Today we’re going to be talking about five reasons for weight loss and healthy digestion that has immediate effects!

After my injuries I dealt with a number of years of terrible chronic pain and digestive issues. I was scared to eat because I would be bloated, have gas, have more fatigue, and just more pain. A big part of my healing was to find out what I could do and what I had control over.

Today we’re actually going to be talking about a topic that you’ve been told your whole entire life, and the difference is that I’m actually going to give you five reasons why it’s important and what you can do about it. The thing that you’ve been told your whole life is that you should chew your food, so let’s go through these five reasons why it’s important.

#1. You’re going to eat less. You’re going to slow down, enjoy your food, and really chew your food. The slowing down is going to give your body time to catch up with you. You have a hormone (Leptin) that’s released that signals to the body that you’re full, and it takes time. If you’re just going through your food and not chewing, this is when we can overeat and have huge portions. Reason number one to chew your food is definitely to eat less.

#2. Prevent bloating, gas, cramping and constipation. I know, these are all just very uncomfortable topics to speak about, and it’s something that you have to know that we only have teeth in our mouth. We don’t have teeth in our stomach, and we have to pulverize our food. If we’re not chewing our food, and we have huge particles going down our digestive track, which is anywhere from 30 to 32 feet long, this is going to cause a lot of disruption. It can cause inflammation, back up, and fermentation which is, again, just a cascade of reasons why you get the bloating and gas, and then ultimately constipation. It’s really important to slow down and chew your food.

#3. It saves energy. Digestion takes up a lot of energy, and so we want to be able to work with the body versus against it. When we’re able to chew our food and be relaxed and not stress, this is going to save energy. What I recommend is always to eat until you’re 75% full and then just stop. Your body needs that 25%, that emptiness in your stomach, to do its job and digestion can be very tiring if you overeat.

#4. Absorption and assimilation. We need to pulverize our food into little particles. To absorb the nutrients and to assimilate them into our cells and tissue to rebuild them and to rejuvenate, we have to really make them into little particles. A lot of people that don’t chew their food have deficiencies and have issues with doing the uptake of the nutrients for assimilation.

#5. Enzymes. Enzymes help break down food. We naturally produce enzymes for the whole digestive process. Digestion starts when we see, think about or smell food. Digestive enzymes are being released in the mouth and then also there’s enzymes in the food that we eat, especially whole foods, fruits, vegetables. To get those enzymes, we have to chew very thoroughly so the enzymes are released, which will help digestion and the breakdown of food.

What are the things you can do to remind yourself to slow down and chew your food? Well the first thing is if you’re cooking your food or you’re out to eat, I recommend to chop your food into small bites and small pieces. This will make it easier to chew and to have less.

Also to have a small bite. Make sure there’s just a small bite on your fork so you can chew it. I recommend in the beginning to chew seven to ten times per bite and then you can work upwards to that.

Also another recommendation is to put down your utensil in between bites. These are just some simple things but you can see how this is all related, especially when it comes to healthy digestion and weight loss, and then also just feeling great.

I want to hear your comments! Let me know what you do to practice healthy digestion!