Correct Weight Loss Blog

17 Tips When Selecting Healthy Snacks for Weight Loss

Paramjit — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:25:21 +0000

Snacking is an important aspect of losing weight correctly. People who eat 5 to 6 small meals a day end up losing more weight than people who only eat 2 or 3 larger meals. Snacking should be an interesting prospect if you are trying to lose weight as it prevents you from going hungry. Most dieters know this but only have a vague idea on how to select healthy snacks for weight loss.

With that in mind, we have compiled the following 17 tips to help you choose healthy snacks for weight loss. Stick to these guidelines to make sure that your snacking is helping you lose weight and not sabotaging your efforts.

1. Be Aware of What You Are Eating

Do not eat mindlessly. Before you eat, do a mental check if your chosen snack is indeed what you want to eat. Sometimes, stopping and questioning your self allows you to make intelligent decisions. It moves you away from making rash decisions with your reptilian brain.

2. Always Plan Ahead

You need to plan your snacking in advance. This will make sure that you do not end up snacking on food that will sabotage your efforts.

3. Avoid Calorie Dense Food

Most of the time, calorie dense food has fat, sugar or both in the same meal. Meals containing fat and sugar in the same meal, are potent fat storage combinations.

4. Drink Only Water Between Meals

Liquid calories come in the form of juices, lattes, carbonated drinks just to name a few. Liquid calories can very stealthily sabotage your efforts to lose weight.

5. Avoid Refined Carbohydrates

Refined carbohydrates are essentially food made up of “white” carbohydrates. You will seldom find “white” carbohydrates in nature. Examples of refined carbohydrates include white flour, white rice and sugar. Refined carbohydrates spike your insulin levels and should be avoided.

6. Eat Slowly

Eating slowly is important so that you can send the signals to your satiety center in your brain that you are already eating. There seems to be a 20 minute lag between eating and starting to feel full.

7. Watch Your Portions

Do not forget that this is after all a snack. Do not make your snack into your main meal.

8. Always Carry Some Almonds for Emergencies

As much as you would like to plan, expect life to throw some surprises at you. Carry a small container of almonds for such occasions so that you can still have a healthy snack at times when no other food source is available around you.

9. Eat at Least 2 Hours Before a Main Meal

It is important that you allow a 2 hour gap between snacking and your main meal. Snacking too close to the main meal will make you feel uncomfortable and unnecessarily load you up with calories.

10. Avoid Snacking on Food You Have Not Prepared

It is very likely that any snack you have purchased, is going to be loaded with calories. It will likely contain unhealthy trans-fats, sugar and refined carbohydrates. It is for this reason that you should avoid buying snacks and instead prepare them your self.

11. Avoid Snacking from a Bag

Make sure that you can see what you are eating. When you eat out of a bag, you have no idea how much you have eaten. There is a strong tendency to overeat.

12. Do Not Multitask When Snacking

Eat your snack with a single-minded focus. This ensures that you are aware of what you are eating and how much you are eating.

13. Eat Snacks at a Table

This again comes back to being focused when eating. Eating while seated at a table increases your awareness of what you are eating. There is a higher tendency to eat healthier food. You will also unlikely overeat.

14. Do Not Snack in the Company of Others

Avoid eating snacks when socially mingling with friends and family. If others are gobbling down chips or peanuts, you could hold on to a glass of water. As long as your hands are not free, you will unlikely reach out for those chips and peanuts.

15. Never Snack While Watching Television

This is a surefire way to eat the wrong type of snacks. It is also a recipe to overindulge. This is because you would eat mindlessly in front of the television.

16. Take Fruits Such as Apples or Pears with Peanut or Almond Butter

This is surprisingly a very nutritious and complete meal. The peanut or almond butter contain fats that help slow down the digestion of the apple. It keeps you full until your next meal. Most people do not snack on fruits as it does not keep them full for long. This strategy will help overcome this.

17. Have a Handful of Nuts with a Glass of Water to Overcome Hunger Pangs

Nuts are extremely nutritious and have essential fats that help in losing weight. Drinking water after eating nuts causes the fibre in the nuts to absorb the water and expand. This effect combined with the healthy fat content in the nuts can keep you full until your next meal. Concentrate on almonds, macadamia, pistachios, walnuts and hazelnuts.

