eating too fast

Being a fast eater has been an issue for me always. i have tried to  improve significantly post op, but occasioannly find I have finished my lunch in  5 minutes. I was reading a book about  weight control in a healthy balanced way and the author said fast eating is a symptom of our issues with food.  Fasty eating can be a sign of the shame and guilt that goes with eating. The shame and guilt does not allow us to really  ENJOY  our food. we scarf it down so fast we dont even taste it sometimes. Having  been so morbidly obese I did develope a shame about eating and even as a thinner person, I feel guilty frequently about eating whether it be the occasional bagel that I know is not the best choice or something else like a candy or a cookie.  Part of it is having had the gastric bypass I feel like I am letting down myself and others if I fail.  I get really crazy if others question what I am eating or what I should be eating. or sysomething about my poor choices ( I can beat myself up with out any help t- hank you very much) So, Todays positive move and life choice will be to do my best to slow down and enjoy. i am going to visualize how good for me my food is, my salmon is clearing out my arteries, making me healthy, my brown rice is fiber to keep my intestines healthy. I am going to eat slow and taste every delicious bite and enjoy.  I also will not hide or sneak or rush to eat.  HUGS to all

I can relate to eating too fast. It seems to be a habit that can be hard to break. I also get a little crazy when someone questions what I am eating. I try to remember that they have not had this  surgery and have a difficult time understanding how things work now for us.  I am trying to eat to provide nourishment and energy for my body by making healthy and  also tasty choices. If I have something that may not be the best thing to eat, I am just going to forget that incident and go right back to more healthy choices.  Forgive and forget and get back on track. It is something I was not able to do before WLS. Sher

Willow, I read your 1st post challenging us to be more positive about all aspects of our post op life and I applaud the subject choice... I have alway been a glass 1/2 full kinda girl and seriously believe in positive re-inforcement...I like your positive move and life choice, I too struggle with remembering to slow down when I eat and really taste and enjoy the food for what it is, pre-op I regularly would read and eat at the same time often just continuing to shovel in food cause it was there and I was distracted by what I was reading...I'm adding your positive choice to my day - my vow, I will put my fork all the way down and pick it back up between each bite taking time to savor the taste and texture of each bite   thanks for the motivation...Alesia

I think an important point is to examine the reasons for the fast eating- Is it anesthesia to numb out feelings? is it because we are embarassed and want to finish before we get "caught" etc.  I am hoping that aking time to eally taste will allow more satisfation and joy in eating.  Isnt Joy  in our lives what life is all about?

Willow, I can relate to fast eating also.  I did really well there for a while taking my time eating and making my meal last me for 20 minutes (or close anyway).  I find myself now eating in 5-10 minutes max and then in a hour wanting something else to eat.   I know allot of it has to do with the stress in my life right now and I'm really trying to get a handle on it.......I guess this will always be an issue to deal with.

I posted in another response that sometimes the fast ingestion of quatities of food may be an anesthesia for feelings we are afraid of or dont want to feel.  the experience just numbs me out.  sometimes I barely remember eaaing in that cir****tance or am midway through when I realize what I am doing and that I dont even remember going to the kitchen because I fogged out on my stress. Maybe just taking a minute and feeling the feelings and then dealing with them will be a step in the right direction for me.  maybwe feeling those feelings and dealing with them will allow me to fill up on more positive feelings.  I think my therapist is going to have her lifes work cut out for her LOL

I too am a fast eater. I guess I never took the time to figure out why I was eating so fast, just figured it was a bad, old habit left over from pre surgery. What you're saying makes complete sense though. Hopefully now that you've pointed this out to me, I can try to slooooooow way down, think about what I'm doing, why I'm eating, if I'm hungry, etc.

I really don't know if I eat fast or not.  I don't think that I do, but maybe I'll pay more attention to the clock and see how I'm doing.  For post-ops, I think a lot depends on the cir****tances.  I probably do eat a little faster at lunch time since my time then is limited.  Honestly, though I don't remember ever feeling guilty about putting any food in my mouth!  I think I've been too far at the other end of the spectrum, actually, on the guilt thing.  Maybe if I had had a little more of it, I wouldn't have become obese in the first place.  In our family, food was always a big part of all of life's events, and everyone just enjoyed themselves freely.  It's unfortunate and I feel, unfair,  that there are some of us whose enjoyment becomes frustration and sadness when we realize that the food we so love is not doing us any favors in the weight control category.   I think sometimes we should also remind ourselves that a lot of our "problems" with weight gain have to do with metabolism, genetics, and our biology in general.  My family is a good case in point.  On my dad's side, there are mostly thin people, and on my mom's a mixture, but more that tend to be overweight.  I have two sisters, one of whom got the "thin" genes, and my other sis and I got the heavy genes.  We all ate the same growing up, and probably got about the same amount of exercise and activity.  In fact, I probably was even more physically active than my thin sister.  We used to laugh about how she could "eat me under the table" and yet she barely gained an ounce. I'm sorry if this might have gone a bit "off topic" of your original post.  But I just like to remind us here that we don't have to feel so guilty about "everything."  It isn't ALL our fault, sometimes!  LOL  Have a great day! Carlita

Fast eating is an interesting topic. When i had surgery they encouraged me to eat slowly, but now 2 yrs out i find if i eat slowly, i can eat more. To further support this pouch rules encourages us to eat fast. To eat the entire meal within 5-15 minutes. I have found this gives me that intense sense of fullness like i had initially after surgery and i eat less, at  least at that setting. Here is the link to Puch rules. What is your take on this??  http://www.nikkiinmd.com/pouch_rules.htm Melinda

 I do think you are right that eating slower sometimes will allow us to eat more.  Anytime you're in a restaurant, the food is in front of you a lot longer than it probably is at home.  I know if I allow the server to leave the food in front of me for an extended period, I find that I can "pick" at it and actually eat more over that longer period of time.  Now if my choice was a "healthy" one, and I'm picking at it, say at a chicken salad, it's probably a good thing that I can consume more protein, maybe.  But if it's not exactly something that is WLS-friendly, and too heavy on the carbs, it's probably a better thing to just eat a few bites until you feel that initial fullness, then have the server take the plate away. 

I really do feel there is a difference here for us as opposed to non-WLS folks.  Eating slowly when you have a normal sized stomach is probably best, as it takes at least 20 minutes for your brain to realize that your stomach is full.  For me (and for other post-ops too?), there's no way it takes that long to realize fullness.  I can tell pretty much after the first couple of minutes.  And my doc always said I should stop when I feel that feeling, and not try to push any more food into the pouch.  Although I can "push" more in there now than early post-op, it's still not a good thing to do.  I overate on pasta and meatballs just last week, and threw up shortly after dinner (something I hadn't done for quite a while).

Carlita