If you're always the first person to finish your meal, you want to read this...

There are the more obvious ways your relationship with food - like the type and amounts you eat - affect your weight management. However, how you eat also affects your weight management. If you inhale your food, studies show you may experience increased difficulty with weight management and even obesity. There are two main reasons why this is.

#1. Speed eating contributes to a reduced sensation of fullness.

Leptin, your satiation or fullness hormone, takes a while to activate. Anecdotal belief is that it takes 15-20 minutes for this important signal to release to your body. The issue with speed eating is that you can eat faster than the hormone takes to release, thereby causing you to overeat. You know those times you start eating and before you know it you're painfully stuffed? Yep, you ate faster than your body could communicate fullness. If you do that often, how you're eating could become a contributor to any weight management issues you encounter.

#2. Speed eating contributes to less satisfaction from your meals.

If you were banking on your meal satisfying your taste buds but ate too quickly to taste it, you may keep going until you do. The pattern puts you in a constant state of subconsciously choosing to overeat until you feel that satisfaction.

NOW FOR THE HACKS...

Learning to slow down your eating won't be easy and is likely a habit you developed from childhood. Many people who grew up in large households find that they learned to eat quickly out of necessity. Also, if your family routinely ate meals in front of the T.V. or if dinner was a contentious experience you likely developed fast eating habits. Luckily there are ways to correct this practice in the long term. Give any of these five hacks a try.

#1. Eat with your non-dominant hand

Eating with your non-dominant hand will require more thought and coordination, thus slowing down your eating. Non dominant hand eating is a method you can use to begin breaking the habit, then transition to less obvious hacks.

#2. Put your fork down in between bites

Placing your fork down and just focusing on chewing, savoring and experiencing your food will slow down your eating and provide more enjoyment of your meal.

#3. Mirror the pace of others

When eating among a group, locate the slowest eater and mirror their pace.

#4. Engage in discussion during the meal

Eat around people you enjoy and have fun. Stressful meal environments can cause you to speed eat because you're focused on removing yourself as quickly as possible.

#5. Drink a ton of water during your meal

Drinking a lot of water during your meal will help you eat slower and consume fewer calories.

If you were a fast eater before you began your fitness journey, fit culture could exacerbate the issue left unchecked. Sometimes what gets lost in fitness culture is remembering that food should not only be beneficial to your goals but also enjoyed. Slowing down, and savoring your food has a better effect on weight management. Food is your friend, spend time with it.

To quote Nelly, "You ain't from Russia, so why are you Russian?"

That was cheesy....... I'm so sorry guys.