S l o o o o o w Eating Games
Part 3
The 1 Minute Spoonful
This is great when you are pretty hungry.
Load up a spoonful of food. You are going to take a minute to eat it, but instead of putting it all in your mouth at once, take a say 4 to 6 nibbles nibbles of the food, and see if you can stretch it out to a minute.
No joy? How about 45 seconds?
This is my new favourite replacement for the 1 Minute Mouthful. Try it!
The Multitasker's Half an Hour
This is less of a game and more of a practice. If you liked the 1 Minute Mouthful, this may well appeal to you.
Everytime you eat, no matter if it a satsuma or a main course, you take half an hour to eat it.
You are allowed to do other things while you eat - just make sure that you take 30 minutes to clear your plate.
In practice, this is how I play this game: I will be deep in creating a podcast script or blog post and suddenly realise I am starving. I am loathe to stop working because the idea could slip away from me if I don't commit it to the page. So I take my food, place it next to the desk and set http://www.e.ggtimer.com/
(If I am not using the scree it is great to have the timer in large font on the screen!)
and possibly my A Forest https://www.forestapp.cc/en/ app if I don't need to use my phone.
As I start to eat, I divide the food on my plate into 2 mentally or by creating a dividing space with my fork down the middle of the plate. I know that I have to wait 15 mins before I can start the second half. If I eat too fast too early, I just set the plate aside out of reach until 15 mins has passed.
IMPORTANT: It is bad practice to eat all of your meals at work like this, but when needs must it is better than self sabotaging. And only YOU can decide if this game slows you down enough.
Some Thoughts on If The Games Start To Wear A Bit Thin
January 2020
I invented all of these slow eating games, and I am proud of how they are a great 'in' to allow you to prove to yourself that you can actually slow down when you eat. However, I never really stuck to any of them for a great deal of time in the same way that Buzzfeed has eye catching headlines but you soon get bored of all that link bait.
Recently, as part of The Shapeshifting programme, I have created a simple guideline for myself: to take a minimum time for each meal. I set my timer and make sure my last mouthful goes in when I reach that minimum time. You can hear my audio for that here
https://www.theshiftinside.com/shs-guideline/
It may be that for you games are a great idea for beginners, but a simple rule like stick to the minimum time is what works longterm. Try both and see which is more effective.
Free Hidden Sugars Checklist
- The 6 main offenders in virtually every health food store
- 42 other 'fake healthy' sweeteners
- The 'health' drink that is more harmful than Coke
- Which alternatives are OK in moderation
- Why you should avoid artificial sweeteners
- all on 1 handy page to print and stick on your fridge
Access Your Hidden Sugars Checklist
We respect your privacy and NEVER spam