You can use this as a guide to select healthy snacks for weight loss. The most important thing to remember is to be mindful when eating. Select snacks that will help you in you efforts to lose weight. Increased awareness and proper planning will make sure that you are always selecting healthy snacks for weight loss.

Lose Weight by Reprograming Your Brain

Paramjit — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:30:40 +0000

Successful dieting requires a good deal of self-control and discipline. Even though it requires a lot of self-restraint, there are people who can successfully diet and achieve their desired weight loss goals. Then there are those who consistently fail with their dieting efforts.

The difference between successful and unsuccessful dieting could be a result of how one’s brain is wired. As such, you can reprogram your mind to help with your dieting and weight loss efforts.

Successful Dieters Are Wired Differently

An interesting study was published in the International Journal of Obesity 2007. Researchers wanted to investigate if dietary restraint invoked specific patterns in brain responses. The researchers measured brain activity in response to the sensory experience of food consumption.

As expected, researchers confirmed that successful dieters had a much higher level of dietary restraint compared to non-dieters.

The Brain Centre for Behaviour Control

In response to meal consumption, successful dieters had a greater activation in the dorsal prefrontal cortex (DPFC) as compared to non-dieters. The DPFC plays an important role in the central regulation of eating behavior. The present study shows that the response of this brain region to the consumption of a meal is enhanced in successful dieters. The researchers say that the extent of response in this region is associated with the level of dietary restraint.

The DPFC is considered to be the pivotal site for the cognitive control of behavior. Someone who has lesions in this region of the brain loses the balance between what he should be doing as compared to how he actually reacts. For instance, someone trying to lose weight knows that he should not be eating chocolate cake. But when he sees the chocolate cake, he just reacts by eating it. Dietary restraint like any other form of behavioral restraint, is associated with the activation of the DPFC.

Suppressing the Brain Reward Centre

There was a trend towards a decrease of activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in successful dieters. The OFC is one of the reward centres of the brain. The OFC is the brain area where sensory signals from eating are decoded in to their reward value.

As such, successful dieters tended to block out the reward centres when eating a meal. This allowed them greater dietary restraint.

Can the Brain Be Reprogrammed

The research obviously shows that successful dieters have different “software” running in them. Can you reprogram your mind to run software for successful dieting? It is possible and the answer lies in your habits. You can rewire your “software” by cultivating new habits for healthy weight loss.

People usually fall of the weight loss wagon because they go to the extremes. They try to go on deprivation type diets. Their body fights back with a vengeance. The best way to reprogram the mind is by learning and practising healthy weight loss habits. Practise these habits for 30 to 90 days and you would have reprogrammed your internal software.

We Need to Teach Children Healthy Habits Early

Paramjit — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:55:17 +0000

Children have to be thought healthy habits at a very early age. By the time they are 6 years of age, they would have already picked up unhealthy habits. Even those with healthy habits tend to pick up unhealthy habits once in school. School going kids need to be monitored so that they continue to practice healthy habits.

When Do Children Pick Up Unhealthy Habits

An interesting study was published in the Journal of Nutritional Education and Behaviour. The researchers wanted to compare the eating habits of pre-school and school going children. The investigation was done via parent reporting of their children’s eating habits. Over 174 children participated in the study.

The researchers found that pre-school kids consumed more servings of low-fat dairy and fewer servings of sweetened drinks in a day. They also watched fewer hours of television on the weekend than school aged kids. The pre-schooled children also ate lesser amount of salty and sweet snack foods. A greater percentage of pre-school kids regularly consumed dinner with a parent than school aged kids.

In general, parents perceived that their pre-school aged kids (2 – 5 years) had far healthier habits than their school going kids (6-12 years). The researchers concluded that unhealthy habits were more prevalent in school aged kids. They suggested that healthy habits should be thought to kids during their pre-school age.

Monitoring Children When They Start School

The research above shows that most unhealthy habits start when kids start going to school. Kids generally have healthy habits when they are in the protected environment of the home. In school, they get exposed to unhealthy habits. There is also peer pressure to do the things that other kids are doing.

