So, you survived the holidays... barely?
Ate a
little more than you wanted to? Sat around watching TV more than usual?
Got a bit more stressed out with purchasing, celebrating, and hanging
out with relatives than you do any other time of the year? As a result,
you may be noticing a little extra paunch around your middle or thighs
and feel compelled to do something about it; after all, it's a new year.
Well, before you go ordering the latest diet book off the internet or
deciding it's time to start on those "yummy" prepackaged food diet
programs, consider another angle: Chinese medicine.
Chinese
medicine is an ancient system for restoring balance and helping the
body's various systems work in harmony. Rather than taking a
one-size-fits-all approach to weight loss (or any other issue for that
matter), Chinese medicine seeks to determine what imbalance underlies a
particular person's weight issue. It can do far more than merely help
you fit back in your skinny jeans; it can help you be a healthier, more
balanced, and yes, less overweight person. Being overweight is not a
disease in and of itself; it is a symptom of a larger imbalance,
especially in people who struggle with weight issues their whole lives.
Some popular diets focus on limiting one or more categories of food
(usually carbohydrates or fats) to encourage quick weight loss. Other
programs rely heavily on prepackaged portion-controlled foods, which
often have suboptimal nutritional value despite being low calorie. In
both cases, these modern solutions to weight loss rarely provide lasting
results. More than 95 percent of the people who lose weight through
these measures gain it back in a year or less. Why? Because these
programs do little to address the underlying lifestyle, psychological,
and physiological reasons for weight gain. If the real root cause of
being overweight is not addressed, the weight usually comes back. If you
want to not only take weight off but keep it off, get off the quick fix
track and instead look a little deeper.
So How Does Chinese Medicine Help People Lose Weight?
The
first important concept is that, according to Chinese medical theory,
the main reason to eat is to give the body energy, or qi. Some foods,
namely ones that are fresh and not overly processed, have more
energy-giving potential. One of the major failings of standard diet
programs is that they often place quantity above quality. While learning
appropriate portion size is a vital component of any healthy weight
loss program, calorie counting without discussion of nutrient density of
a particular food is a little like pretending a squirt gun has the same
firing capacity as an equal-sized hand gun. All calories are not alike.
While it should be apparent that eating 300 calories of cookies would
not have the same nutritional benefit as 300 calories of spinach, this
is exactly what many weight loss programs would have you believe. The
key to maintaining a healthy weight cannot simply be reduced to number
of calories alone.
Another Chinese idea related to food is that it
has innate energetic properties that can either help or hinder a
person's health. Food and medicine are often the same in China. Many of
the same herbs that are prescribed in a custom herbal formula from the
hospital herbalist may appear in both Chinese home-cooked and banquet
dishes. The Chinese know how to cure many common health conditions
simply by adding or deleting certain foods from their diets. When it
comes to weight loss, pungent digestion-enhancing spices such as
cardamon, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper are often used.
Fennel reduces appetite; Chinese pearl barley (Job's Tears) and cardamom
help reduce water weight and treat diarrhea; hawthorn fruit has the
ability to digest fats and meat; barley sprouts and radish seeds both
break up food stagnation from overeating. Foods that increase dampness
in the body (the underlying pattern that generally leads to excess
adipose or fat tissue) such as dairy, alcohol, fried foods, and refined
sugar should be limited in people wanting to lose weight.
Eat Simply, Eat Fresh, Eat Local
Yet
another important point, celebrated by macrobiotics (which is a
specific Asian-influenced dietary philosophy) is to eat simply eat
fresh, and, whenever possible, eat local. The over industrialization of
food in the past 40 years has left America unique in the world as the
most overfed yet undernourished culture ever to exist. Much of what we
call food is not food at all; hydrogenated fats, for example, are
recognized to be more like plastic by our bodies' digestive systems than
food. Artificial sweeteners can be tens or even hundreds of times
sweeter than natural sugars and therefore create unprecedented cravings
for other sweet treats. There is convincing evidence that sodas (both
regular and diet) may be the largest single dietary contributor to
diabetes in children. As we've become removed from the skills of growing
and preparing our own food, we have lost sight of what it means to
nourish ourselves. We also are wrecking the environment to transport
exotic food products all over the planet. It is customary now in cities
to eat a different international cuisine every night of the week. This
can spell real disaster for certain people's GI systems. Most of us
would do much better to stick to a general pattern of cuisine (probably
similar to what our ancestors ate) and only deviate from time to time
for special occasions. Put more simply, eat food your great-grandparents
would recognize!
