Do you ever eat too fast? I’ve been eating too fast for pretty much my whole life. Even in recovering from the eating disorders, I’ve still been an annoyingly fast eater. It wouldn’t bother me to eat too fast if it didn’t often give me tummy problems or cause me to overeat… and overeating for me (even just a little bit), usually results in nausea, so it’s something I would really rather avoid.
I have literally spent years trying to get myself to not only delve into the deeper ends of hunger and then when I do eat – eat slowly. Oh, silly me. 😉 My therapist has been telling me for years that I wait too long to eat… that I let my hunger get too far. For a long time, I didn’t know what else to do but ignore this advice. Other than extreme hunger, I didn’t really feel hunger. However, this has changed. I have been able to see all different kinds of shades of hunger for quite a while now… and it struck me yesterday that maybe I can finally put my therapist’s observation to work.
I started by observing how I eat normally. Normally, I wait too long and then end up eating too fast and sometimes too much. I may notice a hunger signal at noon, but will find eating “inconvenient” until it gets so bad I can no longer function without food. Here’s where the eating too fast comes in.
I also have noticed that when I don’t wait until hunger is so ridiculously urgent that I then find it easy to eat slowly and savor the food… and I usually avoid the usual tummy problems I get from scarfing my food down.
I’m realizing that it is HARD to remember not to let myself get too hungry. It’s such an ingrained habit for me. I ate breakfast too little and too late… so I ended up scarfing lunch. A little while after lunch, I realize I’m still hungry, but not URGENTLY hungry… not the crazy, painful hungry that I usually make myself wait for. So, I have taken the opportunity to give myself some more nourishment. 😀 And, yeah…eating before insane hunger is beautiful. Savoring my banana vanilla yogurt is no struggle. Yet, the struggle to try to get myself to eat at a decent pace when I’m super hungry… it’s insanely difficult… in fact, impossible. I’ve learned through years of experience that expecting myself to eat at a slower pace while being very hungry just isn’t realistic.
Have you guys experienced this process? Have you noticed eating fast causes you problems? Have you managed to slow down? If so, how? If not… where are you struggling? Share your story!
–AngryGrayRainbows
Angry Gray Rainbows 
This was a big problem for me, especially when I was a kid. My brother could eat so fast, and so much, that if I didn’t eat as fast as he did, there wouldn’t be seconds of anything left, and sometimes not even firsts if I was late to the table for some reason.
Then, when I got out on my own, I ate fast because I didn’t have much time at work for lunch, and had to scarf it down in order to get back to work on time. And if I was going out on the town after work, I scarfed down dinner so I would have more time out with my friends.
I had to slow down my eating when I had my stomach stapled, or everything came back up (and let me tell you, when you can only eat 4 oz of anything, making it last a half an hour, which was recommended by the surgeon, was not easy to do). Even though my stomach is no longer fully stapled (it came partially undone), I still can’t eat fast or I end up so full that I’m nauseous for hours afterward. And I found out that since the stapling came undone, I can’t barf anymore, nothing comes up, even when I wish it would so my stomach wouldn’t be so full. There are times when a half a plate of dinner is too much to handle, but then I’m hungry again a couple of hours later (so I end up eating half my dinner and putting the rest in the fridge for later, when I’m hungry again).
My hunger signals are still so messed up from all the dieting and the WLS that there are times, if I don’t eat as soon as the minor hunger hits, it goes away, and then I’m in big trouble. I get shaky, nauseous, and a major headache that won’t go away even if I do eat, unless I eat massive (well, massive to me) amounts of protein with a few carbs thrown in (and by massive, I mean 1/4 cup peanut butter on one slice of bread, or 3 or 4 slices of chicken or turkey lunch meat on a slice of bread with cheese). Even then, the headache doesn’t totally go away, but it does manage to settle to a dull ache that is tolerable.
For me, the best way to slow down when I eat is to either read while I’m eating, play games on the computer while I’m eating, or, if DH wants to eat at the table instead of in front of the tv, we do that and sit and talk over our day while we’re having dinner. Yeah, I know my first 2 solutions aren’t recommended (something about mindless eating and you eat more than you think you did or some such diet BS), but if I only put on my plate what I think I can eat, then usually by the time I’m full (if I’m reading or playing games on the puter), there’s still food left on my plate (and no, I don’t feel bad about that, I either put it in a container in the fridge to be eaten later, or throw it out, depending on how much is left). So that’s what works for me, but I don’t have kids at home, it’s just me and DH and he doesn’t mind if I’m reading or on the puter during dinner, he’s usually watching tv anyway while he’s eating (and I’m just not much into tv unless Trick My Truck is on, that’s a must-see for both of us).
