Eating Smaller Meals, And More Slowly, Will Help Your Weight Loss

There are no “quick fixes” when it comes to losing weight, but if you’re looking for a way to “trick” your stomach into getting “smaller,” try eating smaller meals throughout the day. The science is split on whether or not eating smaller meals more frequently will help you lose weight, but what it will do is make your stomach less stretchy, which in turn will help you to feel fuller when eating less food.

To be clear, it’s unknown if the actual size of your stomach can change. Most people’s stomachs hold about one liter of liquid, whether you’re 150 pounds or 300 pounds.1 However, it has an ability to stretch and expand when you eat a meal.

If you regularly eat large meals, your stomach’s distensibility (or ability to become stretched) will increase to accommodate the food. If you instead eat only small amounts at a time, your stomach’s distensibility will decrease.

Four to Five Weeks of Eating Smaller Meals May Change Your Stomach

If you want to shrink the capacity of your stomach, try eating smaller meals for at least four to five weeks. In a study of obese individuals, those who followed a restricted diet for four weeks experienced reductions in stomach capacity. As reported by Greatist:

“Think of your stomach like a muscle. When it's filled with large meals three times a day, the distensibility (the scientific term for the amount your stomach walls can stretch) increases — just like your biceps would get bigger if you were working them out three times a day, [Atif] Iqbal [M.D., medical director of the Digestive Care Center at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center] says.

And when you head in the other direction — eating many small meals throughout the day — your stomach's capacity goes down, says Rebekah Gross, M.D., a gastroenterologist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center.

After about a month and a half of eating smaller meals more frequently, you'll naturally feel full with less food, and your body will send signals to stop eating sooner …”

When you eat smaller meals more frequently, you’re not necessarily eating less food, just reducing the amount at each sitting, which makes it easier to stick with in the long term.

Eating Slower Is Another Trick to Benefit Your Waistline

If your goal is to shrink your stomach (i.e. trim your waistline), slowing down your eating is another simple “trick” to try. Research shows you may consume fewer calories over the course of a meal when you eat slowly. It takes time (generally about 20 minutes) for your brain to signal to your stomach that you’re full, and this may explain why one study found people reported feeling fuller when they ate slowly.

They also ended up consuming about 10 percent fewer calories when they ate at a slow pace, and presumably chewed slower, as opposed to when they were rushing.

Prior studies have found that eating more slowly and chewing your food more completely led to decreased intake, better absorption of nutrients, better appetite regulation, and improved satiety.

When you eat quickly, your body doesn't have the time to go through its natural signaling process, which involves a variety of hormones and feedback loops between your gut and your brain. Hormones that tell you when you've had adequate food are produced while you're eating, but, as mentioned, it takes a bit of time for this to occur.

In Health, 

Dr. Brad Niewierowski 

Source: Does Your Stomach Actually Shrink When You Cut Down on Food?  December 05, 2015  Mercola.com