How Acupuncture, TCM, And Diet and Lifestyle Choices Can Help You Lose Weight

This article will talk about the possibilities that Chinese medicine can offer to help an individual attain and maintain his/her ideal weight.

The thing to do first is to examine the differences in common sense and paradigms in order to tackle the issue based on logical and sound information instead of believing in gossip or magazine inspired myths. It is often said, that the more you eat the more you weigh, and conversely, the less you eat, the less you weigh. This may be valid in the high school physics sense of the phrase but the human body has so many inherent complexities to make this kind of reasoning sound simplistic and naïve.

The endocrine and nervous systems have several reactions that are activated by both through the abstaining and ingestion of food to a system that is demanding for it through the mechanism of hunger. If the ingested food is greater than what is normally required, the extra food is stored up by the body for future use. If mechanisms or activities such as moderate exercise exhaust these foods, then, a net gain is achieved. This may be obvious and irrefutable but because of the adaptive mechanisms that were developed by the body to guarantee its survival, food abstinence in response to hunger will cause the body to hold onto the present resources as it does not expect more food to come in the future.

In terms of body metabolism, the view that is commonly accepted and is the reason for why people indulge in yo-yo dieting is that starving yourself to death and then gorging yourselves beyond satiety will help you lose weight is widespread among dieters.

Despite dieting, an increase or maintenance of weight is achieved. Digestion, according to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), is like a cauldron set on a stove. The digestive processes are the fire on the stove while the food ingested and the stomach represent the pot.

You can then visualize that the pot as having pipes that are linked to the other parts of the body. These pipes act as pathways where digested food travels and is distributed to the intestines and blood vessels. If the pot has too much content, this content will basically overflow to the pipes resulting in mass increase of the body. And similar to the correction to the aforementioned paradigm, if the pot does not over flow with food, or the intake of food is irregular, the food that is eventually ingested will fail to be digested properly and will flow into the pipes where the cooked food ought to be, again causing mass increase. In these two examples, weight gain is the result of irregular food intake and the overconsumption of food.

Normally, the food is “cooked” through digestion leading to the digested food being transported to parts of the body where it is needed and used. If the body takes in too much food, digestions becomes backed up and overwhelmed. On the other hand, if too little food is consumed, energy is lowered which can damage digestion. This can result in a lack of energy to help keep the fire alive, and then whatever food is in there is improperly conserved or used. When normal digestion is disrupted due to stress, even ingested food taken in moderate/normal amounts will be undercooked and may eventually accumulate in the body. If the mind or body is fatigued or overworked, it will cause digestion to function improperly. The point to this is that an impaired digestion means the probability of weight gain in a person and the four basic reasons behind the impairment of digestion are fatigue, stress, under eating, and overeating.

You may ask, “what about exercise?” The belief that exercise can cause people to burn calories is true to a certain extent. However, there is also a chance that the person can still gain weight by exercising too much. Over exercising can damage digestion and fatigue the body. If done in the right amount, exercise can help relieve or lessen stress which makes the digestive function run more efficiently.

What kind of foods do I need to eat? Based on the above-mentioned information, in order not to disrupt the cooking process, the food that is best to eat will be food that is easily digestible. If the food is easily broken down by the body, it can be quickly utilized by the body making it less likely to be held unnecessarily. Contrary to the notion that foods such as salads are ideal ways to reduce intake of calories, the truth is that cold and/or raw foods entail more cooking by the digestion which makes it likely to end up as undercooked and held onto in the long run. These foods will need more fire which results in a weaker digestive fire. Weight gain also becomes likelier if stress or fatigue and other factors that weaken digestive fire complicate the problems already caused by these difficult to cook foods.

We can see a lot of people with this weight gain issue who consume only salads and are overstressed and overworked. In order to lose weight, they need to stay away from foods that are raw, cold and hard to digest and replace them with foods that are easily digested and cooked as stir frys, stews, or soups. We now can see that that the kinds of food we eat is just as important as the amount of food we eat when it comes to losing weight. Digestion is just as affected by eating small portions of hard to digest foods as it is when eating large amounts of easily digestible foods.

“I feel hungry, but because I may gain weight, I don’t want to eat.” No one can argue with this statement; however, because the conditions under which a person becomes hungry from day to day change, a lot of people have learned to use food as a reliever of stress as stress for them also equates to hunger. The problem of this situation is that people tend to eat food not necessarily as a means for sustenance and the foods that they usually choose on this occasion are ones that are difficult to digest. Moreover, stress that is in their body will definitely disrupt their digestion. And as we have seen earlier, if food is denied, it can have harmful consequences to the body. Therefore, to resolve these problems, the person must regulate his/her hunger mechanism. This is done by balancing the emotions and managing stress properly. These two requirements can be easily met by TCM and acupuncture.

Traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture in Overland Park can regulate both the ensuing damage to the digestive process and the fatigue, emotions, and stress (the causes of weight gain), which leads to an increase in body mass. The effect of emotions and stress in the body can be controlled by TCM and acupuncture’s effect on the brain and the nervous system leading to an increase in the efficiency of the digestive organs in the body. The ways to prevent emotional imbalance and stress lie with you. The environmental and lifestyle choices you select will determine whether you gain or lose weight. However, you can make the choosing much easier through long-term treatment combined, if you want to, with complementary counseling.

TCM and acupuncture will not guarantee that you will attain your ideal weight. But when you take in your own unique circumstances and map out a proper plan of treatment, the achievement of your weight management goals can become easier. It is important to remember that weight loss lies in maintaining healthy lifestyle choices.