As such, parents should continue to teach and enforce healthy habits when their kids are in school. The early years of school are when children are probably most susceptible to being swayed.

Once a strong foundation for healthy habits have been set, it is very likely that the child will carry these habits all the way through their lives. This will help to curb the growing trend of obesity among children and teenagers.

Boost Memory With Physical Exercise

Paramjit — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:38:15 +0000

The process of causes loss of neurons throughout your brain. You could boost memory by constant replacement of loss or damaged neurons in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of the brain associated with memory and learning. Apparently exercise can help in regenerating these neurons and thus boost memory.

The Process of Generating New Neurons

The neuron is the basic building block of the human brain and nervous system. Each of the more than ten billion neurons in the brain receives, processes and transmits electrical information from one part of the body to another.

It has been a longstanding common belief that we are born with all the neurons we will ever have. It was also believed that we could not regenerate our neurons. It was thought that the aging process robbed us of our neurons. As such, it appeared that the total quantity of neurons were on a gradual decline. This apparently may not be so.

Neurogenesis is the process by which neurons are generated. Neurogenesis is most active during the pre-natal development and is responsible for populating the growing brain. In simple terms this is the process of increasing your brain cells.

Boosting Brain Cells via Exercise

An interesting review was published in the Journal of Neuromolecular Medicine. According to the authors of the study, research in humans and animals has shown that exercise improves mood and cognition. More interestingly, physical activity also causes a robust increase in neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. This is the brain area important for learning and memory. The authors agreed that current research showed a strong link between exercise and improved learning.

Another study looked into the relationship between exercise and neurogenesis. The findings were published in the Journal of Neuromolecular Medicine. The authors affirmed that physical activity caused a robust increase in neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. As mentioned before, this is the brain area important for learning and memory. Stimulating neurogenesis via physical activity helped boost memory.

Aging causes changes in the hippocampus that may lead to cognitive decline in older adults. Researchers investigated whether voluntary wheel running would benefit mice that were sedentary until 19 months of age. This is like asking an adult human to start exercising after he has been sedentary for a good part of his adult life.

The findings of the study were published in the Journal of Neuroscience. The decline in neurogenesis in aged mice was reversed to 50% of young control levels by running. These findings give rise to the possibility of exercise increasing mental capabilities at older age.

Increasing Memory with Exercise

The role of exercise in increasing neurogenesis is now a well accepted fact. Most of the research has shown that exercising increases neurogenesis in the hippocampus. Research has proven beyond a doubt that exercising was a sure-fire way to boost memory.

Treadmill exercise counteracts the suppressive effects of peripheral lipopolysaccharide on hippocampal neurogenesis and learning and memory.

How Eating Fruit and Vegetables Allows Sustainable Weight Loss

Paramjit — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:04:25 +0000

The most difficult part about losing weight is restricting food intake. Research now shows that you can lose weight without restricting calorie intake so long as you increase intake of fruits and vegetables.

Eating fruits and vegetables also allows for sustainable weight loss because of its low-calorie density. Low calorie density food fill you up without loading the calories. This helps satisfy hunger while keeping calories consumed down.

Low Calorie Density

Low calorie density food are usually low in fat and simple carbohydrates. Fat and simple carbohydrates is what makes a particular meal calorie dense. An example of a calorie dense meal is a piece of cheesecake which is loaded with fat, sugar and simple carbohydrates. Example of low-calorie dense meal is lean meat, fruits and vegetables.

Effect of Fruits and Vegetables on Sustainable Weight Loss

Researchers conducted a study to investigate the effect of eating water rich food and losing weight. The findings of the study were published in the 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

71 obese women aged between 22 and 60 participated in the study. One group of participants were placed on a low-fat diet. The other group was placed on a diet that had low-calorie density. This basically consisted of food that was low in fat and was water rich. Water rich food are typically fruits and vegetables. Dietitians thought the women how they could make the dietary choices that were in-line with their diet. The women were not restricted in the amount of calories that they consumed.

Both groups had lost considerable weight after 1 year. The women who were on the low-fat diet inevitably started consuming food that had lower calorie density. When someone tries to eat low-fat food, it ultimately leads to more fruits and vegetables.

