I've always been a faster eater. I could break down what I consider all the reasons for it is, but no matter what the 'background' I know it's a habit and one I need to change.

I need to change it especially now when I am eating much smaller portions.

One challenge is, I get my food, sit down and start eating. There isn't a lot of fan fare behind it. My boyfriend, my dad, and others in my immediate circle 'mess' with their food for 5 or 10 minutes before they start eating! They will rebuild/adjust their sandwiches, get up and change drinks, etc. They just aren't that interested in food.

Yesterday I was eating a small sandwich for lunch with boyfriend, and he took FOREVER to sit down with his. Spreading the mayo perfectly, fixing the meat, cutting it, etc.

The whole time I'm sitting at the table just watching him and thinking 'will this guy ever sit down? it's a salami sandwich for goodness sake, not an art project!'

When he finally did sit down, instead of taking a single bite, he reached over and picked up a little hobby project he had sat on the table and started playing with it!

Finally, I said "could you please just take a bite?!' LOL. He said 'opps, sorry' and took 3 bites and got focused back on his project. LOL

I gave up and ate my sammich. He looks at me 5 mins later and says "man you wolfed that down"

he has a death wish.

I have the same problem: I am a FAST eater. So is my father. We always finish first when we sit down with others for a meal. If I eat with my husband's family, I literally watch others' eat and imitate their pace, trying (with an incredible self-consciousness about eating and being fat) never to finish first.

At home, though, or with my family, I wolf everything down. I just limit myself to my meal on a small plate, no matter how fast it's gone. My husband is well aware never to comment on how fast I eat.

But I can see how others' not being interested in food would drive me insane, and probably make me feel self-conscious, too!

Eating more slowly and deliberately--being aware of each bite--is part of the Beck Diet Solution, so I've been working on it this entire year--and have been doing very well with it.

My goal is to not start "prepping" the next bite until I've finished with the one in my mouth. So, if I'm chewing or swallowing, I don't let myself put food on my fork or pick up a piece of food to eat--it has to wait until I'm finished. I put my fork down. I take a drink. If I catch myself doing it, I definitely put my fork down.

I think the slower more mindful eating has helped me to eat less--to feel satisfied with less.

Everyone says it takes 20 minutes before your stomach realizes that it's been fed--so eating more slowly lets that kick in. It does seem to be helping me, and it's one of the relatively painless changes that has made a difference. I say relatively painless because it doesn't require giving anything up or feeling hungry or feel deprived--it's a change in a habit that I'm not invested in.

Since I'm eating less food and fewer sauces, being more mindful and enjoying and concentrating on the taste of what I do eat makes a huge difference in my enjoyment of meals.

omg that is hilarious!!!!!!!! I am a very fast eater as well... and i dont even notice it until i am out with others and i finish my meal and realize everyone else is still eating!! how embarrassing lol.... then i feel like im picking at scraps on my plate to make it look like im not finished lol... maybe I should try this beck diet to have better eating habits.

Ditto!

The people in your life---particularly your boyfriend---seems a lot like my husband. Frankly, I find it annoying that he takes so much time to "prepare" his food before he eats. For me, the problem is that I like my food hot, and I cannot always microwave it because the texture will change. That's one of the reasons I eat faster than him.

I have tried various ways to slow down, but I've also realized that another reason I eat fast is that I do not enjoy taking small mouthfuls of food; I almost feel as though I cannot taste it as much if I eat smaller bites. I do like the suggestion that Beth made about not going for another forkful until I've finished eating what I have in my mouth; someone else had suggested that on another thread, and I really need to try it. It is extremely embarrassing for me to always be the one to finish first.

My husband took almost an hour last night to eat a half cup of frozen yogurt. An hour. The dogs, who know they get to lick the container when he's done, finally just sat down and went back to sleep.

When we were dating, I used to try and slow down when we ate together so that I didn't look like a pig. Now that we're married, I just wolf it down. I don't want to eat that slowly; I just want to eat and move on.

I have to constantly remind myself that the food isn't going to run away, but I've always been a fast eater, too.

I've been finding that I taste my food more with eating more slowly--I concentrate on the bite I'm taking--the taste of the food, the texture on my tongue--that sort of thing. I don't tend to take big bites (small mouth), but I really try to think about tasting each bite I take. I have to keep reminding myself :-), but I'm making progress.

BridgetA, The Beck Diet Solution isn't really a 'diet'--it's a book on how to diet successfully. I've found it incredibly helpful and think it's worth checking into--your local library may even have it. (Author: Judith Beck)

This is one of the reasons I prefer salads over sandwiches and wraps. I find I have to mess with the salad first and it takes longer for me to prepare. I always eat mine without dressing but with a mess of ingredients that depends on what veggies I have in the fridge (the meat is usually chicken).

A sandwich is too easy for me to scarf down and I notice my meal is very short when I have one. A salad requires me to cut and mix ingredients constantly and takes me a lot longer to eat. I used to eat a lot of sandwiches and wraps, but I mainly eat salads and other things that require me to use a fork and knife.

I do like sandwiches and wraps so I'll still have them occasionally

I've always been a fast eater too... but have learned to slow down. I used to be afraid of my food cooling off too. Now I don't even notice when it does and I still enjoy eating it. I think I just had anxiety about it. lol

It sounds to me like the people around you are ritualizing their eating experience. This is a good thing. I've learned to get everything right before sitting down too because I want to enjoy the heck out of it.

