Chewing Off the Weight: How I lost 45lbs by Chewing My Food

I had just eaten a large steak with a side of vegetables. Packed full of the fiber, protein, and fat they tell you will keep your hunger at bay. I even summoned all the willpower I had to wait a good 20 minutes before giving into temptation. But it didn’t work.

There I was, in the kitchen again. Stomach so full it was hurting - clearly in no need for more food. Yet I couldn’t stop myself. I opened the fridge and threw down another monster slice of cheesecake.

Ugh…. not again!

After waking out of my food coma, and feeling completely disgusted with myself, I started agonising over everything I’d tried in the past: intermittent and long term fasting; raw vegan, keto, carnivore diets; delayed eating and eating on a schedule; even pills, powders, and protein shakes; everything led back to this same disappointment.

Slowly though, a thought: what about chewing?

See I’ve never been great about chewing my food - couple bites and it’s down the hatch. And it was arguably the one thing I’d never really tried before. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like it had some truth to it.

The theory: the more you chew a bite the more food your body thinks you’ve eaten… time for an experiment.

I immediately started chewing all food until it became basically baby food in my mouth, which for most bites was chewing around 20 times. Honestly, at first it was tedious and not much fun. And many times I caught myself swallowing before chewing enough. But I kept at it.

After about a month I found I was eating much less. I initially took full portions of food, but after not finishing my plate, I started dishing up less and less at each meal. The chewing also became much easier and almost second nature. But most importantly, after that first month I was down nearly 15lbs!

I started this experiment at the 220lb mark. And by the end of that first month I was in the 205lb ballpark. It worked!

For 7 months I’ve been doing this “chew the living hell out of my food” lifestyle. And I’m now hovering around 170-175lbs. I don’t fret over eating super clean, or worry about how much I’m eating. Some days I eat more, and some less, but it all seems to stay pretty regulated with just chewing my food thoroughly.

So was it just me? 45lbs is a lot of weight to attribute to something as dumb as chewing more. So I went looking for whether anyone had actually studied it.

They have. The findings are more supportive than I expected:

Chewing more means eating less at that meal.

The most direct study I found had young men — both lean and obese — eat the same meal while chewing either 15 times per bite or 40. The 40-chew condition produced an 11.9% reduction in energy intake, and it held for both groups (Li et al., 2011, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition).

It's not a one-study fluke.

A systematic review and meta-analysis pooled the chewing research and found that prolonged chewing significantly reduced self-reported hunger and food intake (Miquel-Kergoat et al., 2015, Physiology & Behavior).

There's a plausible mechanism, not just a behavioral story.

Gut hormones are what tell your brain you've eaten: GLP-1 and CCK signal fullness, ghrelin signals hunger (Wren & Bloom, 2007, Gastroenterology; Zanchi et al., 2017, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews). The Li study measured them, and more chewing moved all three in the direction you'd want - higher GLP-1 and CCK, lower ghrelin (Li et al., 2011). A 2024 meta-analysis looking specifically at people with obesity found that gut peptide release responds to external stimuli, chewing among them (Ribeiro et al., 2024, Nutrition Research).

The research seems to back it up: chewing more reliably reduces how much people eat at a meal, probably by changing satiety signaling. The leading cause seems to be in hormone regulations - increases in satiety hormones (like GLP-1) and reductions in hunger hormones (like Ghrelin).

I’d theorise that's only half the story though. Personally I found the extra chewing led to more boredom with eating, and I mean that in a good way. I would also venture a guess that when we rapidly shovel food in our mouth it’s at least partly to keep the taste alive. With the extra chewing you keep food in your mouth longer, getting all the benefits of longer lasting taste with none of the overeating side effects.

Now, whether any of the studies short-lived finding compounds into 45 pounds over a year is something not directly backed up in the literature, as none performed long term weight tracking. But the research findings paired with my own anecdotal evidence, seems to suggest that it does.

I'm one person, with no control group, who changed a habit and lost weight. Take it as a hypothesis worth testing on yourself. Start chewing your food a little better and see where it lands you.