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Millwoods Acupuncture Center
102, 2603 Hewes Way
Edmonton AB,   Canada

Phone: (780) 466-8683
www.acupuncture123.ca
 













 

 

First step to lose weight

 

There are so many people with over weight  and so many of them want to loss weight. They tried and still are trying various ways to loss weight.

The first step is to change your diet pattern

We should know that, man is a part of the nature, the universe. It means that the biological activities and metabolic reactions follows, and are influenced by the change in the nature. In nature, there spring, summer, fall and winter, so in our body.

Think this way; what is the fall? Fall is the season that living things, animal and plants, are preparing to mature theirs seed, preparing fuel and nutrition for the winter (and for next year too). The life energy is towards “inside”, to “keep”. Whereas in spring, the life energy is towards “outside’ , to “spend”.

During the whole day, our body also follows the four seasons. Morning corresponds to spring, noon to summer, afternoon to the fall, and night to the winter.

Therefore, in the afternoon, our body tends to keep the fuel, that is the fat tissue in our body, rather than to burn it off. If we eat big dinner, the nutrition, the fat from the diet will tend to be kept in the body – to increase your body weight.

Now you know what I want to recommend to you: eat less dinner.

This is the first thing you should do before any losing weight program. It is much important than exercise, than taking herbs, than fasting efforts! Do things in smart way.

You should eat more breakfast, but less dinner. To do so, you can eat your dinner, that is about 90% of your normal size of dinner for the first two days, than 80% of that in the second two days, and so….until it is about 40% to 30% of the normal dinner size. By this way, you will naturally have more hungry feeling in the next morning and be able to eat relatively more breakfast. The ideal amount of food among the three meals are: breakfast, 40%, lunch, 50%, and dinner, 10%.

When you reduce your dinner as this way, you may start to feel much less chance for heart burning sensation in your stomach, if you had it before. You may also feel less craving for cake during the day and less drowsy in the afternoon.

The second step to decide what to eat

Your big tummy is mostly the fat tissue. So one tries to avoid eating fat, but changed to fruits. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, most of fruits belong to Cold in nature in the herbalogy. That is why when you eat fruits, such as banana, apples (especially in the morning with empty stomach), you will have more bowel movement (to solve constipation). Because they belong to Cold, we should not eat too much fruits, since the Cold and Fire in the body should be in a balanced manner, e.g. the Yin and Yang should be balanced. Disease is a condition in which the Yin and Yang is out of balance for a long time.

The Yin and Yang imbalance due to the intake of too much Cold fruits means that our body tends to be Cold. The Cold means less metabolism rate in the body so the fat burning rate is reduced, similar to hypothyroidism. This is even worse if one takes more artificial vitamins and mineral products to replace the fresh fruits. One tends to feel cold in hands and feet, more chance to have sinus problem with easy running nose and sneeze, to feel tired and drowsy during the day; feel tired in the morning independent of how long time you have slept in the night.

For this reason, we do not recommend to bring fruits to patients in hospital, especially if they had big surgical operation crisis, nor for patient with chronic disease with very weak body. Fruits juice is even worse than the original fruits for its high concentration form.

To balance the Cold due to fruits, we need spice. Spice belongs to Fire. They are hot in nature in Chinese herbalogy. Do you remember that hot pepper, onion, garlic, ginger, Chinese chives, allium, curry, all could make you feel warm?

So, when you take more Cold fruits, you should have Hot spicy in your diet too.

The third step is to have bread and rice in your food

You should additionally know that, the thing is not so simple to balance the Cold and Fire in the body by eating fruits and spicy at the same time. It is not my fault to make thing complex. This is the Nature.

The nature of Cold is “in”, “settle down”, and “penetrating”, so Cold is easy to come into our body to affect our health. On the other side, the nature of Fire is “out”, “floating”, and “expanding”.  It means that Fire is relatively hard to come deep in the body to help us.

In nature, how can we feel warm from the sun? It is because our earth. The earth collects the hot from the sun. The earth in nature means the soil in the Five-element theory. It means yellow in color and means the work of Spleen in our organ system.

The nature of the soil is to “hold”, to “buffer”, to “nourish”, to “harmony”. It is to buffer the Fire into warm, to warm the things, not to “burn” the things. It means that it is the function of the soil, to make the Fire in a useful force, rather than a destroying force.

