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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.
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