For the horizontally endowed, one is all too familiar sitting gingerly on dining chairs or entering a regular sized door to the dining room, sideways! Sometimes eating too fast can promote weight gain, likely by the time your body signals that you have absorbed enough nutrients, you’ve managed to down 3 plates of fat and carbs and will suffer an inch of belly. Here are table manners that people usually know but forget when facing that roast turkey with gravy.

  1. Sip water in between bites. I say sip and really it should be water and not cold water. Water helps bulk the stomach sending signals of fullness to the brain. Water also helps breakdown food parts and speeding up absorption of nutrients.
  2. Keep up a lively conversation. Pick any topic though avoid gross ones. A lively conversation can perk the mood up and should slow your food intake allowing more nutrients to be absorbed making you fuller.
  3. Chew and chew with your mouth closed. You burn calories when you chew properly. Though it may not be much but properly chewed food is digested easily and can help make you feel fuller.
  4. Easy on the salt, max on the pepper. While we need salt in our diet, too much can cause water retention which is bad for our health. Pepper on the other hand has been known to increase metabolism helping you burn calories in the long run, it also makes you eat more slowly.
  5. Refill only when your plate is empty. One mistake is to add portions of food while your plate is still partially full. You might be adding just a spoonful of mashed potato but fifteen to twenty spoonfuls later you’ve just about eaten another plate of mashed potato.

Summing it all, eat while you chew, chew before you swallow, swallow before eating again.

Bon Apetit!

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