Let’s take an example to understand such nature of the soil.

Do you have an experience to toast potato? If you put it directly on a fire, it may turn to hard in the out skin shell but the inside is still not edible. If we put the potato into soil, than warm the soil, the potato so toasted turns to be evenly mature to edible. This is the function of the soil, to make the fire, the warm, come into the potato slowly and evenly and deeper to work. We have so lot of experience to toast bread in a electric toaster. Keep little longer time, the bread turns black on the surface.

So, without “soil” in our diet, the hot from the spice cannot come deeper in the body to “warm” our metabolism. The “soil” in our diet is bread and rice.

Because someone who call themselves scientific researcher tell us that carbohydrate can transform into fat, if it is not burned out as fuel in the body, we are recommended by others who claim that they are nutritionists that we should not eat too much carbohydrates if we want to loss body weight. Is this a proper recommendation? Rice and wheat contain more carbohydrate, so many of you tried to escape from carbohydrate. Without carbohydrate or without enough bread of rice in our diet, spicy will only burn out let you have more sweat and red face, not a comfort warm. Did any of you have experience that, once you take some spicy food, say, hot pepper, or curry, or onion, you may have ulcer in your mouth mucous, or on your tongue? It is the sign that the transfer of Fire deeper into your body is damaged. The Fire from the spicy food “burns” your mouth, not to “warm” your deeper intestine. Those people belong to what we call the “Cold’ guy actually.

So, once more, I recommend you to take rice and bread, the carbohydrate-rich food, so to be able to transfer the Fire from spice into usable “Warm” to your body. However, the rice and bread should neither be eaten too much without eating something else. Here I mean not too much. Too much means its amount is beyond what you really needed. Otherwise, the carbohydrate-rich bread and rice will become into your fat tissue. In Five-element theory, the Spleen system is related to soil and it is the mother of the Lung system, that is related to the metal. Your fat tissue belongs to the Lung system, since it is transformed from the carbohydrate, e.g. from the bread and rice. The fat tissue is also regarded as a special kind of “phlegm” that accumulates in your tummy, similar to the phlegm from your lungs.  

The fourth step is to consider the quality of the “Soil”

In nature, the quality of the soil is quite different. Some soil is soft enough to grow grass, trees, crops, but others might be too hard to grow nothing on it. In nature, it is the trees, grasses, that make the soil loose through their roots. Only the soft soil has the typical property of the soil to absorb warm (and water, etc.) in it.

In our diet, it is the vegetables that function, as the roots of the trees in the nature, to make the bread and rice more useful to buffer the hot from spicy. There are many nutritional benefits from the vegetables, such as so called vitamins, minerals, but we are talking about it fibro here. Vitamins and minerals are also in the fruits and spicy, but they have no property to make the soil “soft” to absorb “Hot”. The amount of the fibro from the vegetables should be no more and no less. Other wise, too much fibro may make you lose nutrition due to too fast bowel movement.

In our body, it is the Liver system, that makes the “Soil’ system, e.g. the Spleen system, to work properly. Liver is the “Wood” in the Five-element theory. It works to make sure that the Spleen system in the body works properly too. If the Liver system is low in function, you may feel no appetite and the metabolism is slow down too – you get overweight. If your Liver system is too fluctuated, you may feel craving, since the Spleen is too “soft”, so to be able to absorb and handle too much food – you will also get overweight.

The Liver system relates to the emotion. So, the mark for the proper function of the Liver system is your calm and peace mode.  

To lose weight, you have to eat some beans and nuts

We already mentioned above that, the extra fat in your stomach can be regarded as “Phlegm” in that area. Phlegm is related to the Lung system in our body. It can also be regarded as a concentrated and condensed “water” form in the body. In the body, it is the Lung and the Kidney system, that handle the metabolism of water. The kidney works to remove extra water through the production of urine. The Lung works to promote the removal of extra water through exhalation air and sweat (the Lung system is related to the function of respiratory and skin). Their relationship is as a tea pot: the function of the Kidney system is as the pour of tea from the main hole of the pot, but it needs the continuous coming of air from the pot lid into the pot. The Lung system is as the pot lid to help the Kidney system to work continuously and properly. On the other side, if the Kidney system does not work properly, the water can accumulate in the body to affect the function of the Lung system too. Do you know that people with kidney disease tend to have skin itch, short of breath, swelling on skin and asthma? We know that, to cure the asthma, skin rash or psoriasis (and other skin diseases), we have to also work to improve the function of the Kidney system. In the obesity people, improve the function of the Kidney system by urination can reduce the body weight dramatically too, suggesting that some part of the over weight is related to the accumulation of water in the body. This is why the loss weight program works much more dramatic in people with very heavy body weight, since much more part of their body weight is related to the accumulated water, not the fat.

