New Year, New You: 3 Ways to Slow Down Your Eating and Calorie Spend

Do you ever eat an energy bar or a candy bar and just cram the entire thing into your mouth in two bites? Ever eat your carefully portioned squares of dark chocolate while surfing the web only to realize that they disappeared in the abyss of your mouth before your web page destination was fully loaded? And do you then feel deprived, ravenous and cheated out of your reward?

I know this well.

How enjoyable is the experience of eating a treat when you don’t take the time to even taste it? So one of my resolutions is to eat more slowly.

Here are 3 ways to slow down your noshing and your calorie spend:

1) Turn off the electronics and other eye candy. This includes all social networking, email, news sites, TV and magazines.

2) Sit down. I tend to stand at the counter and I know this is so bad!

3) Break and break again. This is my go-to tip!! I love the Brownie Crunch Think Thin bars for breakfast with my coffee and Trader Joes 100 calorie bars as a snack with tea. I like to take a little bite of the bar and then chase it with the hot drink so it melts. I break a bar in half and save half of it in the wrapper (out of site, out of mind). The other half I break up into many smaller pieces so that I can “have a piece, take a sip.” It makes me enjoy it longer and then I can have the other half later. Sometimes I get done and want the rest, so I have it. But at least it moderates my portion size because I tend to eat the entire portion of whatever is in front of me.