Speed Eating?

I have always been a good eater.

I rarely leave anything on my plate. Those poor starving children in China would never get a morsel from me. No way.

I always ate with gusto. Sometimes it seems that I am in an eating race. Just how fast can I scarf down that food? Hurry! Eat fast! Quick before my stomach could send a signal to my brain to tell me that I am full!

Or…hurry and eat what is on the plate before someone notices how much I can really eat.

I don’t know why I eat so fast. I am not from a big family. I didn’t have to “fight” for my food, even though my Dad would at times snag from my plate what I would save for last to savor.

I know I should slow down. I try to. But there is a point when it is ridiculous. You know the type. They play with their food. They build moats with their mashed potatoes. They line up their peas into armies to fight off the carrots. The meat…I don’t know what they try to do with the meat. They saw it off into such tiny pieces that could be injected by a syringe instead of being chewed and swallowed.

Have you ever watched such a person? I have a friend who is a deathly slow eater. Each forkful that makes it into her mouth is an event. She will get some potato on her fork. Then tip it off. Then there will be a carrot that is speared. It starts to travel to her mouth…oh will it get there??? Then the fork will stop midway since she has a story to tell. Off comes the carrot. She cuts her chicken into a tiny enough piece that can be studied under a microscope. I doubt there is enough for the taste buds to detect. She pushes the cut chicken around creating some sort of art work. Back to the potatoes. She grabs just enough to say there is something on her fork…then…can it be?? SCORE!! It makes it into her mouth.

It takes her 10 minutes to chew the (MASHED) potatoes, before she decides to try to pick up more food.

What’s up with that? Is that so that she say “Look how much I ate! I ate 100 forkfuls!”

Are people like this crazy? One of my forkfuls is about 20 of someone who eats in this manner..

It takes them an hour to eat an appetizer. By then, I have eaten 12 courses, done the dishes and started cooking my next meal.

I say EAT!! Eat with GUSTO, eat like you ENJOY it, not like it is punishment. Especially if you are dieting. Enjoy each bite. And since I want to get every bit…I might even lick the plate ….or if eating with my sloth like friend, I might steal a bite from her if she is not watching. After all, stolen food has no calories, right??

The Sloshing Noise

What’s that noise I hear? Sounds something like waves lapping against a boat. Slosh- slosh-slosh-slosh. It’s almost making me seasick.


Where’s it coming from?

Is it…? Can it be?

MY STOMACH!!

If you have been dieting, you know one of the things they harp upon is drink water. Drinks LOTS of water!! I have been doing this part very well. Well, not water, but close enough to it. I drink lots and lots of herbal iced tea. No sugar or artificial sweetener. Just my brew of the day, usually a fruity variety such as Teavana’s  Sweet Fruit Garden loose leaf dumped in a pitcher and brewed in the fridge. (Try it, it's REALLY good!!) Add some fresh fruit, and it almost looks sinful!


Since this is summer, downing a lot of liquid is easy. I have my glass of ice with tea ever by my side and I must go through a half gallon pitcher or sometimes even two a day.


I guess drinking this amount of liquid helps to keep a full feeling. It also makes me pee a lot (despite the amount of sweating I do in the summer heat). Having to pee a lot makes me walk to the bathroom more. Hmmm….that’s more exercise!


Maybe all this liquid helps flush out those fat cells too. Or at least their contents. Don’t they say that once you have a fat cell, it stays with you forever?


But drinking this much does make my stomach slosh. I have so much liquid in my stomach that I can feel the moon’s tidal pulls. And when I exercise, all that movement causes a tsunami in my tummy. I mean really, I can feel it jostle around in big waves from one side of my stomach to the other, splashing up to the top of my stomach in nearly enough force to come back up my esophagus. Even though they advise you to hydrate before working out, I try to avoid setting myself up for an internal tsunami that might wind up spraying out of my nose. That would not be pleasant.


Do you drink a lot of water while dieting? Do you slosh too? Or is it just me? Well…gotta run…sloshing my way to a pee-break!!