The other group that were thought to eat water rich food lost more weight in the first 6 months than the participant who only ate a low-fat diet. The group that ate more fruits and vegetables lost 19.6 pounds while the group that ate a low-fat diet lost 14.7 pounds.

The researchers concluded in the study that reducing dietary energy density was an effective strategy for managing body weight while controlling hunger. The researchers emphasized on combining increased fruit and vegetable intakes with decreased fat intake for better and sustainable weight loss results.

Increasing Satiety While Reducing Calories

Interestingly, the women who ate more fruits and vegetables consumed 25% more food by weight than the other group. These women also felt less hungry.

Dr Julia Ello-Martin was one of the lead researchers of the project.

“By eating more fruits and vegetables they were able to eat more, and this probably helped them to stick to their diet and lose more weight,” said Dr Ello-Martin. She further said, “Eating a diet that is low in calorie density allows people to eat satisfying portions and this may decrease feelings of hunger and deprivation while reducing calories.”

Sustainable Weight Loss

Dieting can become very oppressive. Dieters feel hungry all the time. Reducing food intake as is required in all diets, eventually sets off the body’s starvation response. The findings of the latest research shows that increasing intake of food such as fruits and vegetables allow you to eat more at each meal. It also fills you up faster without loading you up with calories. Do note that the amount of fat and simple carbohydrates has to be reduced. One can achieve sustainable weight loss as eating this way can become a lifestyle.

Exercise Does Not Increase Appetite

Paramjit — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:00:49 +0000

A lot of people say that exercising makes them hungry. These people say that there is no incentive to exercise as they will just end up eating too much and ending up negating the positive effects of working out. This seems to contradict with scientific research which found that exercise does not increase appetite.

Exercise Does Not Increase Appetite

An interesting study was published in International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders in 1998. The researchers reviewed existing research on the effects of exercising on driving up the appetite.

According to the researchers, the relationship between food consumption and exercising is driven by some key factors. These include the intensity, duration and frequency of physical activity. It is also driven by the fitness level of an individual.

There was a widely held belief that physical activity was not effective for losing weight. The main reason for this belief is that working out created an energy deficit. This energy deficit drove up food intake. The researchers found that recent studies in obese and normal weight people showed that substantial periods of exercising did not drive up food intake. This is indeed contrary to popular belief held by many.

Comparisons done between sedentary and normally active people showed little or no effect on hunger or total daily food intake. This observation was also true when comparing people during periods of rest or strenuous activity. The researchers concluded that there was only a loose psychological relationship between energy expenditure and the amount of food we consume.

The researchers went on to say that this loose relationship between energy expenditure and food consumed made exercising an effective strategy for losing weight and managing weight loss. This is because review of research thus far shows that exercising does not increase appetite. Yet exercise creates an energy deficit that allows weight loss.

Exercise Helps Create Calorie Deficit

Working out creates a calorie deficit that helps you lose weight and keep the weight off. At the same time, exercise does not increase appetite. Someone who is exercising but not losing weight is probably making very poor food choices.

A Natural Weight Loss Diet is Driven by Daily Habits

Paramjit — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:00:39 +0000

A natural weight loss diet must be health enhancing and without any side-effects. The weight loss must also be sustainable over the long-term. In this article, I want to touch on the main driver that makes a natural weight loss diet work. This driver is your daily habits.

We are creatures of our daily habit. Our daily habits cause us to gain weight. Our daily habits also cause us to lose weight and keep it off. A natural weight loss diet is made of a collection of habits that enhance our health. Weight loss becomes a natural side-effect of these daily habits.

Maintaining a Lean Body is a Journey

Remember that maintaining a lean body is a lifelong journey. Most people make the mistake of setting a weight loss goal. The effort does not end when you meet your target weight. You can meet your target weight with a fad diet but maintaining that weight is solely dependent on your daily habits there after.

Your body is not stagnant. It is constantly changing. Just when you arrive at your target weight,you will find that conditions may have changed. Job stress may have increased or a woman may find that she is pregnant. All of you will also age. Those in their 40s know how much more difficult it is to lose weight in those years when their hormones are working against them. The playing field is constantly changing.

