Is salad really a good choice for weight loss?

After a long, endless raining season here in Seattle, summer is just in front us. How many of you had your new year resolution: "Loose 10 pounds before the summer comes" while imagining soaking yourself in the sunshine at a beautiful beach? Then you start your diet plan again. Eat less, eat healthier, and exercise more is basically the rule of losing weight.

So what is healthy diet for weight loss? Low carb, low fat, low sodium, high in fiber, balanced meal. This is kind of norm for most of us. "I've been eating salad for lunch/dinner every day. But I still have my muffin top." Does that sound familiar to you? Salad is low carb, low fat, low sodium, full of fibers and nutrition. And it tastes good. Except not helping you to loose weight. Why? Not enough exercises? Still taking too much fat or carb? Maybe it's not what you are thinking about. Let's move east to see how Chinese medicine think about salad and weight loss.

In Chinese medicine, fat is the "dampness" in our body. Imagine a bunch of viscous, sticky fat tissue rapping under your skin, in your vessels and even around your organs. "Spleen" is the main component of the digestive system in Chinese medicine. It's not the same as the organ spleen. You can think of "spleen" as pancreas. It turns our food into nutrition, and send the nutritious Qi up to lung as a component when making our blood, thus helps to nourish the body. That is the transformation and transportation function of Spleen. If spleen is malfunctioned, or impaired, its transportation function will be affected. Spleen won't be able to transport nutritious Qi up for use, instead, it will make bunch of dampness and deposit the damp into various places inside our body and turns to many disease causing factors, and also fat.

So what can cause the malfunction of spleen? Besides irregular food intakes, emotional stress, and many other factors, one of the most important reason to cause spleen disease is the food you take. We call this kind of food as "ice cream food". What is "ice cream food"? Cold, raw, fat, and contains dairy product. Like salad, it is raw and it is cold. If you take any food with one or more of these characteristics in large amount or regularly can cause spleen malfunction.

There are also symptoms that you may notice when your spleen doesn't work so well, like abdominal distention and bloating, lack of appetite, and loose stool, sometimes even fatigue.

To summarize, in Chinese medicine, fat is one kind of "dampness". And the damp is produced by spleen which is different from the concept of organ spleen. Fat is a kind of dampness accumulates in the body caused by malfunction of spleen. "Ice cream food" that are either cold, raw, fat or contains dietary product can cause spleen impaired. So still questioning: Why I can't loose weight by taking salad every day? Here is the answer.

For whom already has dampness accumulated in the body, what should you do? Of course, the first thing to do is to limit the intake of "ice cream food", and accompanied with exercises and a regular/low fat dietary plan will be a good daily routine for you to manage your weight. Also keep in mind, emotional stress can impair the function of spleen as well.

You are welcome to call our clinic to book a consultation session. Acupuncture and (or) herbal medicine will help you to get rid of the damp faster and safer.

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