How Long Before Your Appetite Switches Off?

When you are eating your food, you’ve probably heard this advice before, you should know that it’s always better to try to eat your food slowly and chew your food thoroughly.  Why is it though, that this sage dieting and weightloss advice has been given for decades now? Well, it’s not just so that you can savor every moment of your eating and enjoy the savory nuances that your delish cooking has to offer, although that is definitely a side benefit of chewing your food thoroughly and making it last.

The reason behind this advice in dieting and weight loss is that your brain actually switches the appetite switch to “off” after about ten minutes of eating.  This means that if you prolong your eating by chewing more thoroughly and consciously slowing down when swallowing, especially if you happen to be a naturally faster eater, you will eat less because your appetite will have switched to “off” and you will have consumed less food by that point and feel satisfied so that you don’t feel you have to shove more calorie laden food down your gullet to reach that point of satiation.

It’s literally been proven that the appetite signals shut off in tests that do a brain scan when people are eating. The centers that control the appetite go dormant after about ten minutes, signaling the stomach and the rest of the body that you’ve had plenty to eat and you should stop now. It’s your body’s own natural weight control mechanism, if you want to look at it that way.

You can also help your own natural appetite control by taking things like Hoodia diet aids which help to shut down this part of the appetite control center as well, and you can make sure that you are consuming water in between each bite to not only help expand the stomach so that it feels fuller, but also to help prolong the eating experience so that your appeitte can shut itself off. These have always been great ways to restrict calories in the diet, and you don’t even feel deprived which is the best part about it.