Work out 5 days a week or get the same result with this one simple eating habit

Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels

7 hard weeks of working out 5 days a week and I was impressed. I had made some massive improvement.

Typically I would always get injured on my 5th week, so I was pretty chuffed that I had reached week 7.

But I spoke too soon, in the middle of week 7 I got hit with a knee injury.

And that was me out for weeks, which then turned into months.

As the days progressed I saw all my hard work fall away.

Fast forward over a year and I came across a most simple advice.

It came in the form of a ridiculously simple eating habit.

And that was to eat slowly. I mean really slowly.

It turns out it takes 20 minutes for the signal from your stomach to reach your brain, so that your brain can realise how full you really are.

So if you can eat slow enough to eat your meal over 20 minutes then you will have a real assessment of how full you really are.

So I set my stop watch in the early days and timed myself to ensure that I was over 20 mins.

I did this for a number of weeks and was shocked to find that I had reached the same physique that I had attained from working out 4 days a week for 7 weeks!

I was absolutely shocked!

And so this is my gift to you, add this one simple habit.

Eat slowly.

And here are some guidelines (a reminder for myself first and everybody else!) :

1. Try not to watch TV or stare at your phone, just focus on the food and enjoy it.
2. If you can, try to eat with company where a conversation can be had.
3. Feel free to stop eating, have a conversation and then continue.
4. Put your knife and fork down between meals
5. If you’re having a burger or something similar, place your burger down between each bite.
6. When eating don’t prepare your next bite. Just finish your current bite and then prepare your next bite.
7. For each bite chew approximately 30 times and if the food is soft then chew 15 times.
8. After each bite then stop, take a deep breath and then consider if you need to eat more. If you don’t need to eat more, then stop. If you need to eat more, then eat more!

P.S. This doesn’t replace a workout routine or food plan. If you want to have permanent results then I’d strongly recommend having those in place, but this simple technique will complement your training and food plan and is surprisingly powerful and delivers a lot of bang for your buck.