Making healthy food selections is only part of the game. HOW you eat what you eat is important too. When you’re trying to cram 25 hours into 24, you ultimately end up multi-tasking your meals, but as a new study shows, eating on the run can be bad for your waistline.
No doubt, most of us lead hectic lives. There’s home, work, and family to juggle, and we have to make time for healthy habits like sleep and exercise. There’s only so much time in a day. How many times have you found yourself nibbling on a protein bar as you do your grocery shopping or throwing down a quick breakfast while getting ready for work?
Eating on the Run – Bad for Your Health, Bad for Your Waistline
According to new research, eating on the run is a surefire recipe for overeating. In this study published in the Journal of Health Psychology, researchers from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom divided 60 women into three groups. Each was asked to eat a cereal bar while doing one of three activities – sitting and talking to an acquaintance, watching a television show, or walking up and down a hall.
After eating their cereal bar, researchers questioned the women and allowed them unlimited access to different types of snack, some healthy, like fruit, healthy and high in calories, like chocolate, and some less healthy, like potato chips. The researchers then measured how much of each snack the women ate.
What they found were women who munched on the cereal bar while walking up and down the hall ate more snacks and a whopping 5-times more chocolate! Yes, dark chocolate is healthy, but portion control is a must when you’re using it as a snack.
Their conclusion? Eating on the go can lead to overeating, and, although they didn’t measure this, potential weight gain.
Eating on the Run Versus Mindful Eating
Why might eating while you’re walking around lead to greater calorie consumption later? It’s another form of distracted eating, munching while your mind is focused on other things. This is the opposite of mindful eating, the practice of really focusing in on the taste, smell, and sensory textures of what you’re eating. When you eat mindfully, your brain registers the experience and you’re satisfied with less.
Other research shows other forms of distracted eating – noshing in front of the television or computer screen or at your desk also leads to greater calorie consumption. In reality, any time your mind is distracted by other activities, you don’t get the same level of satisfaction from a meal and are more likely to seek satisfaction by eating more later.
Distracted eating detracts from the experience of eating, and when your body tells you you’ve eaten enough, you’re less likely to heed those messages and stop because you’re so distracted you don’t hear them. When you eat distractedly, you lose touch with how much you’re eating, so noshing on a full bag of pretzels or nuts while you’re distracted can be a recipe for disaster.
In contrast, mindfulness is about paying attention to every aspect of the eating experience – the temperature of the food, its texture, how it feels in your mouth, what it smells like, and, equally important, the messages your body is sending you – are you feeling full and satisfied? This is something most of us don’t do these days. We’ve lost touch with our bodies at mealtime.
To eat mindfully also means slowing down the pace of a meal, taking the time to chew each bite and put your fork down occasionally to rest. It takes about 20 minutes for appetite hormones to signal your brain that you’re full. When you eat at a leisurely pace, you will have consumed less at the time your appetite hormones kick in. When you eat mindfully, you become more in touch with your body and its signals. This can be beneficial not just when you’re eating a meal but in all aspects of your life.
Eating on the Run – Take Control of Distracted Eating
Are you a distracted eater and a culinary multi-tasker? Here are some tips for breaking the distracted eating habit.
Set the alarm a little earlier in the morning so you can enjoy an undisturbed breakfast. Breakfast sets the tone for the day. A little quiet time first thing in the morning could make the rest of your day better all around.
Practice eating a meal in total silence – no distracting noises to take your mind off of what you’re eating. Doing this will teach you to focus in on what you’re dining on rather than what’s going on around you.
Try taking a few bites with your eyes closed. By doing this, your brain will focus more on the sensory aspects of the food you’re eating since it won’t be multitasking. If you do this consistently, mindful eating will become a habit.
Think about where the food you’re eating came from – how it might have been grown or raised and what nutritional value it has. Oftentimes, we lose touch with the fact that food has a history and a purpose. By acknowledging this and understanding it at a deeper level, you’ll make smarter dietary choices and be a more mindful eater.
If you eat an indulgent snack and feel guilty, ask yourself WHY you ate it. Were you truly hungry or feeling overworked and stressed out. Learn to distinguish real hunger from “stress” hunger or boredom.
Just as you keep distracting things off limits while you’re eating, clear your working environment of food distractions like candy jars and bags of snacks. Separate work and eating from each other.
The Bottom Line
It’s not just what you eat – it’s how you eat it – whether you eat in a rushed, distracted manner or eat mindfully and engaged. How you eat can impact the quantity of food you eat, your food choices, and, ultimately, your waistline. Slow down the pace of your meals and fully engage in the eating experience. It’s not only good for your weight, it’s better for your digestion too. Cultivate the art of mindfulness when you eat a meal, and, just as importantly, don’t eat while you’re doing other things.
References:
Science Daily. “Eating ‘on the go’ could lead to weight gain, new research finds” August 20, 2015.
J Health Psychol. August 20, 2015 1359105315595119.
Today’s Dietitian. Vol. 15 No. 3 P. 42. March 2013.
J Obes. 2011;2011:651936.
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