To improve the function of the Kidney system, you need to eat beans and nuts. They are the foods for Kidney. Among the beans, the black bean is the most valuable one for the Kidney, though the amount of protein content is not as high as other beans. This is hard to be explained by the protein content in the beans. The protein theory does not work in the Traditional Chinese Medicine.

One of the good choice for the beans is soya milk and tofu that are made from yellow beans. They are good food for slimming, especially for women, since it contains more plant estrogens.

Cow’s milk is not recommended since it belongs to the Heart. In the Traditional Chinese Medicine, the milk is the liquid to the Heart, as the tear to the Liver, sweat to the Lung, saliva to the Spleen and urine to the Kidney. The Heart is related to Fire, so the cow’s milk is related to the Fire too. Whereas the Kidney is related to the Water. Too much intake of cow’s milk therefore tends to damage the function of the Kidney system (You know well that the Fire and the Water is opposite in the nature). In clinic, it is know that, dairy product-consuming people is relatively more aggressive (they have more Fire intake) and have higher incidence of osteoporosis, the indication of the bone weakness (such as in the North America), compared with those who do not normally make the dairy product as their main diets (such as in China). People expect to have higher intake of calcium and magnesium from the cow’s milk so to prevent the osteoporosis, but it has not been proven to be true. If you really want to have dairy products, the cheese, yogart, etc. you should not forget the rice and wheat products.

You need multiple diet

Now, you should know what I will recommend you to have in your diet to lose your over weight:

You need fruits, since most of fruits belongs to Cold, and makes your metabolism smoothly;

You need spicy, since most of the spice belongs to Fire and to the Heart, to balance the Cold fruits;

You need rice and wheat products, since it belongs to the Soil, supply you most of energy source and allows the Fire to warm up you slowly, evenly and continuously;

You need vegetables, since most of them belongs to the Liver, allow the Spleen system work properly;

You need beans and nuts, since most of them belong to the Kidney, allow the removal of extra water from the body, so to reduce the chance for fat formation.

You may realize now that this is typical Chinese diet. Once they adapt the Western diet style, they tend to have the similar health problem: increased rate of diabetes, hypertension, high blood cholesterol, and over weight.

You may ask me can you eat meat? My answer is yes, but do not eat too much.

Nothing should be taken too much. You should know that each kind of diet has its own role to maintain our health. Nothing is the more the better. Don’t go to extreme for anything. I mean anything, for things related to your diet, your personal relationship, your work, your country, and ….our earth. No anything is the best on the earth. We have to know how to live with different things together, and how to respect difference. Chinese show us to handle our health is the same principle as to handle the family, the nation and the nature. The same rule. No exception.

How to tell the amount of the each diet to eat

What we discussed so far is what to eat. Now we need to tell when to eat what.

The simple point is to monitor your mouth odor and your bowel movement, to tell if your body is on the side of Hot or Cold.

If, in the morning, you feel very strong odor in your mouth, and you also have constipation, you may have relatively too much Fire/hot in the body. You need to have more vegetables and fruits to cool down the Fire. You can take banana or apples, for example, in the morning with empty stomach.

If you have more times of bowel movement after eat or drink little cold food; if you have diarrhea with spasm in the stomach; if you have spasm in stomach before the menstruation; if you have no strong willingness to drink water; or once you drink, you prefer warm water/beverage; if you have frequent running nose or ulcer in mouth; or if you usually have cold hands and feet… you may have relatively too much Cold in your body. If it happens, you tend to have over weight later. Now a days, most people become over weight starting from the Cold condition, rather than from over eating. In this case, you need to have more spice food with rice or wheat products. You can also drink more ginger tea, or have relatively gentle physical exercise.

Correct the Cold body constitution

This is only a possible solution from the diet point of view. In practice, to correct the diet is not enough to solve the Cold body constitution, such as reduce the chance that causes the Cold body constitution. Readers are recommended to check the related information in our website.