Vesta,
Sometimes I wonder if someone gave me secret WLS surgery. What you described is a lot like what I go through every day… my hunger signals come and go until they are very, very urgent… I get nauseas very easily from even small quantities of food…
I also have had years now of dumping syndrome… and that is just a joy.
I’ve noticed that I can eat pretty slowly as well if I’m doing something enjoyable that lets me be mindful – even if I’m mindful in two directions at once. Personally, I like to read while eating. 😉
I’m dealing with the same thing. My life has been extra stressful for the last few months, and I’m just not eating as much as I should. I skip breakfast, and when I do eat lunch it’s usually around 1-2pm.
I know what you mean about feeling like you have to wait until you’re starving to eat something. I spent nearly my entire life living with mild to strong hunger, but not eating due to some sort of diet or another. Learning to eat when you first feel hungry, and not when you’re ready to eat the entire contents of your fridge, is really difficult.
I hear you, Limor. I too have experienced stress making eating properly (and not waiting until I’m insane with starvation to eat) very difficult. For me, it is sometimes hard to remember that fuelling myself needs to be a top priority… instead of my last one.
If you’d like some challenges, I have some for you… if, not… stop reading here and know that I’m wishing you all the best! 🙂
Challenge: What do you fear (or maybe you don’t fear… maybe you just think) will happen if you didn’t wait until you’re starving to eat?
I eat fast for a few reasons.
One is that when I was a kid, what I ate was scrutinized and I wasn’t really allowed any snacks (or only particularly unappetizing ones), so mealtime was when I could fulfill my hunger fully. If I ate quickly, it wasn’t usually possible for someone to make a comment about me eating too much. Dinner was usually served family style, so I could get more food in if I ate quickly. Also, we almost always had salad before dinner so if I ate it quickly, I could get on to dinner more quickly.
These days, my husband is a fast eater, from a big family with the problem that Vesta described above, so when I’m eating with him I tend to eat pretty fast.
I still catch myself thinking that I need to eat quickly in order to get enough to eat. So I try to slow down.
And in regard to eating when I first get the hunger signals, I have a medication that messes with this a bit, so I tend not to feel very hungry until it wears off a bit, and then I think my body tells me “get nutrition NOW” and even if I’m not very hungry, I tend to want a variety of things, definitely carbs and protein and veggies and then something sweet. The quantity of each thing might not be much but by the time I’ve had everything I feel like I need, it sometimes feels like too much.
I still like to feel fairly full after meals — if I haven’t had what feels like enough, it’s hard to focus, especially after breakfast. It’s been hard for me to find just the right amount for breakfast. Initially, I don’t think I want very much at all and then I’m sorry I didn’t have more. I’m realizing that it’s a mix of making sure I get enough protein, fiber, and some elusive “satisfaction” that I think is sometimes tied to fat and sometimes to sweet. And when I “overshoot” and eat so much at breakfast that I’m feeling full, it’s not good either.
Right now, I’m just learning what I can and hoping to get better as I go along. I’ve always been a breakfast eater, and I definitely suffer if I miss it. I might work through lunch but a day without breakfast is a not very good day at all.
Ooo oooo…. “elusive satisfaction”!!! I’ve been getting to know that feeling & how to get there myself.
I used to always eat this big egg/cheese sandwhich for breakfast. When shortly after finishing I wanted more food, I thought I was just unusually glutonnous or something. Somehow, I finally figured out that my body needs a balance of stuff… like you said… protein, fiber, etc. I tend to skimp on protein and veggies… so adding more of these in has helped me so much in finding satisfaction without eating four egg paninis and making myself sickeningly full – yet STILL HUNGRY. Know what I mean…?
Thank you for the input!!!
Today I had an uber-stressful day of interviews and aptitude testing… and yet my eating was so satisfactory! I was making sure to eat not at that extreme hunger level and I’ve felt a WORLD of difference… I’m thinking that in a few weeks time, I will come back and write a whole post about the experience, if my eating this way has significantly improved my quality of life.
It was great… there was no struggle not to inhale my food… I didn’t get overly sleepy after any eating… I didn’t get any tummy aches. It was BEAUTIFUL. I rarely have days that my eating is this easy, this satisfying… and that I felt so PHYSICALLY good about it.
And no (for those who may ask), this isn’t a diet. Heh. There was no calorie or portion or anything else counting… and whole fat milk and some peanut butter cups were included in the daily intake… as well as fruits, veggies, dairy, grains, nuts… and no meat… I don’t eat meat. 😉
So… whoooo hoooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! I have a feeling this new finding (that eating when I’m not starved to half-insanity is a good thing) is going to take me to good places….
In fact, this was the first day in many that my body didn’t decide to spontanously “dump” the majority of the food I ate. Yes, I know… ew…
[…] happiness, in large part I think, stems from some work I wrote about here, about my fast eating. Since I wrote that post and made the realizations that I made before and […]