With all this in mind, it’s better to equip yourself with the tools that can be used in most scenarios. Healthy dietary habits will enhance health and help weight loss irrespective of your conditions at that time. These fundamentals never change. Coupled with sound exercise habits, maintaining a lean body becomes effortless.

Your Habits Make the Difference

Most people say that they need a particular fad diet to meet a target weight. Once they meet the target weight, they will do what they have to do to maintain it. They make all forms of promises. They fail to realize that it is their daily habits that caused the weight gain in the first place. They have to substitute weight gaining habits with healthy habits. This is the only way to lose weight naturally.

Instead of being too caught up with the latest fad diet, you just have to go back to the basics. Identify weight gaining habits and substitute these with healthy habits that promote weight loss. This is the secret to a natural weight loss diet.

You Have to Invest in Weight Loss

Paramjit — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:00:34 +0000

Here is another classic video from Jack Lalanne where he talks about people who think that they can buy their way out of anything. You may have heard before that your body is your temple. Your body is something that you need to invest in. The problem is that most people feel that they can buy anything. This includes buying health and weight loss.

Effort is the Only Currency

The only currency that your body recognizes is an effort. In order to lose weight, you need to put effort into it. This effort comes from eating sensibly and exercising. As in any financial transaction, your can gain interest on your efforts. Your efforts could be compounded when you are consistent.

Similarly, your account could be bankrupt if you have made regular withdrawals from your effort account. You make withdrawals everyday that you do not exercise. You make withdrawals everyday that you do not eat healthily.You make massive withdrawals every time you resort to a quick fix weight loss method.

Quick Fixes Are Unacceptable

Your body does not accept quick fixes. A quick fix is like winning the lottery. Most people who win a lottery usually lose the money as they had not cultivated the habits to sustain the wealth.

Quick fix weight loss methods result in a lifetime battle with weight loss. Majority of people who lose weight regain it back in time because of quick fix methods. Most people resort to quick fixes because they do not want to invest the effort in losing weight. These people do not want to exercise. They rather spend their whole lives in a battle with their weight rather than just embracing exercise. When losing weight, fast is slow and slow is fast.

The main reason for this quick fix mentality is because people believe that everything is achievable at the press of a button. Others believe that money can and should be able to buy everything.

Money Provides the Tools

Money can only help by providing the tools necessary to help weight loss. Money can help buy supplements such as Omega-3 or multivitamins that are essential for healthy weight loss. Money can help buy the gym membership or the exercise equipment necessary. Money can buy you the services of a personal trainer. The one thing that money cannot do is buy you a thinner body. A thinner body can only come from your efforts.

Watch this interesting video from Jack Lalanne where he talks about people who try to buy health.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Does Drinking Cold Water Help Weight Loss

Paramjit — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:47:25 +0000

You probably have heard that drinking cold water helps weight loss. Apparently, there has been some research done that investigated if drinking cold water helps weight loss.

Early Study Finds that Drinking Cold Water Helps Weight Loss

In one of the earliest research projects to assess if drinking cold water helps weight loss, participants were asked to drink 500 ml of cold water at 22 deg C. Researchers assessed metabolism and fat burning afterwards. Drinking 500 ml of water increased the metabolic rate by 30%. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology in 2003. 40% of the metabolic increase was attributed to the body increasing the water temperature from 22 deg C to 37 deg C. Fat mainly fueled the increase in metabolic rate in men. Carbohydrates were mainly used as the energy source in women. The authors of the study further concluded that drinking 2 liters of cold water per day would increase energy expenditure by about 400 kJ. This is the same amount of energy burnt by a 130 pound woman who jogs at a steady rate of (4mph) for 63 minutes. This study sent clear signals that drinking cold water helps weight loss.

The findings of the earlier study was met with skepticism by the scientific community. Could it be that just drinking water helps weight loss as much as a 1 hour jog?

2nd Study Finds a Lower Metabolic Effect

Researchers carried out a further study to verify the findings of the earlier study. The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2006. In this study, participants drank about 500ml of distilled water or 0.9% saline water on different days. This time the water temperature was 3 deg C. Researchers found that the metabolic rate increased by about 4% after drinking cold distilled water. The researcher concluded that drinking cold water only stimulated a small metabolic boost. This was well below the theoretical energy cost of warming the water to body temperature. These results cast doubt on whether drinking cold water helps weight loss.