Healthy Digestion and a Calm State of Mind
In
addition to eating high-quality food, healthy digestion and a calm
state of mind are also imperative for one to have a good weight. If a
person is upset or stressed when eating they actually "swallow" these
emotions deeper into their body. It is therefore a good idea to take a
few moments to do a little deep breathing, offer up a moment of
appreciation for the food itself, or do whatever else helps a person
feel calmer and more generally positive before eating. Once the
stressful emotion has subsided, eat slowly enough to fully taste,
appreciate, and digest the food without too much outside distraction.
The Ayurvedic tradition from India frowns on casual conversation during
mealtime as it is believed to inhibit digestion. In the West we often
have so much going on while we eat that digestion can be severely
impaired. Currently one in five meals in America is eaten in a car and
another sizeable percentage of meals at home is eaten in front of the
TV. These habits spell real disaster for the spleen and stomach which,
according to Chinese medicine theory, require the body and mind's full
attention to adequately do their job of breaking down and metabolizing
food and drink. Also, when the mind is on another task such as following
the plot of a movie, it becomes nearly impossible for a person to
notice that his stomach is full. For all these reasons, eating while
distracted can contribute to digestive issues such as reflux, irritable
bowel, bloating, and gas. The way we eat is, therefore, just as
important as what we eat.
Acupuncture Can Help
If you
find you reach for junk food more often than you like, or that you eat
for emotional reasons, acupuncture can help. There is a unique
combination of acupuncture points on the ear which help reduce all kinds
of compulsive behavior, including overeating. Though it may require two
to three months of treatments to fully address an individual's weight
issue, even after only three or four sessions of acupuncture people
typically notice a significant decrease in wanting to overeat; in
addition, what they are hungry for are more likely to be vegetables or
whole grains rather than chips or cookies. Even if they do have a cookie
they may be surprised to be satisfied with just one rather than the
entire batch. This is because acupuncture destresses both the body and
mind so that the physiological desire to eat healthy, qi-filled food is
allowed to surface. Acupuncture can bring a little much-needed calmness
to your nervous system so stress doesn't override the body's natural
desire for healthy things. Furthermore, a type of acupuncture
popularized in China in the past decade for weight loss uses electric
stimulation of key spleen and stomach meridian points on the abdomen and
has been shown in many people, over time, to help soften and break up
fat deposits. In addition, Chinese herbs can be used to treat deeper
constitutional imbalances contributing to specific sweet or salt
cravings and are also immensely helpful for treating constipation, gas,
bloating, and other symptoms of digestive stagnation. Finally, qi gong
exercises (which move energy much the same way as acupuncture) may be
recommended by your acupuncturist to build up the energy required for
the body to lose weight. (For a great book on using qi gong for weight
loss, read Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Natural Guide to Weight Loss
That Lasts, by Nan Lu.) Chinese medicine believes that, if a person's
body is running on an energy deficit (such as when one eats too little
or has a chronic health issue), sustained weight loss is nearly
impossible because the body will want to store energy in fat cells to
save for later rather than use it up today as it does in a healthy body.
Daily practice of qi gong can give a body back the natural energy that
it needs to be healthy so that it can begin to shed poundage.
Lasting Results
In
sum, Chinese medicine believes that each person with weight issues
needs to be treated individually for his/her unique underlying
constitutional imbalances. By receiving acupuncture to calm compulsive
eating, learning to cultivate the body's energy via qi gong or other
restorative exercise, focusing on stress management, and possibly using
herbs for good digestion, a person will likely be a lot healthier,
energetic, and slimmer than before- results you can feel confident will
last! ~Kelly Clady-Giramma,Kelly Clady-Giramma received her Master's degree in Traditional
Chinese Medicine in San Francisco. Kelly has had a long academic and
professional history with China spanning 20 years. She is a licensed
acupuncturist and herbalist in Massachusetts, New York and California
and also practiced Chinese Medicine in Suzhou and Shanghai, China from
2004-2007. She is a certified instructor in a unique form of qigong,
called The Dragon's Way ®, which helps people self-heal from a variety
of chronic health problems by practicing 10 simple energy movements
daily and also using herbs and healing foods.
As a Chinese
Medicine practitioner, Kelly specializes in treating neurological
diseases, women's health, fertility, digestive and autoimmune disorders
and weight loss. Besides using acupuncture, herbs, and therapeutic
qigong, she helps her patients explore underlying stresses, lifestyle
and dietary habits that contribute to imbalances so that they are fully
involved in their own healing process.
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