New Years is just around the corner… and for a lot of us our resolutions might include fighting the flab.
But a recent study has revealed that if the goal is to get fit and healthy, it might not be what we eat that is important, but how we eat it.
Scientists say the secret to beating a bulging seasonal waistline is to chew each mouthful of lunch for 30 seconds before swallowing.
New research shows this has a powerful effect on appetite later in the day, blasting the cravings for the box of chocolates, sweets and snacks that can threaten to pile on the pounds over the Christmas break.
Volunteers who chewed their lunch in this way during a recent experiment carried out by psychologists at the University of Birmingham, ate half as many snacks in the afternoon as those who ate normally.
Although previous studies have shown chewing for longer curbs calorie intake during a meal, the latest research, published in the journal Appetite, shows it can also have a significant impact on snacking habits later in the day.
The research suggests that by the time we munched our way through the Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, the pudding, biscuits, cheese, cake, chocolate and mince pies, most of us have consumed between 3,000 and 4,500 calories.
The daily allowance for men is 2,500 calories and for women is 2,000.
The research team wanted to assess how chewing for longer at lunchtime affected grazing habits later in the day.
“Participants in the prolonged chewing group were less happy after lunch and had reduced ratings of lunch enjoyment, and pleasantness of the texture of lunch, compared with others,” researchers said in a report on their findings.
“These effects may be due to the novelty of prolonged chewing, or reduced palatability of the food.”
One reason it works may be that, by concentrating so much on the process of eating, the brain ‘remembers’ lunch for longer and is less likely to signal the need for more food so soon afterwards.
A 2010 survey of 1,000 people in the UK showed that most chew their food just six times before swallowing it.
Catherine Collins, chief dietician at St George’s Hospital, London, said chewing for longer forms the backbone of an increasingly popular approach to weight loss known as ‘mindful eating’.
Check out the guide to mindful eating here…