Minerals in Water Play A Role in the Metabolic Boost of Cold Water

Another study was conducted and published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2007. This time, the researchers compared the effects of drinking 500 ml cold saline, 50 ml cold water and 500 ml cold water. The researchers found that only 500 ml water increased metabolic rate by 24% over the course of 60 min after ingestion. Saline and 50 ml water had no such effect. The researchers of the 2nd study only looked at the effects of saline and distilled water.

The researchers went further to conclude that the minerals contained in cold drinking water had an effect on the amount of metabolic boost achieved by the body when cold water was drunk.

Drinking Cold Water Could Help Weight Loss

As you can see, the research findings on this topic is mixed thus far. All the studies found that drinking cold water does boost the metabolic rate. The only point in contention is the amount of metabolic boost achieved. The 1st and 3rd studies produced a metabolic boost of 40% and 24 % respectively. The 2nd study only produced a metabolic boost of 4.5% although this study used saline water. The minerals in our normal drinking water could play a role in the extent of metabolic boost achieved when drinking cold water. This is one of those areas that need further investigation.

Adequate hydration is extremely important for cell metabolism. As such, it is important to be properly hydrated. It does not hurt to drink cold water as it does have a positive effect on the metabolism, even though the extent of this effect is debatable.

How Eating Slowly Helps Weight Loss

Paramjit — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:27:09 +0000

A major problem these days is the lightning pace at which tasks have to be accomplished. This includes the pace at which food should be consumed. People just eat too fast. Research shows that eating slowly can reduce the amount of calories consumed.

We were always told by our mothers to eat at a slower pace. We were told to chew our food and take out time. Apparently, eating slowly has a lot of benefits. Apart from preventing choking, eating slowly could also avoid adding to your waistline.

Eating Slowly Affects Satiety and Amount of Calories Consumed

Researchers wanted to study if how fast one eats affects the amount of calories consumed. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The researchers studied 30 healthy women. They looked at how the speed at which they ate affected their satiety. In conclusion, researchers found that the women who ate fast had a lower Satiating Efficiency Index. The Satiating Efficiency Index provides a method of comparing the ability of different foods to induce satiety.

Women who ate at a slower pace also had higher pleasantness ratings. Another interesting finding was that women who ate at a slower pace also consumed lesser calories. The researchers further concluded that the amount of calories consumed before you begin to feel full can vary significantly depending on how quickly you eat.

Overeating When One Eats Hastily

Researchers know that consuming a meal causes the release of certain hormones in the gut that act on the brain. These hormones induce a feeling of fullness and satisfaction. A study was published on the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2010. Researchers wanted to look at the concentration of appetite-regulating hormones released and how this corresponded to the speed that which one ate.

Researchers looked at 17 men who each consumed 10 ounces of ice cream. The men were tested at two different occasions. In one occasion, the men were asked to eat the ice cream in 5 minutes and in the other instance, to eat in 30 minutes. The researchers then took blood samples at 30 minute intervals from the point that they started to eat to 210 minutes later. The researchers were measuring the levels of gut hormones in response to the meals.

The researchers concluded that eating slowly resulted in a more pronounced appetite reduction response. In other words, those who ate at a slower pace had their appetites reduced more pronouncedly. They felt more full and satisfied.

Calorie Dense Meals

The available research clearly shows that eating slowly increases the level of satiety, satisfaction and fullness. There seems to be a lag time between the release of the gut hormone and when the signals are picked up by the brain. We can eat a significant amount of calories by the time our brain senses satiety. As a result of this, people over eat even when they are already stuffed. That is why the satisfaction level was reduced. You are never satisfied if you are too full.

The problem lies with overeating calorie dense meals that are readily available these days. Calorie dense meals never existed in the time of our ancestors. Natural food is not calorie dense.

Take Your Time to Eat

Be aware of your food consumption habits. Ask your friends or spouse if you eat too fast. If you do, make a conscious effort to slow down the pace. Go a step further and time your meals. Once you know your time, try to pace yourself. Eating slowly could help reduce your waistline.