Why do I eat so fast, and what I miss when I do

Mela Theory, the framework behind Nutrimelab, reads eating fast as a learned habit, picked up at busy family tables and at desks where lunch had to fit around everything else. In my work I see the cost come later, when fullness and enjoyment arrive after the plate is empty and the moment to decide has already gone.

Say it's quarter past eight. The programme you've waited all week for has reached the first advert break, you look down, and the bowl of pasta on your lap is empty. You remember the first forkful. You don't remember the middle at all. There's a small jolt of disappointment, because you'd been looking forward to that pasta since lunchtime, and a quieter voice asking why you always do this.

Mela reads eating fast as a habit with reasons that were sensible once, and greed isn't one of them. This piece sits under the week's pillar on how to tell if you're hungry in the first place, and it looks at one of the commonest reasons the body's signals go unheard.

> Key Takeaways > > - Mela reads eating pace as learned, set by the tables and desks where you learned to eat, and learned habits can change. > - In a small lab study, young women who watched TV over lunch remembered the meal less vividly afterwards. > - This week, at one of your usual meals each day, put the screen away, or keep your phone face down for the first three bites, and notice what you taste.

Why do I eat so fast without realising it?

Mela reads fast eating as a setting you learned long ago and now rarely choose. Short school lunches or a family table where the quick ones got seconds can set the pace early. After that it tends to run by itself, often while your attention is somewhere else.

Think back to where you learned to eat. Perhaps it was a school canteen with a queue behind you and a bell at the end, or a kitchen table with three siblings and one dish of roast potatoes. Both of those rewarded speed, and none of them asked you to notice what you were eating. In my work I see adults still eating at the pace of a place they left twenty years ago.

In Mela's reading, that is why speed can turn up even when there is plenty of time. Say it's a slow Sunday with nowhere to be, and you still finish before everyone else at the table and wonder where the plate went.

Some people find pace harder to change for reasons that have little to do with habit, and nothing here is meant to explain those away. For many of us, though, speed is a habit like any other.

Mela also puts part of this in the cues layer, one of its six layers. Cues are everything around you that competes with the body's signals, and a screen, a queue or a deadline is a loud one. When attention goes to the cue, the signal of enjoyment or enough has to wait. In Mela's reading it often arrives after the food has gone.

Why do I eat so fast when I'm hungry?

When you sit down very hungry, the first few minutes tend to go fast; Mela puts that in the biology layer. If that is your pattern, the speed often traces back to a long gap earlier in the day, and arriving at the meal very hungry has its own article in this series.

What eating in front of the TV does to the signals

People often ask whether eating in front of the TV is bad. I don't think the word helps. Mela reads a screen as taking the attention the signals need, so fullness and enjoyment can come and go without you noticing them. The same can be true of a desk or a phone.

Research on television and memory gives one clue. In a small study, 16 young women undergraduates ate the same lunch on two days, once while watching television and once without it, and after the television lunch they rated their memory of the meal as less vivid (Higgs and Woodward, 2009). It was one small group of students in a lab, so it says something about memory and attention, and nothing for certain about you.

Eating while distracted is so ordinary that it barely feels like a choice. Often the telly goes on as soon as dinner is served, and the phone is out before the sandwich is unwrapped. That pairing is a habit in its own right, and eating on autopilot has a longer article on this site. Your surroundings play a part as well, and what your kitchen makes easy is worth a look if the sofa is always where dinner ends up.

Desk lunches deserve a mention of their own. Mela sees a sandwich eaten between emails as often eaten at the pace of the emails, and by two o'clock it can feel as if lunch never happened. Moving lunch ten steps from the keyboard, even to the window or the kitchen at work, is one of the smallest changes there is, and it may make the meal easier to notice.

None of this means meals in front of the TV are off limits. Some evenings that is exactly the meal you want, and it can be a good one. The aim this week is to have at least one meal where you're there for the food.

What I miss when I eat fast

When you eat fast, the taste often goes first. The point of enough can slip past too, while your attention is on the next forkful, and with it the enjoyment that would have made the meal satisfying.

That last one is the cost I'd most like you to notice. In Mela's reading, a meal eaten quickly can leave you full and still wanting, as if the meal hadn't happened, and that is often when the quieter signal, the one that says this was enough, is most easily missed. The signal you miss has its own article, on fullness and why it is so easy to talk over.

How to eat slower by noticing more, not eating less

This week, at one of your usual meals each day, pause briefly at three points.

1. Before the first bite, notice how hungry you are.
2. Partway through, notice how much you're enjoying the food.
3. When you stop, notice how full you feel.

A few words in your head are enough, and there is no score. The first pause tells you how hungry you were when you sat down, which often sets the pace. The second is the one fast eating tends to skip, and it is usually where enjoyment is easiest to catch while there is still food on the plate. The third is a check and not a verdict, so any answer is fine.

For this article, make that meal a screen-free one. If that is too much, keep your phone face down for the first three bites and pay attention to what you taste. You don't need a timer, a chew count or a rule about putting your fork down. Mela reads noticing as tending to slow you down a little on its own, and if it doesn't, the noticing still counts.

People often search for mindful eating exercises, and some of them are lovely. This series doesn't teach a set exercise. The practice is smaller than that, one of your usual meals and three short pauses to notice. Nothing here asks you to weigh, count, restrict or compensate.

You may find the first screen-free meal feels odd, or even a bit boring. In my work it often eases with repetition. Whatever you find, it is information, and nothing to grade yourself on.

Tomorrow, choose the meal before you get to it, and turn the screen over before the first bite.

Where this fits

This is one of four short pieces under the second week of this series, a six-week map I use for improving your relationship with food without a diet, which is separate from my 7-week programme. The week is about hearing your hunger and fullness again, and pace often gets in the way.

Next step

See the 7-week programme