It could also be that they're just not as hungry as you are... I've read some studies that showed that overweight people were constantly hungrier than those who are naturally slim. Or maybe the people around you just have different eating/hunger schedules that just make them less interested at mealtime.

Hmmm, I have always been a slow eater and have still struggled with my weight

I take a while to get things "ready" and I talk..a lot... while eating...so that really slows me down. If I remember mid-meal I forgot to say put a seasoning away from cooking, I'll get up and do that, right in the middle of eating. I also take small bites, because I don't want to over stuff my mouth only because I've always been self conscience of looking like a pig when I eat because I've always been heavy...even at home now I just take small bites.

But its frustrating because a lot of times everyone is done and I'm still eating, and I will stop before I'm done because I feel like I look like the fat person that just eats and eats and eats...when I'm at home or with my hubby I just have the longest mealtimes and I don't worry if I'm eating long after he's done...

Occassionaly I actually get a little anxiety if I'm out with a group of people that I don't know well to be comfortable with, say a work party, and we sit down to eat and I'm really hungry because there's a good chance I'll be the last one eating, so I try to focus a little more on the meal so I don't find myself having to stop (and still be hungry) because I notice everyone else is done.

I think part of it might come from my mom practically inhaling everything, I got t osee my entire childhood how that looked when we were eating. She just mowed through her food and I remember how if we were sharing something among a few of us in the family (like appetizer) she would just inhale it all and say it was our faut for being too slow. She never thought she was a fast eater, though she was. And she would get annoyed at the "slow" (normal) eaters and it sometimes made mealtime unpleasant. But even though I'm the complete opposite, it didn't really help my weight issue anyway.

I still eat fairly fast, but not as fast as I used to. When I was 11, visiting my dying father in the hospital, I ate a BLT sandwich in his room. A family friend who was also there told me, "You eat too fast." Um, OK, thanks for the memo. After that I became self-conscious of my eating pace and taught myself to slow down. But I share your annoyance at people who just play with their food. Like, come on, people, doesn't food have any hold on you AT ALL?

Freelance

I'm confused why anyone is annoyed at those that don't inhale their food? I'm not sure there really is a "normal" eating pace as we are all different, but it would seem that the annoyance is more at them for not eating fast like you, therefore making you look "bad" because you eat too fast? Why would anyone care what someone else does with their food, unless it somehow brings up negative feelings about their own relationship with food?

Yes food has a hold on me. That's why I've been struggling with my weight on and off my whole life. Not wolfing down ones food does not equate not having an interest in food...I just don't like to eat fast, it feels gross and gives me indigestion...but I still manage to eat too much and high calorie choices....I just eat them slowly, and get easily distracted while eating...

At least I'm not alone!

My Dad and Boyfriend are very similar in some ways, and the food thing I tend to notice a lot.

With Dad it's totally ritualized. Everything is a process. He and Mom (who fixes his plate) actually have discussions about how cold the tea in the fridge is before she makes his plate, so that he can decide how many ice cubes to put in the glass. Any item with moisture/sauce has to be plated separately and it's not uncommon for him to have 4 small plates instead of one at dinner time.

The Boyfriend is different in that he is not that particular with his food (to the point of obsessive at least) but he gets uninterested in the food once it is actually prepared. He loves to cook, and will spend hours making dishes from scratch, but THAT is the part he enjoys, so once it's actually done he has pretty much lost interest it in. It's not that he nibbles either, he never tastes food as he prepares it, he goes by smell and the other senses. I have seen him spend hours on a homemade jambalaya (he's Cajun) and then turn around and eat a cheap glazed honeybun for dinner while we ate the jambalaya. It's pretty common for him actually.


I do need to try and eat with a slower pace though. Meet all my crazy circle somewhere in the middle.

Hmm. Eating habits are so off the wall for each of us.

I prefer to lounge over my meals, take a lot of time. However, that's how I grew up.

We got up, headed out, a farm thing, and did some chores and then we came back and lounged over breakfast.

Not that breakfast was 2 hour thing. About 30-45 minutes, but it was not a rush because the cow was milked and the eggs were gathered, and now it was time for coffee and eggs, bacon and pancakes, and plan out the rest of the day.

This was all done by 6:30 a.m. at the latest.

After that, we all went on our way with our own things to do. We all wandered back to the house around 10 for a snack. Dinner at 12, another break somewhere around 3. Supper 6ish.

8ish, was popcorn, or ice cream, depending on the season.

There are in my memory, a couple of times a year, meals were rushed. Wheat harvest, corn harvest, hay harvest and working cattle! A limited amount of time to get a whole lot of stuff done.

To this day, after 35 years, I struggle with being a working stiff and having to punch a clock for breaks and lunch. Drives me nuts!

My DH, on the other hand, who grew up, with a lot of siblings, very close together, low income, and it was he who gets there first gets the mostest, is an INHALER!

He could whip a Kirby vacuum cleaners hind end! The dumb thing is he's picky! Unfortunately in a bad way. The more processed, junky, and bad for you, the better he likes it.

He likes Hamburger Helper! GAG! That is the nastiest stuff in the world. He would eat it for lunch and supper 24/7/365!

We drive each other nuts with eating habits. Grill a steak, slap mine on the grill, medium rare, I'm good to go!

He wants to marinate, and baste, powder, rub, smoke, and whatever, and so on and so forth until it is no longer a steak, it's some alien over processed and over cooked slab of boot leather!