're like making yourself eat it so that you can, quote unquote, deserve to eat dessert, you know, or you're allowed to eat it or whatever, but then you're still overeating that it's too much food. You're wanting that food more than is appropriate, and it just ends up creating problems with overeating, eating fast and things like that. I will tell you what I think was something that was very helpful for me, which of course not everybody has control over. But that was something.

I mean, for years and years I worked on this because I think I just kind of didn't fully understand how much it would help me to eat slower. But I married a person who's a slower eater, and then my first child was an incredibly slow eater. Like very, very, very, very, very slow. And so what I found was it wasn't very fun for me to gobble my food up and then sit there and wait for them forever. You know, I'd get up, I'd start cleaning up like they're still eating, you know? So so that kind of forced me to really think about, like, do I want to try to slow down? But I'll tell you too, that I definitely had I had some other digestion issues for many years, like decades.

[00:29:38] I've talked about that previously on this podcast as well, that eating, uh, the right amount of food and not overeating and not eating so fast, I mean, off medication, really, for the vast majority of the time, problem solved. Like almost never, ever have problems with what I was dealing with. And it really, I wish I had known how much my habits were contributing to the GI distress that I experienced on a really relatively common basis.

So just pointing that out there, if that's something that you want to work on yourself as well. All right. Can you stop speed eating? You can. But listen only if you want to. For real, I mean it, you don't have to do anything. You can still eat fast. It just probably won't be as pleasant of an experience. And that's okay. But if you want a more pleasant experience of eating, you really want to enjoy that food. You want it to feel easier to not overeat, then slowing down is very helpful and this can help. All right, my friend. Well, I hope you have a great rest of your week and I'll talk to you next time.

Thanks for joining me. Ready to start making progress on your weight loss goals? For lots of free help, go to katrinaubellmd.com and click on Free Resources.