Eat Slow, then Fast

What you eat is an essential part of achieving and maintaining good health.

What you may not know is that when and how you eat can be just as important.

This is especially true if your goal is to lose weight.

Here are two ways that changing the way you eat can help you lose weight and keep it off:

First, eating more slowly can help you limit the amount of food you eat. In addition to controlling how much food you consume, eating slower is a good way to enjoy meals -- both the food and the company -- more fully.

There is a physiological reason to slow down, too. Your appetite is regulated by a host of factors, including the act of eating and the presence of food in your stomach. As you eat, your stomach fills. This triggers the release of hormones that signal your brain to reduce your appetite. The result is that as your stomach fills, you feel less hungry.

The combination of what, when, and how you eat can make an important difference in how much you eat, the key to losing weight and keeping it off. As you try to make healthier food choices, consider eating more slowly and making dinner the end of your eating day.

Brian Parr, PhD, joins Melanie Cole, MS, to discuss how eating slow can be used as a successful way to lose weight.